The world’s poorest president on my mind: After one year in office, Nigerians can say their president loves big things though the size of his cravings was not apparent before his ascension to the big throne. Much has now been revealed, and it is not just the airplanes.
- Uruguay’s former President Jose Mujica and his wife Lucia Topolansky
By Ogochukwu Ikeje
At a time of widespread hunger when the Tinubu presidency is preparing to take delivery of two luxury airplanes, one for the commander-in-chief, the other for his deputy, a former president of Uruguay comes to mind. Jose Mujica is not a regular character. He’s 89 and mustachioed, with a rich mop of tousled hair that makes you wonder if he knows, or cares, what a comb is used for. Out of a determined face, a pair of small, sharp, black eyes dart out. In his younger days, in the 60s and early 70s, Mujica led a guerrilla organisation fighting the military authorities in his country. He was detained and shot many times. He survived and would become the 40th president of Uruguay. After his inauguration ceremonies in 2010, he rode off in his 1987 Volkswagen Beetle car, not to the presidential mansion, but to his old farmhouse on the outskirts of Montevideo, the capital. From there he would govern his 4.3 million people for the next five years, the maximum term he was constitutionally allowed. He is not for fancy clothes either. His bomber jacket and jeans are enough for him.
On his assets declaration form, he put down his Beetle car, an old tractor, the farmhouse, and the piece of land on which the house stood. No more. His wife, Lucia, grew crops on the farm that she sold on the common market. Mojica donated 90 percent of his monthly salary to charities that catered to the poor.
- Mujica arriving to cast his vote in Montevideo, Uruguay, October 26, 2014 – four years into his presidency
- Then President Mujica in front of his farm house home with his dogs
His scorecard was impressive. Uruguay became one of the biggest exporters of pulp, the material used for making paper. When foreign direct investment or FDI slumped by 23 percent in Latin America and the Caribbean in the first half of 2014, it went up in Uruguay by nine percent, the United Nations said. Out of 32 countries in the region, Uruguay was ranked ninth for “ease of doing business,” according to a World Bank report. Meanwhile, the country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) was growing by 5.6 percent each year, and the proportion of people living in poverty dropped from 40 percent to around 12 percent, according to official figures.
The people voted Mujica into the senate after his presidency. When he resigned, citing tiredness, he turned down a pension.
Uruguayans loved his austere lifestyle. Mujica was called the poorest president. He responded: “I don’t feel poor. Poor people are those who only work to try to keep an expensive lifestyle, and always want more and more.”
Mujica was not Mr Perfect. One or two policies miscarried. And sometimes he showed a caustic tongue, once calling a female president in the region an old hag. He would later apologise for such indecorum. His people forgave him. They knew him and loved him. Mujica himself knew why he was in public service, to serve the people, not to enrich himself at their expense or indulge in vanities. When this earthly life is over, the human body becomes “a feast for the worms”, he told an Al Jazeera journalist who interviewed him in front of his farmhouse amid bird chirpings and calls. The contraption he sat on, wearing a bomber jack, was an old bed converted to a graceless metal chair.
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Back home, after one year in office, Nigerians can say their president loves big things. But the size of his cravings was not apparent before his ascension to the big throne. In Lagos, he had simply orchestrated things and we even loved some of his choices, either who governed the state or who served with the president at the centre. He arguably deserved the strange designation of national leader of his party, the All Progressives Congress, into which he sank quite a lot. The past year, however, has revealed much.
And it is not just the airplanes. The first shocker came early in his administration in the form of a push by some people for his salary to be doubled. It was greeted with anger and the push died out. How can we forget the luxury yacht that was nearly rammed down our throats? Or the big sums, in millions and billions of naira and dollars, thrown into what are largely deemed unnecessary, without priority or sensitivity. It’s hard to keep count of the buildings that have gulped millions and billions, either built from the foundation or renovated, for the president or the vice president. The N90 billion sunk into hajj subsidy is fresh in memory.
Now the airplanes. Will we have full disclosure on the cost? And where the money will come from? Or the overriding need to acquire them at this time? Is it the age of the fleet? Some are reckoned not to be up to 20 years old, whereas beyond our shores, some planes flown by the most powerful presidents are older than 30 years.
And it’s all coming when Nigerians are groaning, and the country is buckling under huge debt. A report by the Central Bank of Nigeria said the country paid $2.18 billion in debt servicing between January and May this year. According to the apex bank data, the figure represents a 270.9 percent increase compared to the first five months of 2019. That year $588.33 million was paid in debt servicing. In five years, Nigeria has spent over $415 billion in debt servicing, the CBN report said.
Another report has come out that in the face of crippling headline inflation (nearly 40 percent in May), 27% of Nigerians are turning to online loan firms to keep up with their living expenses. This January, they borrowed N3.9 trillion from online apps.
How will the president and his deputy feel flying in their luxury planes amid all this?
Jose Mujica will not make head or tail of it.