Our attention has been drawn to an editorial published in the Nigerian
Pilot of August 2, 2015 and an earlier report in which the total cost of
President Muhammadu Buhari’s recent trip to the U.S. was estimated at N2.2
billion.
It is very sad that in this age of free-flowing information and in this
era of CHANGE, a media organisation would make itself available as a
vehicle to peddle a lie of such low and ignominious quality.
Contrary to the newspaper’s assertions, the total cost of the trip to the
Nigerian taxpayer was at the most minimal, in line with the policy of this
administration to cut waste and extravagance.
In point of fact, the total amount expended on the trip by the Office of
the President amounted to nothing near ten per cent of the speculated
figure.
Owing to the free accommodation provided by the host government, all the
personal staff who accompanied the President on the trip received reduced
allowances.
His son, Yusuf, received neither allowances nor estacode. The five
Governors on the trip each paid his own way. Permanent Secretaries who
traveled on the delegation did so in accordance with extant rules and none
of them exceeded their estacode entitlements.
Apart from the Nigerian Pilot’s mischievous mathematics, it is
shortsighted and misleading of the newspaper to have claimed that
President Buhari’s trip to the U.S. achieved nothing.
Nigerian-US relations had suffered severely over the past few years. That
relationship has now been reset. The benefits of this symbiotic
relationship will become more and more evident as the Buhari
administration continues to tackle the challenges of corruption, security
and the economy.
Some of the more immediate benefits of the President’s trip to the U.S
include: the proposed $2.1 billion fund from the World Bank for the
re-development of the northeast battered by Boko Haram; $5 billion from US
investors in Nigeria’s agriculture sector; $1.5 billion investment in the
Nigerian health sector; and another $5 billion investment from the U.S. in
our country’s power sector.
Also, as things stand at the moment, the embargo on the sale of weapons
sales to Nigeria is in the process of being removed.
The trip to the U.S by President Buhari was definitely very successful and
beneficial to Nigeria.
Only those rabidly determined to find faults unnecessarily will cook up
falsehood in a futile effort to rake up murk where none exists.