Olusegun Adeniyi
To say that the administration of President Bola Tinubu is enmeshed in a crisis of credibility is to put the situation mildly. For a man who got to office with a statistically narrow mandate of 37 percent of total votes cast, many expected Tinubu to rise above himself in order to establish an enduring legacy. That expectation now appears misplaced. Even more worrisome is that despite being in a ditch, the president and his handlers continue to dig by displaying a behaviour the Yoruba would describe as “tani o mu mi”. As I once explained on this page, it is the kind of impunity that carries a certain sense of hubris, not only for the perpetrator(s) but also for the larger society.
It all began with a report in TheCable, which supplied the proof for what most already suspected or knew: The federal government has been spending trillions of Naira to pay for fuel subsidy even when officials continue to parrot the presidential deceit that “subsidy is gone.” Then, former Vice President Atiku Abubakar released a scathing statement that Nigeria “has been effectively mortgaged to President Bola Tinubu, his family, and associates,” citing how the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPC Ltd) allegedly put its retail arm under the control of OVH, which he claimed (it has been disputed by NNPC Ltd) is controlled by Wale Tinubu’s Oando.
These issues were still playing out when Nigerians got to know that a new presidential jet had been surreptitiously purchased by a government that has been doubling down on policies that make life difficult for the ordinary Nigerian. “The new plane, bought far below the market price, saves Nigeria huge maintenance and fuel costs, running into millions of dollars yearly,” was all the explanation from the villa, even when Nigerians still don’t know the cost of this plane and how it was acquired. And we probably would not have been informed about it had the Chinese firm, Zhongshan Fucheng Industrial Investment Co Limited, not impounded three presidential aircraft in Paris, following the order of a French court on their dispute with Ogun State. It was the court that included one ACJ330-200, 5N-FGA (msn 1053), “recently bought from AMAC Corporate Jet (AMK, Zurich) and still stationed at Basel” while authorising the bailiffs “to go any place where the aircraft registered 5N-FGU, 5N-FGT and 5N-FGA are located and seize them.”
That was how Nigerians got to know that we have a new presidential jet. The aircraft, we would later learn, was released as an act of benevolence to our president by the Chinese company so that it would not affect his travel plans, including to China next week for the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) summit. Incidentally, I am currently in Chengdu, Sichuan Province of China for the 2024 Media Cooperation Forum on Belt and Road where I was among the speakers yesterday on the theme, ‘Enhancing media cooperation for common development.’ I will also be attending the 3rd Belt and Road News Network (BRNN) Council meeting today before heading back home on Sunday.
In his column last Sunday explaining how Tinubu’s fuel subsidy reform efforts unravelled, Waziri Adio concluded that for the administration, “an open acknowledgment” that subsidy is still very much with us “is a necessary starting point, for you cannot address what you haven’t even accepted exists or is a problem.” And “after coming clean, the government needs to level up with Nigerians about how it plans to manage the subsidy in a transparent and accountable way.” But that is precisely where the problem lies: This president is exhibiting a contempt for transparency and accountability in the conduct of government business. We saw that with the award of the contract for the multi trillion Naira Lagos-Calabar Coastal Road project and the manner several budgets are running concurrently.
