PRESIDENT Bola Tinubu flew to Nice, France, on Monday in a newly acquired Airbus A330, which replaced the 19-year-old Boeing B737-700 that was in service since President Olusegun Obasanjo’s administration. This sparked criticisms from Nigerians who said purchasing a new $100 million jet showed Mr Tinubu did not care about the poverty level of most Nigerians.
One of the presidential spokesmen, Mr Bayo Onanuga, said in his X handle that the new plane was purchased “far below the market price,” noting that it “saves Nigeria huge maintenance and fuel costs, running into millions of dollars yearly.”
He said the recommendation to replace the B737-700(BBJ) followed an investigative hearing by Nigeria’s parliament that questioned the plane’s safety record and cost efficiency, especially after it malfunctioned during a trip to Saudi Arabia.
“The Nigerian Senate’s security and intelligence committee recommended replacing the ageing aircraft in the presidential fleet to reduce downtime and operational expenses. The new plane is spacious and is furnished with the state-of-the-art avionics, customized interior and communications system,” he said.
Poverty on the rise
Poverty is on the rise in Nigeria, with half of the Nigerian population living in penury. The National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) said in its 2022 report that “63% of persons living within Nigeria (133 million people) are multidimensionally poor.”
Inflation has mostly been trending upwards in the last two years. It has jumped from 19.64 percent in July 2022 to 33.4 percent in July 2024, according to the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS).
The food inflation rate in July 2022 stood at 22.02 percent on a year-on-year basis as against 21.03 percent in July 2021. In July 2024,
According to the NBS, “The food inflation rate in July 2024 was 39.53 per cent on a year-on-year basis, 12.55 per cent points higher compared to the rate recorded in July 2023 (26.98 per cent). The rise in food inflation on a year-on-year basis was caused by increases in prices of food items.”
Prices of yam, beans, rice, potato, and even bread have jumped by more than 100 percent in 12 months, with several families having one or two square means a day. Amid the rising hunger, gloom and foreign exchange crisis in the economy, President Tinubu has purchased a new airplane at $100 million, which is over N150 billion.
“We eat only in the morning and that’s all for the day,” said a Lagos-based car mechanic, Mr Ambrose Abbah.
“We are six at home. After breakfast, six of my grown children fend for themselves. Early in the year, we were having breakfast, lunch and dinner. But that stopped in April this year when the cost of food and transport became unbearable,” he added.
Protests everywhere
Life has become hard in Nigeria since Mr Bola Tinubu became president. He first removed petrol subsidies and liberalised the foreign exchange market in 2023. Petrol now sells between N800 and N1000 per litre across the nation, as against N200 when he came on board. Yet, petrol queues everywhere in Nigeria as fuel scarcity spreads across the nation.
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Nigerians protested a few weeks ago for 10 days against the rising cost of living in Africa’s most populous nation.
The recent nationwide hunger protest led to the death of 22 persons, according to the Amnesty International. The Nigeria police arrested 681 protesters on the first two days of the protests and are prosecuting 1,135 persons in the law courts.
“The Nigerian authorities are escalating crackdown on peaceful protesters against hunger and corruption. Over 1000 people have been remanded nationwide. Today 441 people were arraigned in Kano, in what is set out to be an unfair trial based on trumped up charges,” it said on August 16 X post.
Tinubu lording over Nigerians
Experts say President Tinubu is proving to be a lord over Nigerians due to the near absence of the National Assembly.
“Our National Assembly is not active. It is an appendage of the president, so I don’t expect them to checkmate his activities as they sshould,” said a human rights activist, Dr Paul Ogbaje.
“Ordinarily, there should be checks and balances, but not with this set of legislators. The National Assembly under Godswill Akpabio has proven to be worse than that of Ahmed Lawan, which we once considered a rubber stamp. It is quite unfortunate for a nation that is often seen as an African giant,” Ogbaje noted.
An economist, Ms Chekwa Oruche, noted that $100 million could have supported the central bank’s efforts to stablise the naira.
“We need dollars in the economy, yet the only thing our president finds useful is buying a plane. Manufacturers could have used that money to buy raw materials and produce. Can you imagine what $100 million could have done for the airlines, or the farmers seeking to import heavy equipment with which to produce food for the people?” she asked, rhetorically.
