The African Democratic Congress (ADC) has cautioned First Lady, Senator Oluremi Tinubu, against reducing the National Library of Nigeria project to what it described as a “personal pet project,” insisting that the facility is a national monument deserving proper government funding.

The party’s statement follows Mrs. Tinubu’s recent remarks that she would support the completion of the long-abandoned library project in Abuja as part of her birthday celebrations.

While acknowledging the First Lady’s gesture, the ADC said the library must be treated as a core public asset and funded through transparent, sustainable, and predictable national budgetary provisions.

National Publicity Secretary of the party, Mallam Bolaji Abdullahi, said:

“The African Democratic Congress (ADC) acknowledges and appreciates the thoughtful gesture of the First Lady, Mrs. Oluremi Tinubu, in drawing attention to the abandoned National Library of Nigeria project as part of her birthday celebrations.

However, as a responsible party, we must firmly state that the National Library of Nigeria cannot, and must not, be reduced to the status of a personal pet project of any individual, no matter how well-intentioned.”

Abdullahi stressed that the National Library, established by an Act of Parliament in 1964, serves as the custodian of Nigeria’s collective memory, culture, and intellectual heritage, and its completion must be a national priority.

“Now that Mrs. Tinubu has shown interest in the National Library, what is required is not personal charity, but presidential attention,” he added. “The First Lady should use her influence to impress upon President Tinubu the urgency of completing this project through budgetary allocations.”

The ADC noted that funding responsibility for the library was previously shifted to TETFund, which it said partly explains the absence of direct budgetary allocations for the project in the 2024 and 2025 federal budgets.

The party emphasized that the library is “too important to be treated as an afterthought or left to depend on goodwill donations,” insisting that a nation’s intellectual heritage “cannot rest on acts of benevolence while being deliberately neglected in the appropriation process.”