President Bola Tinubu’s media aides struggled last week to explain away the N5.09bn request for the so-called “presidential yacht” at this juncture of severe economic downturn.

This controversial item was contained in the N2.17 trillion Supplementary Budget approved by the president and forwarded to the National Assembly for assent. The Godswill Akpabio-led Senate had already given assent to it. It was the House of Representatives that removed the item and added the vote for it to the Students Loan, raising the latter to N10bn. This followed a more thorough job done by the House Committee on Appropriations led by Abubakar Bichi.

Following the outrage that it triggered, two presidential spokesmen – Temitope Ajayi and Bayo Onanuga – in separate statements, tried to justify the inclusion of the item. Ajayi said the president never requested for a yacht and blamed the Budget Office for using that term to describe a supposed high-tech Naval operational boat.

Onanuga, on the other hand, pointed out that the boat was procured by a “previous administration” and Tinubu, being a believer in government continuity, approved it. He also said the approval was given because of the president’s commitment to secure the country and its territorial waters to increase output in our petroleum and maritime sectors.

In our view, the Nigerian Navy, which reportedly originated the request, should be the last institution to describe a high-security boat as a “presidential yacht”. A yacht is a luxury, leisure boat which has nothing to do with security operations. If the item was wrongly monikered by negligent or mischievous officials, why didn’t someone correct it before it became public knowledge?

That the president did not request for it did not stop him from questioning the item and getting it properly named if indeed it was for a high-tech security boat.

Nigerians cannot be blamed for the way they reacted for several reasons. The aircraft in the presidential fleet, despite not being combat aircraft, have the Nigerian Air Force written on most, if not all, of them. Secondly, the N1.5bn budgeted to buy cars for a nonexistent “office of the first lady”, and so many other frivolous requests in the budget, have not been explained to the Nigerian public who are reeling from the harsh policies of the regime.

Our leaders should borrow a leaf from the Zambian President, Hakainde Hichilema, who was elected in 2021. He rejected a proposal by state officials for new cars worth $1.8 million to be procured for him. He insisted on using existing official vehicles, and ordered all public officials to do the same.

Our leaders must not see public office as a place for “enjoyment” while the masses writhe in economic distress. There should not be two Nigerias – one for the leaders and the other for the masses.

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