The proposal by the Presidency to spend a whopping N1.5 billion to buy a new private jet that would add to the already bloated Nigerian Presidential Air Fleet (PAF) comprising ten (10) aircraft; epitomizes in dramatic fashion, the pervasive profligacy and rampaging culture of impunity in the country. More importantly, it advertises the prodigious squandermania and wastage of public resources that has become the official currency of governance of the Jonathan administration. This monumental waste of taxpayers’ money at a time many Nigerians are struggling to eke out a paltry living, is reprehensible and unacceptable. In the circumstances, the minimum reaction of lawmakers to this festering misapplication of the common wealth is to shoot down the provocative proposal outright.
It is a measure of the thoughtlessness of Mr. President that after budgeting N1.52 billion in the 2014 Appropriation Bill as cost for the maintenance of the 10 aircraft currently in the presidential fleet, the Federal Government saw nothing wrong in spending another N1.5 billion for the acquisition of a new aircraft – the 11th for the president alone. Given the woeful state of affairs in the country, manifested through bad governance, and misplaced official policies that have given vent to mass unemployment, abject poverty, high corruption in government, gross official recklessness and near zero governance, it is a sad comment on the President’s style and an unflattering advertisement of his insensitivity and apathetic approach to governance, which illustrates another amplification of the absence of good leadership examples from the person Nigerians elected as their President.
The Nigerian Presidential fleet, as constituted today, is an invitation to the licentiousness of the country’s political leadership to continue the perfidious lifestyle that constitutes an affront to Nigerians. With 10 aircraft in its fleet, the presidential fleet is the third largest carrier in Nigeria coming after Aero Contractors with 12 aircraft and Arik Air, the largest commercial airline with a fleet of 23 aircraft. The PAF already boasts one Boeing-737 BBJ (Eagle One), two Falcon-7X jets; two Falcon-900 jets, Gulfstream 550, and Gulfstream IVSP. Others are one Gulfstream V, Cessna Citation 2 aircraft and Hawker Siddley 125-800 jet. The combined estimated value of the PAF stands at about $390.5 million (N60.53 billion).
To which could be added the unjustified expenses incurred by the presidential entourage, which saw the President spend about N1.289 billion in 2013, a nearly 100% increase on the N684.7million spent in 2012 on overseas trips. While he travelled overseas 20 times in 2012, last year Jonathan made no fewer than 27 trips abroad, visiting 24 countries; attending to sometimes inconsequential and unrewarding invitations. The President should take a second look at these issues as he organizes his calendar in the New Year. This cankerworm, shoved in the face of citizens by the physical sight of these presidential jets, is intolerable. For a country deficit in many indices of human development and national growth, such unbridled crave for luxury by the nation’s number one citizen is inconsistent with the remorseful belt-tightening assurance, given by the President, two years ago during the fuel subsidy protests.
The President cannot afford to be leading by bad example given that budget appropriation for “Travels” is already an astronomical figure. The penchant of the Nigerian elite for the luxury of private jets may rightly be said to be pioneered by the presidential fleet, which have cost the nation huge maintenance bills. What is also not in dispute is the cavalier deployment of these aircraft to domestic, conjugal and frivolous uses whereas even in the United States, to which Nigerian public officials eagerly refer in justification for the country’s presidential environment, the president is surcharged routinely when Air Force One or Marine One helicopter is sparingly engaged for what appears to be private matters.
It is impunity personified that Patience Jonathan, wife of the president, while on a condolence visit to the wife of the late General Azazi, came in a presidential jet. Her trip was purely private and she has no business flying the presidential jet whenever the president is not on board. Who bears the cost? The unconstitutional Office of the First Lady seems now to be competing with, if not outrunning, the Office of the President in terms of political clout.
The preponderance of private aircraft in the Nigerian flying space is nothing more than a manifestation of the endemic ostentation in the land, coupled with the flourishing of easy money, which is particularly appalling at a time the national economy is comatose. At virtually every airstrip and airport tarmac within the country today, there are private aircraft of every hue sitting in the sun and hangers, parked largely as an advertisement of the preferred travelling habits of the Nigeria’s elite. It is estimated that private aircraft in the country have grown exponentially from about 20 in year 2000 to currently more than 150. This rash of private aircraft further fuels the widespread perception of fabulous wealth by a miniscule minority in the midst of devastating poverty in the land.
Without disdain for genuine aspirations to suitable work or leisure tools, and reward for enterprise, there is need to put an end to this obnoxious policy, which has seen even elected state governors, hurriedly exchanging or purchasing private jets as higher priorities in the face of backlog of salaries and pensions for public servants not to mention abject infrastructure deficits. Many of these, though owned, leased or operated by Nigerians, are tactically registered in other jurisdictions ostensibly as a shield to the identity of the ultimate beneficial owners and for resale opportunities. It is a situation that ought to challenge the competence of several regulatory agencies in the country. Nigerians should be alarmed at the high level of corruption surrounding this issue of private aircraft.
The ridiculous embrace of private aircraft has seen sitting Governors moonlight on public time to go off to flying schools within their term of office. The example that readily comes to mind is Taraba State governor Suntai Danbaba; who, in a fit of bad judgment jumped into an airplane barely a day after receiving his flying license and crashed the plane, plunging the whole state into an embarrassing political crisis which is still unfolding. The Presidency went too far with the planned acquisition of another jet to add to the presidential fleet in a country where poverty is on the rampage, where primordial diseases such as cholera and guinea worm still decimate the rank and where infant mortality remains a source of concern to the international community.
The worries of an average Nigerian are about the basic necessities of life – food, good healthcare, quality education, gainful employment and reliable infrastructure, all of which remain elusive. That so much money should be spent on another plane for the president’s private use, at a time the country is in dire economic straits, is as inexcusable as the reason offered for buying the plane. Public interest should override the vanity of transient political leadership to buy, dispose of the fleet or put it out on fair commercial terms. The democratic process has been debased enough and all stakeholders must strive to make it beneficial to ordinary Nigerians. That cannot be achieved with insensitivity on the part of governments, misplaced priorities or misapplication of public funds. Thankfully, President Jonathan has some time left in his tenure – if politics allows – to turn things around, for history to remember him as the President who fought the most, not just spoke out the most, against corruption.
