As A Governor, My Cook Was Killing One Cow Everyday & Told Him Stop! — Peter Obi

 "As a governor my cook was killing one cow everyday to cook.” — Peter Obi

Peter Obi speaking at The Platform event in Lagos, where he describes arriving as Anambra governor to find his cook slaughtering one cow daily to feed around 50 people and instructing changes to cook only for himself as a cost-cutting measure.

Obi presented the anecdote to highlight wasteful government spending, arguing that official residences should not function as restaurants and emphasising frugality in public office.

Government House is not a restaurant: Peter Obi’s 2016 Platform speech on wasteful spending

When I started we had about 10 governor’s guest houses. I said, what is a governor going to do with these? I go to work in the morning and go back in the evening. I’ll come back, my cook then will cook food that about 50 people eat. And I said, what is this for? They were killing one cow every day. I said, what is this for? He said, “Your Excellency, I’m doing it in case you come back with people.” I said, have you ever seen me come back here with anybody? So why are you cooking for the people? Any day people will come here, I will let you know. Cook for only one person — me. I said, don’t do it. You know I come from Anambra State. There are too many big men. Of course, like I tell them, I said, don’t allow any of them here. I don’t have what it takes to entertain them. So what they do, they phone me: “Peter, I want to see you.” I tell them, I’ll come to your house in the evening. So I go to his house, because there he’ll bring his champagne and eat his fabulous food, and at times when I’m going, they’ll give me some to take back. Goodbye. But don’t come to government house, because government house is not a restaurant. It’s not a place to drink champagne. A bottle of champagne today costs about 400,000, 500,000. That is the salary of 20 people at 20,000… and you drink it with public money? No, we can’t do that. If you want to do that, you go to your house. So I said to them, no. This is government money. We brought down the cost of feeding the governor…