Opinion
By: Emmanuel Onwubiko
BEFORE her husband was inaugurated as president a year ago, the wife of the then President-elect, Remi Tinubu, says her family has been blessed by God and does not need the wealth of Nigeria to survive.
Speaking at the 2023 Presidential Inauguration Interdenominational Church Service at the National Christian Centre, Abuja, last year’s May, Mrs. Oluremi Tinubu said the wealth of Nigeria belongs to all and that they would use it for the right thing.
The then outgoing Senator representing Lagos Central in the Ninth National Assembly asked Nigerians for prayers as they would need the grace of God to live up to the expectations of Nigerians.
That was then. One year after her husband came on board as the President, the story has not only changed but has boiled over to some of the biggest public protests against hunger and widespread deprivation, poverty amongst millions of Nigerians due to bad governance.
The sad thing is that, the President’s wife asked us for prayers so her husband remains on the path of social justice and to combat corruption, and we the commoners have prayed in season and out of season in line with Mrs. Oluremi Tinubu’s prayer request, but the more we prayer, the more we are dying of hunger, unemployment, poverty and deprivation.
And in what represents the profanity of Mrs. Oluremi Tinubu’s words at the sanctum sanctorum of Christian worship in Nigeria, government officials live in ostentatious lifestyles: buying new jets (presidential, private), exotic SUVs for Senators, parliamentarians, and erected a multi-billion Naira mansion for the VP and the President’s wife has been on a seemingly unending but expensive globetrotting at public expenses which we will showcase in this piece soon.
But before we show the evidence of executive profligacy, we must state without fear of contradiction that Nigeria’s hunger protest, which erupted on August 1, 2024, was a manifestation of deep-seated frustrations among its citizens, as assessed by Al-jazeera cable TV.
The protest was driven by multiple factors, including the high cost of living, a intermittent fuel price hikes, worsening economic conditions, and dissatisfaction with government policies.
For a fact, protesters rallied under the hashtag #EndBadGovernance, demanding not just economic relief but also transparency, accountability, and good governance.
Besides, reports emerging from credible sources, show that the speech Mrs. Oluremi Tinubu made at the National Ecumenical Centre in Abuja just before her husband was sworn-in as President, is facing extreme risk of ethical brickbats.
This is because, President Bola Tinubu, Vice President Kashim Shettima, and First Lady Remi Tinubu spent not less than N5.24bn on local and foreign travel between January and March 2024.
Remember, Mrs. Oluremi Tinubu said she and her husband are very rich and wouldn’t have to use public funds inordinately. The question that follows the revelation of the huge traveling expenses that she has made from public fund even when there is no such an office in law as that of the first lady, is whether Mrs. Oluremi Tinubu has kept to her holy confession about how wealthy she and her husband are and why they wouldn’t fritter public funds on frivolities.
An analysis of the travel expenses using GovSpend, a civic tech platform that tracks and analyses the Federal Government’s spending, showed that N1.35bn was spent as provision for presidential trips and other related expenses in three months, N3.53bn was spent on foreign exchange purchase during 10 international trips and N637.85m was disbursed to two travel agencies for the purchase of air tickets for presidential local and foreign trips.
Recall that the President spent N3.4bn on these trips within six months of assuming office.
The figure is 36 per cent more than the N2.49bn earmarked for the President’s travel expenditure in the 2023 budget.
This means a total sum of N8.64bn was spent on local and foreign trips between June 2023 and March 2024. The report also showed that the president got N650m as an honorarium.
Nigerians have consistently expressed worries over the President’s frequent travels, calling for tangible outcomes from these journeys which aren’t seen amidst mounting costs of living crises.
In their first seven months in office, Nigeria’s President Bola Tinubu and his Vice, Sen. Kashim Shettima, visited 16 countries, collectively spending 91 days in foreign engagements.
Checks revealed that Tinubu had so far visited Paris, France (twice); London, the United Kingdom; Bissau, Guinea-Bissau (twice); Nairobi, Kenya; Porto Norvo, Benin Republic; New Delhi, India; Abu Dhabi and Dubai, the United Arab Emirates; New York, the United States of America, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia and Berlin, German, spending 55 days. The report also showed that the president got N650m as an honorarium.
As I write, Mr. President just took off to Equatorial Guinea in what the state house Abuja says is at the invitation of the President of his host nation. It is yet to be known whether the Equatorial Guinean dictator who is hosting President Bola Ahmed Tinubu will foot the bills of his recent travel or if taxpayers money in Nigeria would be funnelled into a totally meaningless voyage of no profitability to the Nigerian public. Reading what follows will draw tears from a conscientious Nigerian because it is a revelation on what was spent for the occupant of an office that is not supported by any legislation: office of First Lady.
On the First Lady’s spending: The total expenditure for the First Lady’s international trips amounts to N623.05 million. On January 4, 2024, N149.79 million was allocated for the purchase of $152,831 for the First Lady’s trip to France. In March 2024, N202.39 million was spent on purchasing $126,834 for the First Lady’s trip to Mozambique. On February 9, 2024, N144.57 million was allocated for the purchase of $96,118 for the First Lady’s trip to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Additionally, in March 2024, N126.3 million was spent on purchasing $83,967 for the First Lady’s trip to London.
In view of the above, methinks President Bola Ahmed Tinubu should’ve led the protests to demand an end to bad governance instead of permitting the armed forces to brutalise the protesters. President Tinubu gained popularity as an organiser and funder of pro-democracy protests. So why not he leads the protests against had governance, going forward?
As far back as January 9th this year, the Qatar based cable global news channel: Al jazeera published on its website that Nigeria’s president suspended the country’s minister of humanitarian affairs and poverty alleviation over the use of a private bank account for ministry financial transactions in the government’s social welfare program.
Betta Edu was suspended with immediate effect while Nigeria’s anticorruption agency carries out a “thorough investigation” of all ministry financial transactions,” presidential spokesman Ajuri Ngelale said in a statement. It said the investigation would extend to the entire framework of Nigeria’s social investment programs.
Al-Jazeera tv reports that President Bola Tinubu came to power last year promising to crack down on graft in Nigeria despite longstanding question marks around his source of wealth and educational records. Within a month of his inauguration, he suspended the head of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) indefinitely for abuse of office.
His government said the suspension follows his commitment “to uphold the highest standards of integrity, transparency and accountability” in how Nigeria’s resources are managed.
Edu’s suspension comes days after local media cited an official memo in which she directed that 585 million naira ($663,000) worth of grants meant for vulnerable groups should be paid into a private account — a decision that the minister’s office said followed due process. The minister has denied any wrongdoing.
In a country where the government’s austerity measures have further squeezed millions of people facing extreme levels of poverty, many Nigerians criticised the use of a private bank account for the grants program and called for the minister to be fired.
The office of Nigeria’s Accountant General of the Federation said in a statement that such funds are meant to be sent directly from government accounts to the beneficiaries. But the Accountant General of the Federation also allegedly organised a training workshop for some government officials of Nigeria in far away United Kingdom whereby huge public expenses were made unjustifiably.
Meanwhile, Edu’s predecessor, Sadiya Umar Farouq, reported to the EFCC around January 2024 as it investigated alleged corruption in the disbursement of public funds during her time as minister but the matter has gone cold. Farouq said on social media that she was at the commission’s office to “offer clarifications in respect of some issues that the commission is investigating”.
So if in January 2024, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu admitted publicly that there are traces of bad governance within his administration, why was he opposed to the #EndBadGovernance Protests?
Why are the alleged cases of corruption in that ministry of Humanitarian Affairs and Poverty Alleviation not confronted satisfactorily but rather the President kicked so hard against millions of Nigerians that demonstrated against bad governance and hunger so much so that soldiers and police were drafted to crackdown on the protesters and over 24 protesters were gunned down, even going by a report compiled by Amnesty International?
***Emmanuel Onwubiko is head of the HUMAN RIGHTS WRITERS ASSOCIATION OF NIGERIA and was NATIONAL COMMISSIONER OF THE NATIONAL HUMAN RIGHTS COMMISSION OF NIGERIA.*
Yahoo Mail: Search, Organize, Conquer
14th August, 2024.
C.E.
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