Investigations have revealed that President Bola Tinubu has spent not less than N3.4bn on local and foreign travel within six months of assuming office.
The figure is 36 per cent more than the N2.49bn earmarked for the President’s travel expenditure in the 2023 budget.
Though President Tinubu inherited the budget halfway, he spent more than what was apportioned for the whole year between June and December 2023.
The President also approved the sum of N3bn for the purchase of three bulletproof Mercedes Benz S-class 580 and the supply of other vehicles to the State House.
Last year, Tinubu’s government attracted public outrage for sponsoring at least 1,114 delegates to the United Nation’s annual climate summit, COP28, in Dubai, the United Arab Emirates.
Although the Presidency said it sponsored only 422 delegates, reports say it spent N2.78bn on airfares and estacodes.
However, last week, the Presidency announced Tinubu’s decision to slash by 60 per cent his entourage size for domestic and international travels.
Meanwhile, checks by journalists using GovSpend, a civic tech platform that tracks and analyses the Federal Government’s spending, showed that a total sum of N1.15bn was spent as provision for presidential trips and other related expenses in the last six months.
The figure did not include estacodes of the President’s entourage.
A monthly breakdown of this amount revealed that the government spent N82.2m in June, N393.3m was paid for trips and related expenses in August 2023, and N287.9m was also spent for these expenses in September.
While the Presidency defended these trips as vital for attracting foreign direct investment into Nigeria, critics question the economic impact, particularly the size of the entourage.
Latest data from the National Bureau of Statistics revealed that capital importation crashed by 43.55 per cent in the third quarter of 2023, defying efforts by the current administration to attract investments into the country.
