As Nigeria and Nigerians battle perhaps the worst economic crisis in a generation, leading to widespread hardship and anger, activist and former presidential candidate, Omoyele Sowore, has alleged that President Bola Tinubu has purchased a $100 million presidential jet and further investing an additional $50 million for its customisation.
Sowore made the claim via his X handle (formerly Twitter) on Monday evening.
“While they are telling you to ‘exercise patience,’ @officialABAT already bought a $100m Presidential Jet and configured or reconfigured it with some $50 million and it is ready for delivery!” Sowore said.
He went on to describe the aircraft: “The jet is an A330-200 initially christened VP-CAC and is now registered as 5N-FGA.”
He condemned the purchase, emphasising the disparity between the government’s spending and the country’s economic challenges. “This was not in the annual budget; they can’t pay minimum wage for workers but could afford $150m for a private jet. Students have to obtain loans to go to college, but they could afford to approve billions for hajj even as the money ended up being stolen.”
Meanwhile, politician and management expert, Prof. Pat Utomi, has taken to social media to tackle the Tinubu-led government for failing to heed to his advice on how to stop food inflation.
In a post shared on X, Utomi said the Tinubu government chose to focus on presidential jets, lagos-calabar highway, SUVs for lawmakers rather than sort food inflation.
Describing their action as the ‘’height of unwisdom’, Utomi wrote;
‘’I woke up at 2am to do the KAKAAKI interview this morning but the chill of the wrong policies announced yesterday for the agriculture sector has not let me return to sleep. Do we forget so quickly? How poor trade policy with the ascendance of Oil income caused cash crop farmers to abandon the farms to the none tradable goods sector as messengers and construction workers and when Oil price volatility resulted in construction firms not being paid on time triggering their retrenchment. They did not go back to farms and we became a mono product economy. Now we want to make dependence on food imports permanent when we have not the money to pay for the imports. We are inviting a famine.
Months ago I pleaded that this food price inflation should be combated with Forest rangers being deployed to fertile territories and farmers given input incentives managed by NGOs and not corrupt government officials so that they can focus on legumes that can be harvested in three months and the markets flooded with food. Instead we focused on Presidential Jets, Lagos-Calabar Highway, SUVs for National Assembly and Presidential motorcades of 100 vehicles. The height of unwisdom. Now the chicken have come home to roost and we want to inflict long term structural damage in panic incentives. God Save Our Souls,”
In the report below, Dw.com writes about the human suffering and economic crises in Nigeria.
Toyin Ogundeko, a resident of Lagos and a caterer by profession, lives with asthma. Her son has the condition, too.
But medicines have become so expensive in Nigeria that they can’t afford the inhalers they need.
Amid a worsening economic crisis, Ogundeko isn’t sure how they will get by.
“With the way the economy is going, things are really getting tough. You’re struggling to buy foodstuffs, and you’re also trying to stock up on your medication,” she told DW.
“So, for me I can cut down on the inhaler for myself. I won’t cut it for my child,” she said.
What’s causing the crisis?
The worst economic crisis in Nigeria in decades has cost the country the ranking as Africa’s biggest economy. And inflation and a volatile exchange rate are driving the cost of living up in the nation of more than 200 million people.
Higher drug import prices have led to local price hikes and a scarcity of basic medicines. Pharmacist Emmanuel Olaogun Oladeji says Nigerian drug manufacturers simply can’t plug the gap.
“There is a limit to what local manufacturers can do. We are grateful to have the likes of Emzor Pharmaceuticals and some other indigenous manufacturers in the country, but there is a limit to what they can do,” Oladeji told DW.
Analysts predict that Nigeria could plunge to fourth position on the list of African economies in 2024. Businesses are struggling to stay afloat.
“What caused our problem in Nigeria today is the devaluation of our national currency against the US dollar,” Alhaji Sani Nasidi, a veteran businessman, told DW.
The high cost of essential commodities citizens are facing is a direct result, he said. As a way out of the current crisis, Nasidi suggested that “Nigeria needs to run away from a dollar economy.”
President Bola Tinubu has embarked on a bold set of economic reforms that he argues are necessary and will bear fruit in the future.
His decision to remove fuel subsidies was seen as abrupt. It led to the doubling of fuel prices, rising food and transport costs and an increase in the price of imported products.
According to financial analyst and former banker Aminu Philip Yado, the high fuel costs are impacting Nigerians broadly.
“Transportation is one of the major factors that affects the cost of produce in the market,” Yado said. “When you go to the farm and you have to harvest and transport at a very high cost, there is no way you can come to the market and charge low. You would certainly have to charge profitably and sustainably.”
Nigerian labor unions have called several nationwide strikes over salaries that are too low to keep up with inflation.
“The same inflation is what caused companies to run away from Nigeria because they would not be making a profit,” said Alhaji Sani Nasidi, the businessman. “The quality of goods and services they normally produce would be reduced, and people would not have money to buy it.”
Aminu Philip Yado, the financial analyst, believes that the economy needs innovation.
“What is basically wrong with the economy is that the managers of the economy themselves are not really having the economy at heart. Everybody that gets there struggles for his own and not the Nigerian people,” Yado told DW.
Yado sees a lack of investment in major infrastructure that could grow the economy and create jobs for youth as a key factor in the deepening economic crisis.
“When they talk of borrowing, in fact how much […] of this borrowing that they want to invest in the Nigerian infrastructure actually goes into investment in that infrastructure in Nigeria?” he asks.
Energy crisis with devastating impact
Nigeria also faces an energy crisis. Tinubu is trying to rejuvenate the national power grid by pouring in public money instead of subsidizing electricity for those who cannot afford to pay.
After he scrapped fuel subsidies, Tinubu did away with a series of electricity subsidies.
“If there is power in Nigeria today, all artisans that depend on power to do their business will go back to doing their business at a cheaper cost than they are doing now,” said Yado.
Most business owners are forced to buy generators to keep operations going. This trend, the financial analyst told DW, is not sustainable.
In the meantime, citizens like Toyin Ogundeko and her son are desperate. “People have all sorts of complicated conditions, and imagine how they’re coping?” she said.
“So, for me it’s a plea to the government: Whatever needs to be done, first find a way to stabilize this economy. Things are getting out of hand.”
