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The President’s Lau Lau Spending

August/September 2024Nigeria
President

Nigeria’s President Bola Ahmed Tinubu. PRÉSIDENCE BÉNIN / FLICKR.

THE MINISTRY OF POLITICAL AFFAIRS

The President’s Lau Lau Spending

Since President Bola Ahmed Tinubu came into office, his economic policies have worsened the cost and standard of living of Nigerians. While the president’s rhetoric suggests he understands the sacrifices Nigerians are making, his lifestyle and the excesses of those around him, suggest otherwise.
President

Nigeria’s President Bola Ahmed Tinubu. PRÉSIDENCE BÉNIN / FLICKR.

THE MINISTRY OF POLITICAL AFFAIRS

The President’s Lau Lau Spending

Since President Bola Ahmed Tinubu came into office, his economic policies have worsened the cost and standard of living of Nigerians. While the president’s rhetoric suggests he understands the sacrifices Nigerians are making, his lifestyle and the excesses of those around him, suggest otherwise.

On Monday, 19 August 2024, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu left Abuja for France on a new presidential jet. The Airbus A330 was the newest addition to the presidential fleet, which had eleven jets. According to the president’s special adviser on information, Bayo Onanuga, ‘the new plane is spacious and is furnished with the state-of-the-art avionics, customized interior and communications system.’ According to Punch, the jet features a bedroom, office space, a conference room, and a dining room. At the rear, it has airline-style first-class and economy seating. 

Premium Times and Punch reported that the presidential jet was purchased for over $100 million and that the deal was brokered by L & L International LLC, an aviation firm based in Miami, in the US. The Tinubu administration, however, did not reveal how much the plane cost. In fact, for a long time, the government was not forthcoming with information about the jet—that is, until it was seized by Chinese firm, Zhongshan Fucheng Industrial Investment Co. Ltd. Earlier in August, the Chinese firm seized the jet in France following a court order from a Paris judicial court after a bilateral agreement with Ogun State had gone sour. (In 2010, the Chinese company and the Ogun State government entered into a framework agreement on the establishment of Fucheng Industrial Park in Ogun State as a free trade but Ogun State terminated the agreement in 2016.) It was the seizure and subsequent release of the jet that revealed details of its $100 million price point. 

News of the purchase of the presidential jet sparked outrage from many Nigerians, especially on social media. For such Nigerians, it wasn’t just about the lack of transparency in the purchase of the jet but the seeming disregard of the economic crises many Nigerians are going through. The 2023 presidential candidate of the Labour Party, Peter Obi, criticised the purchase of the jet in a social media post. ‘Paying as much as $100 million for a Presidential jet for a country that is the poverty capital of the world and has more out-of-school children with over 40% food inflation is the height of concern for the people’s feelings,’ Obi wrote. 

In an interview with Premium Times, the Senate committee chairman on national security and intelligence, Shehu Baba, said the purchasing the jet was necessary to avoid jeopardizing the president’s safety. According to Buba:  

We are all aware of the air mishaps in Iran and Malawi recently, which claimed the lives of the president and vice president of those countries, respectively. We commiserate with the people and governments of those countries. But we must also, as a people, do whatever is necessary to lower the possibility of such disasters in our country.
No sacrifice is too much to pay for the safety of our leaders and citizens. We elected them. So, we have a collective responsibility to protect them at all times. 

And yet, for many Nigerians, a question remains: how many sacrifices must Nigerians make to improve the president’s safety and comfort while they suffer crushing poverty and rising hunger?

A YEAR TO FORGET

The past year has heralded Nigeria’s worst economic crisis with no end in sight. Once the continent’s biggest economy, Nigeria has slipped to fourth place behind South Africa, Egypt and Algeria. International Monetary Fund blamed this decline on Nigeria’s currency devaluation, which saw the naira fall from around ₦1,300 to the dollar as of January 2024 to over ₦1,500 against the dollar by August 2024. A worrying stat, considering that Nigeria is a net-importer—while exports generate 10.74 per cent of Nigeria’s GDP, imports (mainly of medications, food and production raw materials) cost 11.84 per cent of Nigeria’s GDP. 

But the currency devaluation was not the only economically damaging decision President  Tinubu made when he came into office. The day he was sworn in as president in May 2023, he announced the end of Nigeria’s fuel subsidy programme. Almost overnight, in cities like Lagos, the price of petrol jumped from ₦160 per litre to over ₦600. The ripple effect of this decision resulted in the price of food going up exponentially as a result of the increase in the cost of transportation. According to a 2024 survey conducted by the Central Bank of Nigeria, Nigerians are expected to spend 54.9 per cent of their income on food due to inflation and this trend is expected to be sustained till the end of the year. 

Not yet done with his ‘economic reform’, on 02 April 2024, President Tinubu’s spokesperson, Onanuga, announced the government’s plan to end the electricity subsidy programme, claiming this was to ease pressure on public finances. This led to the categorization of Nigerians into ‘bands’ based on frequency of electricity supply. For customers belonging to Band A who are promised a minimum of 24 hours electricity, for instance, their electricity tariff increased from ₦66 per hour kilowatt to ₦225. According to the Manufacturers Association of Nigeria, this hike in electricity tariffs has affected the cost of production and will lead to more production companies shutting down. In 2023, 767 manufacturers shut down operations. 

The fuel and electricity subsidy removal and devaluation of the naira within one year of being in office by President Tinubu had harsh economic effects on Nigerians. Nigeria’s inflation rate rose  from 33.95 per cent in May 2024 to 34.19 per cent in June 2024. According to the National Bureau of Statistics, in June 2024 food inflation rose to 40.87 per cent from 25.25 per cent in June 2023. Seun Onigbinde, the executive director of accountability organization, BudgIt, has argued that the combination of these economic policies has worsened the country’s situation. ‘I feel like a lot of decisions were rushed. It felt more like the administration moved from politicking to governance without properly understanding and getting a proper awareness about the true situation of things,’ he said in a 2024 interview with African Argument.  

Since the fuel subsidy removal, petrol has only become scarcer and more expensive. As of August 2024, long queues have become prevalent at filling stations and the price of fuel has gone up to ₦1,000 per litre. In cities like Lagos, this has led to increased traffic on roads, making commuting more difficult and stressful thereby contributing to more hardship. 

These economic crises fuelled the #EndBadGovernance nationwide protests that began on 1 August 2024. Thousands of Nigerian youths took to the streets to call for an end to bad governance and to ask the government to address the heightened levels of hunger in the nation. Unfortunately, the protests led to the death of 13 people in three northern states according to Amnesty International. On 4 August, the president addressed the nation calling for an end to the protests. While he claimed his administration needed to make those painful but necessary decisions, he added that he was aware of the effects his policy decisions have had on citizens. ‘I understand the pain and frustration that drive these protests,’ President Tinubu said, ‘and I want to assure you that our government is committed to listening and addressing the concerns of our citizens.’ But this statement contrasts heavily with the lifestyles that President Tinubu and those running his administration have adopted. 

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PRESIDENT TINUBU AND FRIENDS NIGERIA LIMITED

While President Tinubu has continued to urge Nigerians to be patient with him, there is little sacrifice being made either by the president, his family or those he has appointed into office. Ordinary Nigerians continue to adjust to harsh times while the president and those within his circle have continued to carry on ostentatiously displaying insensitivity to the plight of the governed. For someone who has used the grassroots to his political advantage, President Tinubu has not exhibited any action that suggests that he is sympathetic towards the plight of ordinary Nigerians.  

In a supplementary budget released in November 2023, the Tinubu administration approved an additional ₦14 billion for the construction of the vice president’s lodge intended to serve as the vice president’s residence and office. Initially, ₦7 billion was earmarked for its construction in 2010 but the project was delayed after the Senate refused to accept the Federal Capital Development Authority proposed increase of the contract sum by ₦9 billion. After being sworn in, the Tinubu administration prioritized the construction of the vice president’s lodge by allocating additional funds to the project, bringing the cost of construction to ₦21 billion (reportedly to account for inflation). Incidentally, in 2016, former vice president, Yemi Osinbajo, had rejected the construction of the lodge saying he was comfortable with the existing one. ‘There is no need for a new vice president’s house,’ he said at the time, ‘it is a kind of waste; we are now in a situation where we cannot abandon it; it has to be completed and used for a different thing.’ 

In another example of the Tinubu administration’s controversial priorities, earlier this year, the government awarded a $13 billion contract to build a 700-kilometer Lagos-Calabar coastal highway to Hitech Construction Company Ltd without a public bid, sparking widespread criticism. Critics highlighted President Tinubu’s long-term relationship with Gilbert Chagoury, the billionaire owner of Chagoury Group, which owns Hitech. The controversy was further exacerbated by news of the president’s son, Seyi Tinubu, being appointed to the board of one of Chagoury Group’s subsidiaries. In August 2024, Business Day published leaked documents that showed that the president’s son co-owned an offshore company with Ronald Chagoury Jr, the son of Chagoury. This entanglement has generated accusations of state capture with former vice president, Atiku Abubakar, claiming the contract was awarded because the president and Chagoury were business partners. 

The 2023 supplementary budget also drew criticism due to some of the items the president prioritized. ₦1.5 billion was budgeted for vehicles for the Office of First Lady despite the position not being recognized by the constitution. Another ₦2.9 billion was approved for the replacement of operational vehicles for the presidency. All these, while the country has been going through inflation and high cost of living, portrayed the insensitivity of the President Tinubu administration. 

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LEADING BY EXAMPLE

Perhaps Nigerians would not complain so much if the president’s repeated call for the need for sacrifices for the greater good of the nation was not just limited to ordinary citizens but exhibited from the top. President Tinubu has failed to lead by example or walk in the shoes of those he governs and nothing about the ostentatious lifestyles of both him and those around him has showed any slight dent in their usual standard of living. It will be difficult for Nigerians to take the president’s words seriously when it seems the sacrifices being made are one-sided. 

Following the election of President Javier Milei in Argentina in 2023, one of the first decisions he made to signal his seriousness at tackling the economy and reducing government spending was to reduce the number of ministries from 19 to nine. Undersecretaries were reduced by 23 per cent and public officials by 34 per cent. ‘There’s no money, and that has to be reflected in concrete measures like the [presidential decree that modifies the number of] ministries and the reduction of state structure,’ Manuel Adorni, the presidential spokesperson said, explaining the reason for this cut. 

As of May 2024, Argentina’s monthly inflation reduced for the fifth straight month to 4.2 per cent from a peak of 25 per cent in December 2023. In contrast, President Tinubu increased government spending by appointing 48 ministers, the highest since Nigeria returned to democracy, which according to Daily Trust meant the country would be spending ₦8.63 billion on ministers’ salaries over President Tinubu’s four year-tenure. 

In July 2024, Liberia’s President Joseph Boakai announced that he would slash his salary by 40 per cent as a way of demonstrating ‘responsible governance’ and showing ‘solidarity’ with Liberians. While this may seem insignificant when compared to the hardship Liberians were going through, it reflected the president’s willingness to take actions that engender confidence in the citizens.  

If President Tinubu truly wants to convince Nigerians that he understands the pains his economic policies have caused, he has to demonstrate it in action by cutting wasteful spending and reducing his bloated cabinet. Appointments should not be rewards for political support or the foundation for re-election but should be made because they are necessary and will impact Nigerians positively. The 2014 Oronsaye report provides a starting point to identify and scrap redundant and overlapping agencies and parastatals to reduce waste and redirect funds to more people-centric projects. Nigerians have made enough sacrifices over the years; it is time the president and those around him began to walk the same path⎈

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