By Iliyasu Gadu
So this is what ‘’E mi lokan’’ is all about? Splurging billions of public money to indulge President Tinubu’s penchant for over-the-odds luxury while millions of Nigerians wallow in abject hardship which he brought upon them?
Last week amid embarrassing
reports of Chinese companies seizing our valuable national assets abroad over
defaults in contract agreement with some states and worsening conditions of
living in the country, an Airbus 330 aircraft costing 150 million US dollars
reported to be the new presidential jet made an in-your-face landing at Zik
airport Abuja..
The week before, it was also
reported that the presidency had taken delivery of a full option presidential
car, a Cadillac Escalade worth about 500 thousand US dollars. When you throw in
the presidential Yacht which was purchased sometime last year at the cost of
some 6 billion naira you get a sense that President Tinubu who had repeatedly
called on Nigerians to bear his harsh economic measures will not by any stretch
of the imagination lower down his indulgence as he had preached to Nigerians.
His answer to Nigerians who questioned the need for such profligate indulgence by this is that whether on air, land and sea he will not be denied one bit, his desire to live it up maximally at the expense of Nigerians because that is what the ‘’E mi lokan’’ which he bought by his own money during the elections as he told us, was all about. If Nigerians cannot comprehend that this is what his presidency was about we can go take a running jump off a cliff for all he cares.
But while President Tinubu’s
brutal, in-your-face candour on this issue is appreciated, the part that galls
most is the rather clumsy, pathetic, unsophisticated and ignorance shown by
some of the president’s aides in trying to explain or justify the purchases.
The most common of such explanations is that just because we are in a situation
of dire economic straits, our president should not be denied the means of
decent and safe air travels befitting the country’s status in Africa and the
world. In effect that means the planes in the presidential fleet are not worthy
of the president’s use and should rather be mothballed.
Harping on this line of thought
one presidential aide displayed his preposterous ignorance by stating that the
purchase of the A 330 presidential jet will save the country money in terms of
maintenance costs being a relatively newer one than the others in the fleet who
have been gulping a lot of money in that regard due to their age. If that aide
had checked deeply, he would have realised that a plane is as good as its
maintenance not necessarily its age.
And whatever its age, a plane
must go through mandatory calendar checks like the C and D when the times are
up for it whether it has been put to use or not. And this entails costs
depending on the aircraft type and the maintenance service agreements. What is
more if the A330 will be run by a foreign crew then the costs will not be
significantly less if at all.
Long and short of it is that to say that the new presidential A330 will entail lesser costs in maintenance as the presidential aide said is a display of either ignorance or deception, or even both because in addition to the cost of purchasing the plane, the cost of mandatory maintenance and associated costs that come along with running the aircraft is also included.
Another influencer who is on
retainership with the administration even went beyond the pale of his
characteristic unreasonableness in defending this purchase by comparing
Nigeria’s situation with that of the United States of America. He claimed that
the cost of buying a new plane for the US president was around 4 billion
dollars and so Nigerians should not gripe over the 150 million dollars cost of
buying the A330 presidential jet for President Tinubu. Many Nigerians consider
that as comparing apples with oranges for the simple reason that Nigeria and
America are not in the same bracket by any parameter of comparison.
In all if we add up the
billions budgeted for the renovation/refurbishment of Dodan barracks in Lagos
turning it into a nest of opulence and luxury as well as the residence of the
Vice-President both in Lagos and Abuja, it is hard not to arrive at the
conclusion that the Tinubu administration is engaged in a contradictory and
wicked deception over its call on Nigerians to bear the prevailing harsh economic
policies in the country.
What is patently clear from all
this and which Nigerians have to come to terms with, is that President Tinubu
came to power with a mission of building and consolidating a personal economic
and political monopoly in which Nigerians of whatever status will be beholden
to him. This is in tandem with the E mi lokan proclamation that he made to
Nigerians which is clearly unfolding as we go along. Nigerians should therefore
not be surprised or expect that President Tinubu would inconvenience and deny
himself the full range of available luxuries and perks of the presidency he
laboured for so long one way or the other to get to.
And by the same token Nigerians
should not expect a let up in the prevailing harsh conditions because the
resources embedded in the system that are needed to build education, health and
other essentials of life are needed more to build the economic and political
empire President Tinubu had be angling for all this while.
Thus Nigerians must not just
bear it, they must come to accept it as fait accompli because it is President
Tinubu’s time to fulfil his manifest destiny and he will pursue it with minded
ruthlessness whether Nigerians like it or not. The only form of succour and
benevolence that Nigerians can expect are the puny ‘’palliatives’’ thrown at
them periodically when they cry out.
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