The administration of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has refuted online reports claiming plans to acquire a presidential yacht valued at N5 billion.
It has been reported that the proposed amount is allocated under the capital expenditure of the Nigerian Navy’s budget.
As per the breakdown, the Nigerian Navy is set to allocate N62.8 billion for its operations, with N20.4 billion allocated to recurrent expenditure and N42.3 billion to capital expenditure.
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In a statement issued on Thursday, Temiope Ajayi, the Senior Special Assistant to the President on Media and Publicity, clarified that Tinubu did not request a yacht and emphasized that he did not require one to fulfill his duties, particularly in light of the current state of the economy.
He pointed out that the request for a yacht was included in the Navy’s budget, and it is assumed that they have a specific operational purpose for it.
The statement reads, “It has become a pattern for some individuals, CSOs and a section of the media to pick one or two line items every budget cycle for sensational headlines, deliberately ignoring context in their reporting.
“The public that should benefit from good journalism, which should primarily educate and adequately inform, is left confused and miseducated due to the mischaracterisation of issues and misrepresentation of facts.
“The trending issues on social media since yesterday are two items in the 2023 supplementary budget. One is the provision for a presidential yacht in the supplementary budget by the Navy and the other is over N6 billion for vehicles to the State House.
“It is important to state clearly that President Bola Tinubu didn’t ask for a presidential yatch and I doubt he needs one to perform the functions of his office. From what I know, the request for a yacht, however it is named or couched in the budget is from the Navy and they must have operational reasons for why it is required.
“The budget office should be in a position to also explain to the public why such expenditure should be accommodated now, considering the economic situation of the country. I must readily admit that the one reason our budgeting system has been a subject of public attack is the very simplistic way some of the line items are described by civil servants, who prepare the budget. Examples abound. Sometimes in 2016, an Enterprise Resource Planning ( ERP) project of the Ministry of Solid Minerals worth over N300m then was captured in that year’s budget as “website”. Naturally, it generated a massive controversy as people, rightly, asked to know the type of website that will be built with N300million.
“It is important to say that journalism should enrich public enlightenment and not create an atmosphere of siege. It is poor reporting to always reduce State House budgetary provisions to the President and Vice President. When the State House makes provision for vehicles, it is reported as if it is the President that will use all the vehicles or eat all the food when a provision is made for food and catering services. We have had such inaccurate reporting in the past.”