A
abujagirl
Guest
Senator Ben Murray-Bruce in a column published on THIS DAY has called on President Muhammadu Buhari to sell off Nigeria's presidential jets.
On the 10th of May 2015, I tweeted the following “Left to me, we must sell the Presidential fleet. Public servants, including the President must only use made in Nigeria Peugeot as official car!”. I really believe what I tweeted and was overjoyed when the media reported that President Muhammadu Buhari had ordered the sale of nine presidential jets. My joy was however cut short when the Presidency denied those reports and said the president had not taken such a decision. Nigeria may perhaps be the only country in the world without a national air carrier whose presidential fleet is larger than many airlines.
This was wasteful in the years of our oil boom, but in this current dispensation of reduced income from oil, it actually makes no sense to maintain the presidential air fleet. Recently, I tweeted that we should start compulsorily teaching our youths entrepreneurial skills from primary school through university and when they graduate they should spend their National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) years in an entrepreneurial finishing programme and upon satisfactorily completing of the programme each corps member should receive N5,000 in the form of a bank guarantee to pay for setting up a Small and Medium Scale Enterprise (SME).
A youth who liked the idea tweeted back at me and asked me how Nigeria could pay for this.
Well, Nigeria presently spends on average N5 billion (5.3 billion in the 2015 budget) to maintain the Presidential Air Fleet (PAF). This is not the value of the fleet. It is just the amount used to maintain the 11 planes in the fleet. This amount can be used to provide business start-up grants of over five N500,000 to 10,000 NYSC members. So, in answer to Okikiola Raymond @DonOkizle, who is the youth who asked me that question, Nigeria can pay for it with the money we are currently using to maintain our PAF and other wasteful expenditures.
We need a common sense revolution and though I know it is not practical, I almost wish President Buhari would appoint a minister for common sense!.
Click here to read more
SOURCE: THIS DAY
On the 10th of May 2015, I tweeted the following “Left to me, we must sell the Presidential fleet. Public servants, including the President must only use made in Nigeria Peugeot as official car!”. I really believe what I tweeted and was overjoyed when the media reported that President Muhammadu Buhari had ordered the sale of nine presidential jets. My joy was however cut short when the Presidency denied those reports and said the president had not taken such a decision. Nigeria may perhaps be the only country in the world without a national air carrier whose presidential fleet is larger than many airlines.
This was wasteful in the years of our oil boom, but in this current dispensation of reduced income from oil, it actually makes no sense to maintain the presidential air fleet. Recently, I tweeted that we should start compulsorily teaching our youths entrepreneurial skills from primary school through university and when they graduate they should spend their National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) years in an entrepreneurial finishing programme and upon satisfactorily completing of the programme each corps member should receive N5,000 in the form of a bank guarantee to pay for setting up a Small and Medium Scale Enterprise (SME).
A youth who liked the idea tweeted back at me and asked me how Nigeria could pay for this.
Well, Nigeria presently spends on average N5 billion (5.3 billion in the 2015 budget) to maintain the Presidential Air Fleet (PAF). This is not the value of the fleet. It is just the amount used to maintain the 11 planes in the fleet. This amount can be used to provide business start-up grants of over five N500,000 to 10,000 NYSC members. So, in answer to Okikiola Raymond @DonOkizle, who is the youth who asked me that question, Nigeria can pay for it with the money we are currently using to maintain our PAF and other wasteful expenditures.
We need a common sense revolution and though I know it is not practical, I almost wish President Buhari would appoint a minister for common sense!.
Click here to read more
SOURCE: THIS DAY
