President Bola Tinubu, Vice President Kashim Shettima, and First Lady Remi Tinubu spent not less than N5.24bn on local and foreign travel between Janu
President Bola Tinubu, Vice President Kashim Shettima, and First Lady Remi Tinubu spent not less than N5.24bn on local and foreign travel between January and March 2024.
An analysis of the travel expenses using GovSpend, a civic tech platform that tracks and analyses the Federal Government’s spending, showed that N1.35bn was spent as provision for presidential trips and other related expenses in three months, N3.53bn was spent on foreign exchange purchase during 10 international trips and N637.85m was disbursed to two travel agencies for the purchase of air tickets for presidential local and foreign trips.
The payment made through the State House transit account to various recipients did not include estacodes of the President’s entourage.
This was as the government spent N12.59bn on maintenance of the presidential air fleet within the same period.
Recall that the President spent N3.4bn on these trips 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. This means a total sum of N8.64bn was spent on local and foreign trips between June 2023 and March 2024.
The report also showed that the president got N650m as an honorarium.
Nigerians have consistently expressed worries over the President’s frequent travels, calling for tangible outcomes from these journeys.
In their first seven months in office, Nigeria’s President Bola Tinubu and his Vice, Sen. Kashim Shettima, visited 16 countries, collectively spending 91 days in foreign engagements.
Meanwhile, Shettima represented him in Italy, Russia, South Africa, Cuba, China, and the US, logging 36 days abroad in 2023.
