Presidency Rejects Tinubu’s T-Pain Alias,  Says President Feels Nigerians’ Pain

*Onanuga:   Presidential jet refurbished, belongs to Nigeria

*Explains why Yahaya Bello has not been arrested by EFCC
*Discloses Tinubu briefed ministers before discharging them

Emmanuel Addeh in Abuja

The Presidency yesterday denounced the T-Pain moniker given to President Bola Tinubu by social media users in Nigeria, describing the alias as ‘mischievous’.
The president’s spokesman, Mr Bayo Onanuga, who was speaking when he appeared on a national television, said that his principal was not insensitive to the hardship in the land.
“The president is aware that the citizens are going through some difficulties,” he stressed, but explained that Tinubu does not read stuff on social media.

He added: “Some people have also responded and called the president a different name. So, as far as I am concerned, it is a non-issue. Some people out of mischief just say somebody is T-Pain. He  is not T-Pain.
“The president has never shied away from telling Nigerians that he feels their pain and he is working very hard to make sure that he gives them some relief so that things will get better and this country will get more prosperity.”
Many Nigerians blame the president for the current hardship in the land, brought about mainly by the removal of subsidy on petrol and the ’floating’ of the Naira.

 Onanuga also disclosed that the president addressed the recently discharged ministers in the recent cabinet shake-up, stressing that their sack was a result of the scorecard presented by the Special Adviser on Policy and Coordination, Hadiza Bala Usman.
“The president did not just change his ministers whimsically. The change went through some procedure. From October last year when we had a retreat, the president told the ministers that they would be assessed. Hadiza, the Special Adviser on Policy and Coordination, was put in charge.

“She also didn’t do it whimsically. She set up the use of technology, asking citizens of Nigeria to actually score the ministers. To assess this process, I think some data were gotten from what people were saying and the scoring that the Nigerians themselves made. It was on that basis that the president acted upon.
“Some people said  ‘sacked’. But the president used a milder word  ‘discharged’. When he asked them to go on Wednesday, He was very polite and told them about his decision. He thanked them for their services to the country and wished them well. That was unlike what we are used to before, people just being sacked on radio or television,” the presidential spokesman explained.

Separately, in an interview on another programme on the same station, Onanuga argued that the president did not acquire a new official jet but a refurbished one, arguing that the jet belongs to Nigerians and is not Tinubu’s property.
“It’s not President Tinubu’s plane, it belongs to the people of Nigeria, it is our property,” Onanuga said.
According to him, some jets in the presidential fleet like a 19-year-old Boeing B737-700 purchased under ex-President Olusegun Obasanjo are all in bad condition, and their maintenance costs were outrageous.

He pointed out that instead of spending huge amount of money on aircraft maintenance, the president sought the approval of the National Assembly for a refurbished jet.
He said: “The president did not buy a new jet; what he has is a refurbished jet – it had been used by somebody else before he got it but it is a much newer model than the one President Muhammadu Buhari used.

“The one President Buhari used was bought by President Obasanjo some 20 years ago. There was a time the president went to Saudi Arabia, that plane developed some problems and the president had to leave with a chartered jet to The Netherlands.”

On the drama surrounding the planned arrest of former Governor Yahaya Bello, he stated that security agencies had not been able to apprehend him because of the “complicated” nature of the case.

 “I think it’s a bit complicated. The EFCC is an agency of the federal government, and it wants to arrest Yahaya Bello. Yahaya Bello is hiding under the agbada of the governor of Kogi State, his successor, who happens to enjoy immunity.

“That’s the problem because if he stays inside Governor Ododo’s house, the police cannot do anything because they will be violating that immunity that the man enjoys.

“It’s like a diplomat enjoying certain immunity, you cannot do anything about it. You remember in the UK when they were looking for the Wikileaks man and he went to hide in one embassy in Britain, there was nothing they (security agents) could do, they left him there. I think he later came out and they arrested him.

“It’s the same thing. Ododo enjoys immunity. Yahaya Bello is believed to be hiding there. They cannot storm the place and say they want to arrest him. That’s the problem of the EFCC, and the police cannot help the EFCC,” he said when asked about the case.