by Joel Nwokeoma If the state of development and progress of a country is to be determined by the size of its presidential fleet, Nigeria will certainly rank among the best in the world. With 10 aircraft from five different brands, maintained annually at an estimated cost of N9.08bn, Nigeria’s Presidential Air Fleet is one of the largest in the world. Ironically, various studies and reports by international organisations like the United Nations Development Programme, over the years, point to the fact that Nigeria is one of the worst places to live in the world with over 70 per cent of the population living in poverty. What never ceases to amaze one, however, is how the President Goodluck Jonathan administration, in particular, is well at ease with such feckless and reckless spending habits in the last three years. Its fleeting fancy is unrivalled. Germany is the sixth largest economy in the world and the largest in Europe with a GDP of $3.085tn and a GDP per capita of $37,900. The German economy is heavily export-oriented, unlike Nigeria’s which practically imports everything including the ones it can produce here like toothpicks. Germany is the second largest exporter in the world and exports account for more than one-third of its national output. Yet, it does not have a single presidential jet. Same for the United Kingdom with a $2.32tn GDP and per capita income of $38,700. Japan and the Netherlands have two jets each while Ghana, Algeria and South Africa have one each. When in May the South African defence authorities wanted to buy a new presidential jet for President Jacob Zuma, the citizens were understandably outraged and stoutly opposed the move. According to the Democratic Alliance MP, David Maynier, “He already has a perfectly serviceable Boeing Business Jet (Inkwazi) that has only had about 10 years of service.” Of course, the authorities discarded the idea. Yet, the South African economy is the largest in Africa. The International Monetary Fund puts its GDP at $354bn while Nigeria’s trails at $292bn. It is instructive that while the more “prosperous” South Africa’s single presidential jet is strictly for the use of its president, the “less prosperous” Nigeria “shows off” with 10 aircraft in its presidential fleet which it uses as it likes or, as they say, as the spirit leads it. A recent example was when the Federal Government dispatched one of the jets to go bring Malawi’s president, Joyce Banda, to Abuja to deliver the keynote address at the Global Power Women Network Africa summit at the invitation of the First Lady, Mrs. Patience Jonathan. Interestingly, Banda had earlier sold her country’s only presidential jet to save costs. Talk of delusion of grandeur and you are not far from it. Interestingly, while the Jonathan administration gleefully spends N9.08bn annually to maintain the 10 aircraft in the Presidential Air Fleet, solely to ensure the comfort of an evidently over-indulged political class, a report released on Monday by WaterAid indicates that 192 Nigerian children die daily from diarrhoea, a disease caused by lack of safe water and basic hygiene. This is not to talk of the recent report by UNESCO that Nigeria has the largest number of out-of-school-children in the world with a figure of 10.5 million out of 57 million. Yet another study by the Economic Intelligence Unit says Nigeria is the worst country to be born in 2013. Obviously, the administration does not characteristically “give a damn” about such grim realities as long as it can keep its cherished toys in the skies to ferry the President and his cronies around. It bears noting that it is in the character of the Nigerian government hallmarked by the “transformative” Jonathan administration to indulge in the most bizarre while leaving the needful unattended. This is why it will not “see or say any evil” in the purchase of two armoured BMW cars for the Princess of the administration by the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority. It is everything but a government for the people! Instead, it is one government known for pandering to the base desires and proclivities of the ruling elite and its cronies while the people it ought to cater for languish in needless poverty, deprivation and need. Was it not the President himself who said during the last Presidential Media Chat that corruption is never the country’s problem, much the same way Gen. Yakubu Gowon once said money wasn’t Nigeria’s problem? For all this administration cares, the country’s roads can be worse than those of war-torn countries, as a former General Secretary of the Commonwealth, Chief Emeka Anyaoku, once lamented, or for the lives of the citizens to be short, crude and nasty, as long its fleet of aircraft is well maintained to ensure the safety of the President, it is fine and dandy. There is no better indicator of a doomed democracy than this. It is noteworthy that none of the 10 aircraft in the presidential fleet has ever been reported to be involved in any mishap. This may not be unconnected with the huge capital outlay of N9.08bn to maintain it annually. But, it bears noting too that if Nigerian leaders were using commercial airlines to travel, like the British Prime Minister and Queen Elizabeth II do with the British Airways for instance, they would have seen, firsthand, the urgency and need to ensure effective regulation of the aviation sector so that aircraft could be well-maintained periodically by their owners to prevent them dropping off from the skies at will. Or, could the President and other members of the ruling class have been comfortable in the bowel of an aircraft with cracks like the ill-fated Associated Airlines plane was said to have? It is obvious that, like they have done to public universities and hospitals, Nigerian leaders have left the aviation sector to decay because they can always fly well-maintained aircraft in the presidential fleet. - This Best Outside Opinion was written by Joel Nwokeoma
Posted on: Sat, 02 Nov 2013 21:30:57 +0000
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