The Presidency has made spirited efforts to extricate itself from the embarrassing provision of N5.095 billion for the procurement of Presidential Yacht as contained in the 2023 Supplementary Budget. With the unprecedented level of poverty and hardship in the country, this faced pushback by Nigerians, culminating in its rejection by the House of Representatives.

Below is the reaction of Bayo Onanuga, Special Adviser to the President on Information & Strategy and Group Captain Sadeeq Garba Shehu (rtd), an international Defence and Security Consultant.
On Tuesday, issued a rebuttal, calling what was listed as Presidential Yacht in the Supplementary Budget as “Naval Boat.”

Onanuga said in a statement titled ‘THE FACTS ON THE NAVAL BOAT IN 2023 SUPPLEMENTARY BUDGET: “Following public reactions over the provision for what is termed presidential yacht and other line items in the 2023 Supplementary Appropriation presented to the National Assembly, it is important to provide some clarifications.

“First, we need to make clear that President Bola Tinubu’s administration respects the views of Nigerians on all matters of public concern. We thus consider it very imperative to clear any misconception and misunderstanding of the issues.

“1. What was named as Presidential Yacht in the budget is an Operational Naval boat with specialized security gadgets suitable for high profile operational inspection and not for the use of the President. It is called presidential yacht by way of nomenclature because of the high level security features.

“2. The Naval boat was ordered by the navy under the previous administration. President Tinubu has consistently said that government is a continuum as he inherited both assets and liabilities of past administrations.

“3. The payment request for the boat was part of the committed obligation submitted by the office of the Chief of Naval Staff to the Ministry of Defence. The total of the submitted requests was in excess of N200 billion out which N62 billion was approved by the President.

“4. President Tinubu is focused on securing our country and territorial waters. The Federal Government under his leadership is investing more resources to enhance greater economic output from our oil and gas, marine and blue economy.

“In President Tinubu, we have a leader who understands the economic challenges being faced by the masses. His administration is working very hard to confront and surmount those challenges. Nigerians will soon get the benefits of the ongoing reforms that will certainly lead to a buoyant and improved quality of life for all citizens.”

But Group Captain Sadeeq Garba Shehu (rtd), in a chat a news medium said: “Unfortunately, if it’s the Nigerian Navy that gave Mr President this explanation (as in above), I must say paragraph one is misleading. And the President, Commander-in-Chief must not be misled on military matters. The word “Yacht” signifies a luxury ship for leisure, It has nothing to do with an operational ship or any “special gadgets.”

“The Presidential Yacht requested is meant to be a leisure/luxury ship, nothing more, nothing less. Similar to the Presidential Yacht that US Presidents used to have purely for recreation and entertainment of foreign dignitaries and fleet reviews from the 19th century till 1977 when President Jimmy Carter decided that maintaining the Presidential Yachtes was a colossal waste of tax payers’ money and auctioned them off to private citizens.

“Since Carter, no President has revived presidential Yacht. Currently only eight countries have Presidential Yachtes – Egypt, Finland, India, Turkey, former Yugoslavia, Italy, Philippines and Russia. Let’s just take it, one, if only one unnecessary expenditure has …