Campaigning for president in 2023, Peter Obi of the Labour Party (LP) suggested on Friday that the N15 billion allocated for the vice president’s new home may be used to fund police operating cars.
Police officers’ daily allowances could be raised from N5,000 to N15,000, according to Obi.
The ex-governor of Anambra State took to X to criticize the allocation of funds to the presidential, vice presidential, and aides’ offices.
“Good morning, Nigeria,” Obi reportedly said. I would want to provide some feedback on certain items that are already available to the public, even though I am still awaiting the whole details of the 2024 budget so that I may review them and make sure that the items for growth are prioritized.
Expenditures for official travel by the president’s and vice president’s staff are N15.961 billion. Given that the aides are shelling out N30 billion, it’s reasonable to assume that the president and vice president will spend double that amount.
This implies that in 2024, the travel budgets of the president’s and vice president’s offices and their staffs will total more than 45 billion Nigerian cedis. In addition, N20 billion was set aside by the Chief of Staff’s office to renovate and fully “digitize” the presidential and vice president’s offices in Abuja and Lagos, respectively.
With an additional N20 billion set aside for restorations and N45 billion for transportation, the total amount is approximately N65 billion. This is higher than the N57 billion approved by the Senate last week for the Police Trust Fund, which would cover more than 200 million people. Help me figure out what else this amount could accomplish for our wonderful nation, particularly in a crucial area like internal security.
Across the country, we have more than 5,000 police stations and operations. There are no operational cars at half of these police stations. Even those who do have access to fuel receive less than N5,000 per day. As a result, when prominent individuals like myself try to contact the police for emergency intervention, the first thing they say is, “we have no fuel.” Unfortunately, this is not always the case.
Assuming we opt to prioritize our lists and allocate these resources wisely, we can contact local manufacturers such as Innoson and others to procure 2500 4×4 trucks, which now cost approximately N30 million. This is because the majority of our excursions and renovations do not contribute to our growth or productivity.
Due to our bulk purchase and upfront payment, we will be eligible for a 20% discount. We will use the money we save from the budgeted travel and renovations to cover half of the police stations that do not have operating vehicles today. The total cost will be N62.5 billion, or 25 million Naira each.
“The N15 billion set aside for the Vice President’s new house could be utilized to fund the fueling of operational police cars by tripling their daily fuel allowances from approximately N5,000 to N15,000, amounting to N13.687 billion.”
