The presidency yesterday described as shortsighted and misleading reports in the media suggesting that President Muhammadu Buhari’s recent trip to the United States cost Nigeria the sum of N2.2 billion.
Special adviser to the president on media and publicity, Mr. Femi Adesina, dismissed the claim as ‘mischievous mathematics.’
He said: “In point of fact, the total amount expended on the trip by the Office of the President amounted to nothing near 10 per cent of the speculated figure.” A report and an editorial in a daily newspaper had estimated President Buhari’s trip to cost N2.2 billion without any official documents backing the claim.
But in a statement he issued yesterday refuting the claim, Adesina said it was quite 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.”
He said while the president’s son, Yusuf, received neither allowances nor estacode, each of the five governors on the trip picked his own bills, and permanent secretaries who traveled as part of the delegation did so in accordance with extant rules and none of them exceeded their estacode entitlements
He added that it was also ‘shortsighted and misleading’ of the newspaper to have claimed that President Buhari’s trip to the US achieved nothing.
Faulting the report on the gains of the trip, the statement made available to the media explained that Buhari’s US visit was definitely very successful and beneficial to Nigeria. “As things stand at the moment, the embargo on the sale of weapons sales to Nigeria is in the process of being removed,” he said. “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 US 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 US in our country’s power sector.”
“Only those rabidly determined to find faults unnecessarily will cook up falsehood in a futile effort to rake up murk where none exists,” Adesina stated, adding that “owing to the free accommodation provided by the host government, all the personal staff who accompanied the president on the trip received reduced allowances.”
