Tinubu purchased a $150 million plane while Nigerians protested for the first time in history over hunger and hardship in the land. Tinubu has set a record as the first Nigerian president to have a multimillion dollar presidential yacht, a billion naira Escalade and a $150 million presidential plane even when Nigeria’s economy contracted to fourth place in Africa from first.
- Tinubu waves to Nigerians from his newly acquired presidential jet
By Emmanuel Ogebe
President Bola Tinubu has jetted to France on his newly acquired presidential jet. It appears Tinubu is in Paris to compete for the most insensitive, out-of-touch and selfish ruler Olympic medal.
Tinubu purchased a $150 million plane while Nigerians protested for the first time in history over hunger and hardship in the land.
Worse still, reports say that Tinubu purchased the plane without legislative appropriation and approval. In other words, public funds were simply taken illegally to purchase this new presidential toy.
It is noteworthy that Gen. Muhammadu Buhari also participated in a similar financial illegality when he unconstitutionally transferred over $400 million to the USA to purchase overpriced aircrafts for the Airforce. As laudable as the objective of the war against terror was, it didn’t change the criminality of the act.
In the case of Tinubu, there was no emergency or urgency to his acquiring a new plane. There was no national security imperative. It was simply about primitive acquisition and ostentation for the “na my turn” president.
His rationale was that the current presidential jet was 19 years old having been purchased by the Obasanjo administration.
America’s current Air Force One, a highly customized Boeing 747-200B series aircraft, was launched in 1990, making it around 34 years old. “Air Force One” refers to any U.S. aircraft carrying the President of the United States, and the program has been in operation since 1962. A new Air Force One is currently under development and expected to enter service in the mid-2020s.
- The 15-year-old Airbus A330, which Tinubu used to replace the 19-year-old Boeing B737-700(BBJ) bought during the tenure of President Olusegun Obasanjo
But Tinubu said Nigeria’s 19-year-old plane is old. America’s own is 15 years older than Nigeria’s! It will still serve till almost 40 years before replacement.
Tinubu has set a record as the first Nigerian president to have a multimillion dollar presidential yacht, a billion naira Escalade and a $150 million presidential plane even when Nigeria’s economy contracted to fourth place in Africa from first.
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His trip to Paris while over 1,000 Nigerians are detained for protesting hardship apart from being tone deaf also is unfortunate for several reasons.
First, it is in this same Paris where a Nigerian Olympian borrowed a bicycle from Germany to compete with that three Nigerian presidential jets were parked. No wonder Nigeria failed woefully to register on the medals table!
Second, a French court granted an order detaining all three presidential jets over a Chinese company’s commercial dispute with a Nigerian state.
President Tinubu didn’t act to protect Nigeria’s sovereignty over its properties but merely negotiated the release of the one new aircraft he wanted to fly in style with to visit Paris.
In this latest aeroplane scandal, Tinubu has shown himself to be no different from other senseless politicians before him. A governor of Bauchi State sold the gubernatorial jet of his predecessor because he didn’t want to fly in the same one and purchased another. Yet Bauchi is one of the poorest states in the country.
A governor of Rivers State decided to buy a bigger jet because he was elected chair of the governors’ forum to replace the one that he had. Only a couple of years ago, his successor recovered a jet belonging to the state abandoned at an airport abroad for 10 years.
In Paris, Tinubu not only joins Emperor Nero who fiddled while Rome burnt but also Queen Marie Antoinette who when told, “the people are hungry,” infamously replied, “let them eat cake!”
Tinubu promised he would continue from where Buhari stopped and he has certainly done that. He has multiplied misery, hardship and kwaraption beyond Buharic levels.
Buhari borrowed $4 billion to build a senseless rail line to Niger Republic the country of his father. Tinubu outdid him by awarding an $11 billion road contract to his Lebanese friend from Lagos to Calabar. But since he can’t build a railway line from Lagos to France, his new homeland, Tinubu purchased a new plane that can fly him there at will.
Amidst Nigeria’s dire economic straits the Tinubu administration has, just like Buhari before him, refused to reclaim $200 million Abacha loot currently in litigation in USA back to Nigeria. Rather Tinubu appointed Bagudu who has blocked its return to Nigeria for over 10 years in a bid to retain it for his family as Budget Minister.
Based on the foregoing, there can be no doubt that Tinubu wins the gold medal for insensitive, clueless, out-of-touch and callous ruler at the Paris Olympics 2024.
- Emmanuel Ogebe, Esq. wrote in from Washington DC, US