President Bola Tinubu.
In response to the public outcry following the release of the details of President Bola Tinubu’s N2.1 trillion supplementary budget submitted to the National Assembly, Tope Ajayi, a presidential spokesperson, stated that there was no request for a yacht made by President Tinubu.
As per the budget, N5.09 billion was designated for the yacht, N2.9 billion for Presidential Villa sport utility vehicles, and an additional N2.9 billion for the renewal of operational vehicles for the presidency.
The yacht was included in the Nigerian Navy’s planned capital expenditure of N42.3 billion.
Commenting on this situation, Ajayi expressed skepticism about whether his superior required such an asset to fulfill his official duties.
“The trending issues on social media since yesterday are two items in the 2023 supplementary budget. One is the provision for a presidential yacht in the supplementary budget by the Navy, and the other is over N6 billion for vehicles for the State House.”
“It is important to state clearly that President Bola Tinubu didn’t ask for a presidential yatch, and I doubt he needs one to perform the functions of his office. From what I know, the request for a yacht, however it is named or couched in the budget, is from the Navy, and they must have operational reasons for why it is required.
“The budget office should be in a position to also explain to the public why such expenditures should be accommodated now, considering the economic situation of the country. I must readily admit that the one reason our budgeting system has been the subject of public attack is the very simplistic way some of the line items are described by civil servants who prepare the budget.
“Examples abound. Sometimes in 2016, an Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) project of the Ministry of Solid Minerals worth over N300 million was captured in that year’s budget as a “website”. Naturally, it generated a massive controversy as people, rightly, asked to know the type of website that would be built with N300 million.”
Ajayi further said, “It is important to say that journalism should enrich public enlightenment and not create an atmosphere of siege. It is poor reporting to always reduce State House budgetary provisions to the President and Vice President.
“When the State House makes provision for vehicles, it is reported as if it is the President that will use all the vehicles or eat all the food when a provision is made for food and catering services.”
“We have had such inaccurate reporting in the past. A President and Vice President cannot, for any reason, spend N20 million naira to eat in a year if it is about the food they will eat as first and second families. How much food can a person really eat?
“Yet, we will read headlines that Tinubu, Buhari, Jonathan, or whoever the President is wants to spend N5 billion on food and catering in a year when in actual fact such budgetary provisions are made to accommodate many state events, meetings, hosting of VIPs, foreign dignitaries, and even visits by other Heads of State and bilateral and multilateral meetings that the State House will deal with in a given year,” he said.