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| President Muhammadu Buhari |
It will stun the Nigerian masses that the private jet of President Buhari is reportedly paying a daily rent of £4,000 in the United Kingdom when over 60% of Nigerians live below a dollar per day.
President Muhammadu Buhari's private jet as parked in London, United Kingdom where he is on a medical vacation is alleged to be consuming a whooping sum of 4,000 pounds everyday.
This has been revealed by a Nigerian based in the United Kingdom named Arake Akinwande who covertly made enquiries about the cost of the parking lot where the presidential private jet is expensively resting.
The actual location of the parking lot where the Big Bird is basking in such luxury in a period of cash crunch and depression remains fuzzy.
President Buhari who left the shores of this country on the 7th of May, 2017 has spent a lengthy period of 52 days in London as he hides under a lacuna in the Nigerian constitution which doesn't specify an expiry period for his leave.
Using the official exchange rate of N400 to a Pound and multiplying it by 52 days which Buhari has spent in Europe (as at the 29th of June, 2017), Buhari has expended a gargantuan some of N83.2million which is bound to increase as Buhari's official leave as transmitted to the National Assembly remains indefinite.
Arake Akinwande who is reported to be a supporter of President Buhari has described his administration as a 'mistake' due to the nauseating profligacy displayed by the ailing leader in austerity period in Nigeria.
The Presidency to avoid provoking the over 110 million Nigerians out of about 180 million people stricken with abject poverty has refused to go public about Buhari's medical bills in the United Kingdom as well as other seeming outrageous costs associated with logistics.
A rage was sparked among Nigerians late last year, 2016 when the Senior Special Assistant to President Muhammadu Buhari on Media and Publicity bowed to public pressure and revealed Mr. Buhari spent a sum of £50,000 which is equivalent to N20.5 million at the Ear, Nose and Throat (ENT) specialist in London in June, 2016.
Shehu made the comment on Sunday, September 18, after it was alleged by a U.S-based Professor of Journalism, Farooq Kperogi that the president spent £6 million on medical expenses.
“The disclosure on Prof. Farooq Kperogi’s wall that President Muhammadu Buhari’s ear treatment in the United Kingdom cost a whopping £6m must have shocked many of the respected scholar’s followers,” Shehu said via Facebook.
Reports gathered by Tori.ng reveals the ear infection could have been treated in Nigeria but Buhari preferred to compound the issue medical tourism in Nigeria which costs the nation a sum of $1 billion per year. N3.2 billion was allocated to the State House Clinic in Abuja for the treatment of President, the Vice President, their families, personal staff and few privileged officials which is embarrassingly more than the budgetary allocation to all the teaching hospitals in Nigeria according to the 2016 national budget. Yet, Mr. Buhari who stands for "Change" and banned public servants from accessing the public purse to finance medical attention abroad has failed to lead by example and allow "change to begin with him".
The ostentatious management of the presidential jet is a story Nigerians may never want to hear currently due to the shambolic state of the local economy which is neck-deep into recession with ineffective interventions from the government.
Several manufacturing companies are beginning to shutdown over lack of access to foreign exchange to import raw materials for production, salaries of workers are being slashed and delayed, 5.5 million people lost their jobs in the current 2-year administration of Buhari, double digit inflation of 16.25% has further impoverished the poor masses supporting the anti-graft war, the Naira appears to share the same health status with the President, about 23 states which are component units in Nigeria are insolvent, agriculture which is being hoped to actualize the diversification of the Nigerian economy is at risk due to the security challenges of the gun-wielding Fulani herdsmen and Boko Haram operatives ravaging the local and agrarian communities leaving over 2 million people displaced and many more challenges left unabated.
The image-makers of the Buhari administration might be having much work to do to douse the opprobrium and odium brewing up from the rumoured N83.2 million Buhari's private jet has idly drawing from tax payer's sweats when the people can hardly feed well.
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