Ayodele Fayose, the governor of Ekiti State has asked President Muhammadu Buhari to stay at home and govern the country instead of traveling from one country to the other.
Fayose, in a statement issued on Tuesday in Ado-Ekiti by his special assistant on Public Communications and New Media, Lere Olayinka said the vice president, Yemi Osinbajo or the ministers could have been asked to attend most of the functions being attended abroad, Vanguard reports.
According to him, most of the trips embarked on by Buhari were unnecessary and won’t solve Nigeria’s problems.
He said the president’s incessant foreign trips were already bleeding the economy with about $1 million being spent per trip.
The statement read: “Conservatively, about $1 million goes into every of the foreign trips and the way the President is going, foreign trips alone might gulp 20 percent of the Federal Government budget and that will be disastrous for the dwindling economy of the country.
“It is even more worrisome that while the economy is already in shamble and insecurity pervades the land with Boko Haram burning Nigerians, including children alive in the North East, our President is busy globetrotting.
“From available records, in June 2015 alone, the President travelled to Niger Republic, Chad, Germany and South Africa. Also in 2015, the President travelled to United States of America in July, Benin Republic in August, Ghana and France in September, India in October, Iran, France and United States of America in November and in December, he travelled to South Africa, Benin Republic.
“This year alone, President Buhari has travelled to the United Arab Emirate, Kenya, Ethiopia and he is leaving for France and United Kingdom today to spend four days abroad.
“In most of these trips, about $500,000 is spent on estacode, transportation, accommodation, honorarium, media coverage, contingency and other expenses on accompanying Presidency officials. The Presidential Air Fleet, which includes fuelling of the planes and allowances for crew members as well as the President’s estacode per night and those of the Minister of Foreign Affairs and his aides is said to be in the range of $500,000.”
Fayose said Buhari has spent two months out of his months in office outside the country.
He wondered how the country can make progress with Buhari spending majority of his time in foreign countries.
The Ekiti governor therefore, advised Buhari to pay attention to Nigeria’s ailing economy and fulfill his promise of leading the fight against Boko Haram rather than travel from country to country.
President Buhari has travelled to over 15 countries since he took over power on May 29, 2015. This year, he has already travelled to France and Britain and only returned from Kenya and Ethiopia last week.Many have criticised him for spending majority of his time outside the country. However, the presidency has said the foreign trips were necessitated by the president’s desire to block and recover funds looted out of Nigeria.
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