The Presidency has made spirited efforts to extricate itself from the embarrassing provision of N5.095 billion for the procurement of Presidential Yacht as contained in the 2023 Supplementary Budget. With the unprecedented level of poverty and hardship in the country, this faced pushback by Nigerians, culminating in its rejection by the House of Representatives.
Below is the reaction of Bayo Onanuga, Special Adviser to the President on Information & Strategy and Group Captain Sadeeq Garba Shehu (rtd), an international Defence and Security Consultant.
On Tuesday, issued a rebuttal, calling what was listed as Presidential Yacht in the Supplementary Budget as “Naval Boat.”
Onanuga said in a statement titled ‘THE FACTS ON THE NAVAL BOAT IN 2023 SUPPLEMENTARY BUDGET: “Following public reactions over the provision for what is termed presidential yacht and other line items in the 2023 Supplementary Appropriation presented to the National Assembly, it is important to provide some clarifications.
“First, we need to make clear that President Bola Tinubu’s administration respects the views of Nigerians on all matters of public concern. We thus consider it very imperative to clear any misconception and misunderstanding of the issues.
“1. What was named as Presidential Yacht in the budget is an Operational Naval boat with specialized security gadgets suitable for high profile operational inspection and not for the use of the President. It is called presidential yacht by way of nomenclature because of the high level security features.
“2. The Naval boat was ordered by the navy under the previous administration. President Tinubu has consistently said that government is a continuum as he inherited both assets and liabilities of past administrations.
“3. The payment request for the boat was part of the committed obligation submitted by the office of the Chief of Naval Staff to the Ministry of Defence. The total of the submitted requests was in excess of N200 billion out which N62 billion was approved by the President.
“4. President Tinubu is focused on securing our country and territorial waters. The Federal Government under his leadership is investing more resources to enhance greater economic output from our oil and gas, marine and blue economy.
“In President Tinubu, we have a leader who understands the economic challenges being faced by the masses. His administration is working very hard to confront and surmount those challenges. Nigerians will soon get the benefits of the ongoing reforms that will certainly lead to a buoyant and improved quality of life for all citizens.”
But Group Captain Sadeeq Garba Shehu (rtd), in a chat with Global Upfront Newspaers (GUN) said: “Unfortunately, if it’s the Nigerian Navy that gave Mr President this explanation (as in above), I must say paragraph one is misleading. And the President, Commander-in-Chief must not be misled on military matters. The word “Yacht” signifies a luxury ship for leisure, It has nothing to do with an operational ship or any “special gadgets.”
“The Presidential Yacht requested is meant to be a leisure/luxury ship, nothing more, nothing less. Similar to the Presidential Yacht that US Presidents USED to have purely for recreation and entertainment of foreign dignitaries and fleet reviews from the 19th century till 1977 when President Jimmy Carter decided that maintaining the Presidential Yachtes was a colossal waste of tax payers’ money and auctioned them off to private citizens.
“Since Carter, no President has revived presidential Yacht. Currently only eight countries have Presidential Yachtes – Egypt, Finland, India, Turkey, former Yugoslavia, Italy, Philippines and Russia. Let’s just take it, one, if only one unnecessary expenditure has been stopped.
“The idea of purchasing a Presidential Yacht was first proposed to President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan in 2010 (and the reason given was purely for 60th independence celebration and nothing else) at a cost of N3.3 billion but GEJ probably received quality advice and he turned down the idea. Obviously, President Muhammadu Buhari was sold the same idea and agreed in principle but had no money.
“With the coming of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, the idea was unwisely repackaged as an outstanding commitment. And with no independent quality military advice, President Tinubu was convinced he was doing something good for the Navy and had to complete the purchase of what is basically a leisure ship but passed off to him as “operational ship with special gadgets” at a time when what the Navy needs are frigates, fast attack crafts, corvettes etc.
“This is one of the risks if the President with no military person in his cabinet, can be bamboozled on military matters to pursue prestige projects that add little or nothing to military operational capacity. Even as I must be fair to reemphasize that , the last Chief of Naval Staff cooked up this wasteful and irrelevant (for now operations wise and for Nigeria economy wise) which somehow was surprisingly approved by PMB.
“The current president, with no quality military advice approved, thinking it was something good. The current CNS was not the originator , his blame lies only in continuing with a purchase started by his predecessor and which he knows is not a priority and is a waste of money. There are a thousand and one things that the Navy currently needs and a Presidential Yacht is not one them. My only surprise this time around is that it’s the usually sleepy and equally ignorant House of Representatives that stopped this.
“What does this teach us? Eternal vigilance by the Executive and legislative branches on military/security requests plus the seeking of independent professional advice before approving requests or else you continue ploughing in billions into defence and security without the commensurate returns on increased operational capacity. We should be happy that an unnecessary expenditure which doesn’t benefit the Navy or the country has been stopped.
“A Presidential Yacht is an expensive hobby that even the US found in 1977 during Jimmy Carter was a waste of public funds and auctioned them off. Currently only a few countries not more than six, including Russia, India, Turkey have Presidential Yachtes and they too are home made, to show their advancement in military technology.”