The League of Northern Democrats has asked President Bola Tinubu to lead by example in the Federal Government’s push to cut the cost of governance.
President Tinubu had faced intense criticisms over what many described as the flamboyant lifestyle of officeholders in the face of the harsh economic conditions worsened by the twin policies of fuel subsidy removal and the floating of the naira.
In a bid to reduce the cost of governance, Tinubu on Thursday restricted ministerial convoys to three vehicles.
Despite this measure, the League of Northern Democrats, which is a political movement, says the Nigerian leader should do more.
“Look, leadership is all about inspiration. It’s not an inverted pyramid. You have to, by your ways, by your actions, show the led from the best of examples,” the spokesman of the group Ladan Salihu said on Friday’s edition of Channels Television’s Sunrise Daily.
“You cannot buy a presidential jet for 170 billion at the going rate and buy a yacht for five billion and do a cost-saving measure. Put together, that is almost half of these expenses. So, it is just merely symbolic.”
‘It Won’t Happen’
Tinubu’s directive to the ministers has continued to generate debates among Nigerians. The presidency believes it is an attempt at leading by example.
However, Salihu is not optimistic about the measure and has raised concerns about its implementation.
“When you say you have reduced the ministerial vehicles to three, as a journalist- let me use this word loosely down – I will ask you, ‘What about the remaining vehicles?’” he said.
“Where are they going to be warehoused? Are they going to be kept in the garage? The vehicles are there already. They’ve been bought. So, what it means is that if I am a minister and I have 10 vehicles, I’ll keep seven.”
“So, we are not, in my opinion, about to see a drastic change in the chain of convoys ministers have,” the group’s spokesman said.
“Do not expect to see the convoy of a minister with three vehicles. It won’t happen. If someone tells me it is going to happen; if somebody tells you it is going to happen, we are just fooling ourselves,” he noted.