President Tinubu
President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has cleared the air on a plan to spend N5bn on a presidential yacht, saying he never requested for such.
Tinubu stated this while speaking through his spokesperson, Tope Ajayi, on Thursday, November 2, 2023.
There has been outrage since details of the N2.1 trillion supplementary budget Tinubu submitted to the National Assembly were published.
According to the budget, N5.09 billion was allocated for the yacht, N2.9 billion for sport utility vehicles for the Presidential Villa, and another N2.9 billion for the replacement of operational vehicles for the presidency.
The yacht was listed under the Nigerian Navy’s proposed capital expenditure of N42.3 billion.
Reacting to the criticisms that have trailed the issue, Ajayi said he doubted if his principal needed one to perform the functions of his office.
“The trending issues on social media since yesterday are two items in the 2023 supplementary budget. One is the provision for a presidential yacht in the supplementary budget by the Navy and the other is over N6 billion for vehicles to the State House.”
“It is important to state clearly that President Bola Tinubu didn’t ask for a presidential yacht and I doubt he needs one to perform the functions of his office. From what I know, the request for a yacht, however it is named or couched in the budget is from the Navy and they must have operational reasons for why it is required.
“The budget office should be in a position to also explain to the public why such expenditure should be accommodated now, considering the economic situation of the country. I must readily admit that the one reason our budgeting system has been a subject of public attack is the very simplistic way some of the line items are described by civil servants, who prepare the budget.
Examples abound. Sometimes in 2016, an Enterprise Resource Planning ( ERP) project of the Ministry of Solid Minerals worth over N300m then was captured in that year’s budget as “website”. Naturally, it generated a massive controversy as people, rightly, asked to know the type of website that would be built with N300million.
“It is important to say that journalism should enrich public enlightenment and not create an atmosphere of siege. It is poor reporting to always reduce State House budgetary provisions to the President and Vice President. When the State House makes provision for vehicles, it is reported as if it is the President who will use all the vehicles or eat all the food when a provision is made for food and catering services.
“We have had such inaccurate reporting in the past. A President and Vice President cannot, for any reason, spend N20 million naira to eat in a year if it is about the food they will eat as first and second families.
“How much food can a person really eat? Yet, we will read headlines that Tinubu, Buhari, Jonathan, or whoever the President wants to spend N5billion on food and catering in a year when in actual fact such budgetary provisions are made to accommodate many state events, meetings, hosting of VIPs, foreign dignitaries, and even visits by other Heads of State, and bilateral and multilateral meetings that the State House will deal with in a given year,” Ajayi wrote in a piece.”
Meanwhile, the chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Prof Mahmood Yakubu, has said the N18 billion allocated to the commission in the supplementary budget was not all for the conduct of the election.
Yakubu gave this clarification when he appeared before the House of Representatives Appropriation Committee, chaired by Hon Abubakar Bichi (APC, Kano), to defend the 2023 supplementary.
He said the substantial part of the allocation is for personnel cost, adding that there were no budgetary provisions for the conduct of unforeseen and unbudgeted bye-elections.
He noted that the commission has not attended to the five vacancies in the House and four in the State Houses of Assembly.
“So, we have to make provisions for the conduct of by-election in 11 constituencies – five federal constituencies, four state constituencies, and two senatorial districts and for that, we have an appropriation for N1.6 billion
“This is in summary of the breakdown for the N18 billion for personnel emolument and overhead for augmentation for the conduct of the three off-cycle governorship elections and for the conduct of 11 by-elections hoping that and praying that there will be no by-election again so that we just confine ourselves to the 11,” Yakubu stated.
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