A video posted on facebook by Usman-Oladipo Akanbi on August 8, 2024, suggested that President Bola Tinubu has cut down the cost of governance by 60%..
Akanbi, an educationist, according to his facebook bio, posted the 5 minutes 14 seconds clip with a terse statement which reads “Thank God…waiting for the National Assembly and the states too…”.
The video showed the President’s spokesman, Ajuri Ngelale, announcing the president’s directive on the slashing of the official delegations for foreign and domestic trips by up to 60%.
According to him, the new limits will affect travel by the president, vice president, first lady and other top officials.
For foreign trips, Tinubu’s delegation will now be capped at 20 people, down from 50 previously, while that of the First Lady’s entourage abroad is restricted to just five members, a more than 60% reduction.
For the vice president, the foreign delegation will be limited to five, same for his wife.
For domestic trips within Nigeria, the president’s delegation is now capped at 25, the first lady at 10, the vice president at 15 and his wife at 10 members.
He said: “President Tinubu has, by his most recent directive approved a massive cost cutting exercise that will touch across the entire federal government of Nigeria and the offices of the president himself, the vice president and the office of the first lady. It will be conducted in the following fashion.
“One, the official trips that will be undertaken within the country, that is, when Mr. President or the Vice President travels to any state within the country, the massive bills that accrued due to allowances and estacode for security detail coming from Abuja and travelling into those states will be massively cut due to the directive of the president”.
According to him, security outfits within the states will protect the president when he travels to those states, a major cost-cutting initiative that will affect the office of the vice president as well as the office of the first lady.
He went on: “You will find that the numbers on international trips are fewer than those allowed on domestic trips. This is because international trips are far more expensive across the board and the president is determined to bring total sanity and prudence to the management of the commonwealth of our people,” he said.
“Henceforth, the president is insistent that the notion of government wastage, the notion of recurrent expenditure being in excess, the notion that government officials will be allowed to conduct their affairs in a way that is different from what we are asking of Nigerian citizens with respect to prudence and cost management, those days are over”.
VERIFICATION
Using a fact-checking tool – google reverse image search, it was discovered that the video first surfaced online on January 9, 2024. It appeared on the X handle (formerly twitter) of the Arise TV on a presidential directive to reduce the number of delegations. It also appeared on other media platforms like Television Continental (TVC).
The President decided to cut down the number of the presidential delegations after an uproar which trailed Nigeria’s attendance at Conference of the Parties, COP28 climate summit in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, UAE, in December, 2023, with the record of highest number of registered delegates from Africa.
Nigerians knocked Tinubu’s government over the high number of delegates, at a time of austerity that the Federal Government was urging the citizenry to make more sacrifices.
And following the backlash, the President announced a slash in the number of delegations to both international and local trips.
It was observed that the video resurfaced online in the wake of the ongoing nationwide #EndBadGovernance protests. Top on the demands of the youth-centred protest is the cutting cost of governance and returning of the fuel subsidy as a way of reducing the economic hardship in Nigeria.
The facebook post with a terse statement which reads “Thank God…waiting for the National Assembly and the states too…,” therefore suggested that the president has responded to the demands of the protesters by cutting down the cost of governance as portrayed in the clip.
Also, it demands that the National Assembly and the states should follow suit. Whereas, this is not the case.
On Sunday, the President addressed the nation on the protest, but he failed to announce any measures on the cutting cost of governance.
He also ruled out the possibility of reversing the fuel subsidy earlier removed by the government.
CONCLUSION
It is evident that the president did slash the number of presidential delegations on both international and local trips in January this year after an uproar on the number of delegates that graced the COP 28 in UAE.
However, circulating the video of where the announcement was made seven months ago is misleading. The content does not address the demands of the protesters that the government should further cut the cost of governance.
VERDICT: Misleading.
