By Vera Chinonso Aliyu, YeyeNews.com, October 19, 2021
With a budget of about N301,138,860 for food, President Buhari will be doing nothing else but eat in 2022. This figure was contained in the 2022 budget document presented to the National Assembly. A source in the presidential villa told YeyeNews.com that the president is determined to grow rotund in 2022.
“People have told the president that he can never grow fat. Even his wife often tease him about it. But the president has decided that in 2022 all he will do is eat and pick his teeth. He wants to prove to everyone that he can grow fat. That’s why so much money was budgeted for food.”
YeyeNews.com learned that aides in the president’s office are already making monetary bets on whether the budgeted amount will be enough to fatten the president in one year. “Some aides believes that the president is naturally a slim person and that no amount of food he eats will fatten him up. But some others disagree. To settle this dispute some have placed huge bets which they have lodged in a dedicated account awaiting the end of 2022”, one aide said.
Some lawmakers however expressed dissatisfaction over the large sum for the president’s feeding at a time that citizens are grappling with the prospect of starvation as a result of astronomical inflation. “He – the president – was not elected to Aso Rock to eat and grow fat. He was elected to improve the lives of Nigerians. Allocating over N825,000 per day for himself for feeding alone is unacceptable. For that his tiny body? Give me a break! It is utterly ridiculous that people have now started placing bets if the president will grow fat or not. They have turned the State House into a restaurant and Baba Ijebu office rolled into one”, the source quoted one lawmaker as saying.
Another lawmaker who spoke to YeyeNews.com reporter called on the leadership of the National Assembly to drastically reduce the amount for the president’s food. “The leadership must do something about that outrageous amount. The president is not the only elected person. Besides, you can’t be feeding fat while those who elected you are starving. Part of that money for food should be used to fund more of our people oriented projects that can directly improve the lives of citizens ”.
Meanwhile, civil society groups have expressed doubts over the ability of the National Assembly to reduce the outrageous amount. The director of Open Society For Awareness, Mr. Nduka Nyesom, said that the legislators were guilty of the same budgetary excesses and would definitely turn a blind eye as trying to taking on the presidency would shine eyes on their own part of the budget.
