By Iliyasu Gadu, Ilgad2009@gmail.com
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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.
Iliyasu Gadu, a former Foreign Service Officer who served at the Nigerian Missions in Germany and the United Kingdom (UK), is a columnist with Daily Trust