Published 14th Oct, 2021

By Tola Owoyele

Muhammadu Buhari, President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, plans to spend over N2.3 billion on travel and N76,669,965 on residential rent in the 2022 fiscal year. This is contained in the N16.39 trillion budget presented to a joint session of the National Assembly on Thursday.

In the appropriation bill, N775,602,580 is earmarked for the president’s local travel and transportation, and N1,533,464,208 for international travel.

The question of residential rents for the headquarters of the State House (Aso Villa) caused a great deal of controversy in 2021, when the sum of N66.6 million was allocated for this same purpose.

The rent debate also elicited a response from Ibrahim Babangida, a former Nigerian head of state, in 2016 when he asked the government who the landlord was.

“I built Aso Rock and I wonder who the current landlord is. I read a certain N22m has been set aside as payment of Aso Rock rent. Rent to who? Me or GEJ?” Babangida asked in 2016.

Nigeria is one of the poorest nations in the world with an unemployment rate of 33.3 percent, which means that 23.2 million out of the about 70 million people who should be gainfully employed in Nigeria are out of work.

More than 40 percent of the country’s 200 million population is also believed to be living under the poverty line of a dollar per day.

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