President’s children not entitled to use presidential jets –Falana

Senior lawyer,  Femi Falana, has faulted the use of presidential aircraft by President Muhammadu Buhari’s children and family members for private functions.

Hanan Buhari, the president’s daughter, had flown in a presidential jet to Bauchi last week Thursday for a durbar on the invitation of Rilwanu Adamu, Emir of Bauchi.

Following outrage by Nigerians, presidential spokesman, Garba Shehu said it was a normal practice for the president’s family to use the presidential aircraft.

“The normal practice in existence for a long time is that the presidential air fleet is available to the president and the first family and four others. These four are the vice-president, the senate president the speaker and any other person authorised by the president,” Shehu said.

But in a statement, yesterday, Falana said there was no such practice, and that the “official policy” of the Federal Government “does not authorise the children of the president to use the presidential jets to attend to private social functions. In fact, there is no precedent whatsoever for such privatisation of the presidency of Nigeria.”

Falana  said the use of aircraft in the presidential fleet for private events by the first family was not backed by law and called on President Buhari to stop members of his family from the act.

He said Buhari had promised to reduce the cost of maintaining aircraft in the presidential fleet, which according to him, stands at N8.5 billion in the 2020 budget.

“The so called ‘normal practice’ of using the aircraft in the presidential fleet by members of the first family to attend to private engagements is not backed by any extant law or official policy. In view of the foregoing, we call on President Buhari to stop the members of his family from using any of the aircraft in the presidential fleet ‘with a view to cutting down on waste’. A country that is said to be the headquarters of the greatest number of poverty stricken people in the world cannot afford to waste billions of naira on the use of presidential aircraft and hiring of commercial jets by state governors that are owing workers several months of unpaid salaries,” Falana said.