Going by details of the 2024 budget, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s government prioritizes the comfort of its officials over the education of millions of Nigerian students. The 2024 budget proposal which President Bola Ahmed Tinubu presented last week to a joint session of the National Assembly, shows the allocation for renovation of Vice President Kashim Shettima official residence to be N15 billion. The budget also shows N10 billion allocated for reconstruction and repair of the Chief of Staff’s official residence.
President Tinubu’s 2024 budget proposal allocates N15 billion for renovation of Vice President Kashim Shettima’s residence and N10 billion for reconstruction of the residence of the Chief of Staff, Femi Gbajabiamila. The former House Speaker will also receive N104 million for computer and printer purchases, N579 million for travel, N103 million for miscellaneous expenses, and N290 million for vehicles.
Regretfully, almost a million Nigerian students will however make do with N5 billion as the allocation for students loan, even though the House of Representatives has removed a controversial N5 billion presidential yacht item in the 2023 supplementary budget and transferred it to students’ loan totaling N10 billion.
But the Tinubu’s government allocation of just N5 billion for loan of all Nigerian students and N25 billion for renovation of two residence of Shettima and Gbajabiamila, has caused outrage among Nigerians.