Group condemns Buhari’s N4.8bn budget for clinic and website, saysits embarrasing

The President, Rights Monitoring Group and
Country Director, Centre on Convention for
Democratic Integrity, Mr. Femi Aduwo,
described the N4bn proposed for Aso Rock
clinic and N800m for a website in the 2016
budget as embarrassing and abnormal.
He said, “If N4bn is proposed for Aso Rock
clinic in a year and the facility is meant for
the Very Important People, I want to
believe that the VIPs go beyond the
President and the Vice-President. For
example, if you have an equipped clinic in
Aso Rock, all the former presidents, former
ministers and former governors can go
there for medical checkup, but as it were
today, we know that all the former
presidents and former governors don’t use
Aso Rock clinic. This is an Aso Rock clinic
that could not take care of former President
Umaru Yar’Adua when he was sick.
“So, if you propose N4bn to be spent and
there are elements of trust and
transparency in the spending, there is no
problem with that, but if you propose N10
for the project and the money is looted or
stolen, we will still go back to square one.
He also added that it was embarrassing
that N800m was being proposed for a
website in this modern era, citing that the
website of the United States President,
Barack Obama, cost less than $1m.
The activists claimed that the proposals
were the direct opposite of President
Muhammadu Buhari’s change mantra.
Another activist and lawyer, Mr. Ebun
Adegboruwa, recalled how Nigerians were
angry with former President Goodluck
Jonathan who budgeted N1bn for feeding
in 2014. He urged Buhari to be a “shining
example of a Spartan leader who is not
interested in living a life of luxury at the
expense of the people he was elected to
govern. He should let the charity begin at
home.”
“Though I accept the fact that the Office of
the President deserves all the glamour and
the state of the art equipment, the amount
budgeted for Aso Rock renovation, for
website, for Aso Rock clinic, for
maintenance of generator is becoming like
a scandal to us as a nation. This is very bad
and I urge the President to scale down the
items of luxury; the items that have no
explanation.” he said.