Governors, Senators queue behind Tinubu’s trip slashes

The quality of leadership charisma can easily be interpreted either in a positive direction or negative way by the followership in a given country or nation.The pronouncement by President Bola Tinubu on cost cutting by slashing his trips expenditures and that of his Vice President, Kashim Shettima by 60 percent will go along way in changing the narrative.

In a statement yesterday the President revealed the slashing of expenditure on all official travel, domestic and international trips by 60 per cent. For foreign trips the president will be accompanied by – 20 persons, while the Vice President will have just five persons and the First Lady will also have five persons, respectively.

For local trips, the president will be accompanied by 25 persons, the Vice President 15 persons while the First lady will have 10 persons.

Special Adviser to the President on Media and Publicity, Ajuri Ngelale, who briefed State House Correspondents of the latest development explained that 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.

According to the presidential media aide, official trips within the country, involving the President or the Vice President, will experience significant cost reductions. This is a result of the president’s directive to slash the substantial bills associated with allowances and estacode for security details traveling from Abuja to those states.

He said the security outfits within states, whether it be police DSS, or branches of the military, will frontline his protective detail 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.

Ngelale also added that when any international travel is being approved, the following limits have been placed on all ministers of the Federation. Four members of their staff, appointees and the like will be allowed to travel with a minister on an official trip.

“For heads of agency, that will be limited to two members of staff allowed to travel on an official trip. Furthermore, the numbers that the President has now approved for official travel with him that will apply to his principal staff are as follows: on international trips the president has directed that no more than 20 individuals be allowed to travel with him.

“That number will be cut down to five in the case of the First Lady. Additionally, the number in the entourage on official international trips for the Vice President will be cut to five, the number that will be placed as a limit on the wife of the Vice President is also five.”

He explained that in terms of local trips, the President has approved a new limit of 25 members of staff to accompany him on domestic trips within the country.

He confirmed that the Office of the First Lady is now limited to 10 staff members to accompany her on official trips within the country. The Vice President will be limited to 15 members of staff on official trips within the country, while his wife will be limited to 10 members of staff on official trips within the country, the same as the first lady.

His words: “It is pertinent to note that there is a difference between the number of members of staff allowed to travel with the presiding officials to international trips and those that are allowed for domestic. You will find that the numbers on international trips are less 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.

“As a result of this, the President has directed that every federal MDA, including the office of the president itself and the Office of the Vice President as well as the offices of the first and Second Ladies, are affected and bound by this directive of the president.

“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.

“The President is insistent that the prudence of government officials must reflect the prudence and efficiency of Nigerian citizens and this is the directive of the President. Thank you very much.”

Asked if this new directive on restrictions will come in the form of an executive order, Ajuri simply replied, “With respect to the adherence to this most recent directive of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu. I believe we do not need to convince the officers of the federal government of Nigeria of the seriousness of the president with respect to how he will implement his directives.

“If there is anybody who feels that the directive of the President is not binding on them and who feels that the President will not uphold this directive in implementation and seeks to test it, they will do so at their own peril.”

Pertinently, many writers, columnists, researchers, political activists, economists have been on this same topic of cost cutting  in running the affairs of Nigeria for decades. Beyond Trip slashing the salaries of politicians should be slashed by 50 percent and the political aides should be limited to certain numbers too.

Aside from corruption, one of the problems facing Nigeria is the mismanagement of resources which is what has landed the country into this current state of economic quagmire.

Nigeria is currently in a deep economic crisis and what a prudent manager or entrepreneur will do when his company is facing harsh economic realities is to cut down the cost of the day to do management of the company which starts from the retrenchment of some workers that can be done away with at the time being, reduction of frivolous spendings, placing on hold some projects that are not essential or that are not of immediate importance; and focus only on essential projects. Whenever the company recovers, they can now go back to their extravagant lifestyle if they so wish but the reverse has been the case for the crop of politicians in the country.

Some government agencies and parastatals performing similar activities need to be merged; for instance, the Nigeria Exports Promotion Council, Nigeria Exports Processing Zone  and the Nigeria Investment Promotion Commission need to be merged. They carry out functions that are not so distinguishable from each other and sometimes their duties overlap. Some ministries as well need to be merged, while some need to be scrapped totally. There is also no justification that there will be three senators representing one state in the senate chambers considering the amount it costs the country to service one senator on a monthly basis. The number of house of representatives members from each state needs to be looked into as well.

There is a lot of personnel in government agencies and ministries who are just there loitering around and it is clear that they do not have a clear assignment and are of no use to the government as their employer.Once most of the “not so useful” personnel is retrenched, it will not just save more money for the government, but it will also speed up the decision-making process in government agencies and also cut down the unnecessary bureaucratic protocols that are employed before decisions are made in government offices.

With the trips expenditures slashing, the Governors and lawmakers should queue behind the President by cutting down their entourage too. Many Governors today cannot implement the minimum wage of N30,000 for the civil service in their states because of their carefree revenue derivations but living luxurious lifestyles with their families home and abroad.

Since most of these Governors rely on the monthly allocations from the Federal government to run the affairs of their states, Mr. President should deliberately ensure that they key into this culture of slashing their official trips in terms of security details and personnel.

The National Assembly members led by the Senate President, Senator Goodwill Akpabio and the Speaker of House of Representatives, Hon. Tajudeen Abbas should also do the needful by cutting down their entourage and aides like wise at the judiciary arm of government. If the leadership of these three arms of government can maintain a simple lifestyle, definitely their subordinates will follow sites without grudges.

Critically, the 2024 budget has been passed by the lawmakers and signed into the law by Mr. President. However, there are some unnecessary allocations by the Ministries Departments and Agencies (MDAs) of government such as purchasing of stationery, furniture to a tune of billions  of Naira, vehicles for their DGs, MDs, Directors which is unnecessary and these extravagances can be reviewed if the leadership of Tinubu wants the economy to strive.