EDITORIAL: New presidential jet for a hungry nation

We heartily congratulate President Bola Ahmed Tinubu for the delivery, at last, of his new presidential jet, reportedly worth $100 million or about N150 billion. The president can now travel around the world for important state functions without the sort of fears for his security associated with his now retired 19-year-old former plane. Of course, […]

We heartily congratulate President Bola Ahmed Tinubu for the delivery, at last, of his new presidential jet, reportedly worth $100 million or about N150 billion. The president can now travel around the world for important state functions without the sort of fears for his security associated with his now retired 19-year-old former plane. Of course, we are aware that presidential jets elsewhere are much older, and that aircraft generally have a functional longevity well beyond 19 years.

The National Assembly, which as far as Nigerians know, has not appropriated any funds for the new jet, but which has not raised any eyebrows for its acquisition outside of due process, can also rest in the knowledge that it has served President Tinubu a good turn, just as he had reportedly served its members with billions of naira for official vehicles.

Still, we believe that all of this is not so well, and certainly not so good. We believe, strongly, that it is entirely unconscionable, by any moral standards, that the president and his government would be signing off on a new plane at the very time when hundreds of thousands of young Nigerians are thronging the streets in protest against hunger and hardship. But the hunger and hardship they are protesting against were predicted long ago. As far back as November, last year, the World Food Programme (WFP) predicted that 26.5 million Nigerians would starve in June and August this year due to conflict, insecurity, rising inflation, among other causes. Meanwhile, the UN Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO) has said that Nigeria has the largest number of food insecure people at 31.8 million, higher even than India which has a population more than six times Nigeria’s.

It is simply difficult to accept that buying a new presidential jet is okay in this same country, without any discernible effort to tackle acute hunger on the part of the government. 

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And beyond street protests, the hunger in the land is evident in many other ways. It is evident in the unprecedented rise in the prices of foodstuffs across the country. It is evident in the millions of stomachs, of children and adults alike, that go to bed empty in a nation of relatively abundant human and material resources. It is evident in the sort of “food” Nigerians eat daily now. It is evident in the shameful statistic of being diagnosed with a disease called “lack of sufficient food to eat”, an affliction from which thousands of Nigerian children and adults died last year, according to Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF). And it is evident in the family of six Nigerians who all died after eating what were basically no more than leaves.

A nation must take good care of its leaders, no doubt, but the leaders must also demonstrate basic human care for the people. The president might have sorted out his own security with a new jet, and as rumoured online, a new car. But what about the security of the rest of us? What about, for example, the security of Sarkin Gobir, Alhaji Isah Bawa, who was murdered by bandits almost on live television at the same time as the president was taking delivery of his new plane? What would his children think of Nigeria and its leadership for the fate of their father after serving the government for 45 years? The 20 medical students abducted by kidnappers in Benue State as President Tinubu was celebrating his new acquisition might have now been rescued, and for sure, we thank God for their lives. But had the security of ordinary citizens been top of the government’s agenda, would such incidents and threats be so commonplace throughout the country in recent years?

The actions of leaders are a moral compass for the rest of society. Nigeria cannot prosper if the leaders are fed and the people hungry. It cannot flourish if the leaders are secure and the people insecure in every respect. Most importantly, our leaders must recognise that they will not earn the genuine respect of their peers around the world merely by the clothes they wear, the food they eat or the planes they fly. That respect can only be earned by how much concern they show for the welfare and security of their ordinary citizens. After all, that is the basis of government and leadership.