By Oge Okonkwo
The Presidency
reportedly spent N37.64 billion on presidential trips, logistics, foreign
exchange and other travel-related expenses between June 2023 and April 2026.
The figure is contained
in an analysis of GovSpend, a civic technology platform created by BudgIT to
track and simplify the Federal Government’s treasury payments and actual
expenditure.
The disclosure came as
President Bola Tinubu left Abuja on Sunday for a three-week annual holiday,
with London as his first destination.
Official travel records
show that Tinubu has spent about 261 days outside Nigeria, visiting at least 30
countries in 51 foreign trips since he took office on May 29, 2023.
GovSpend records showed
that travel-related spending by the President stood at N9.18 billion in the
second half of 2023, N25.26 billion in 2024, N2.7 billion in 2025 and N477.4
million between January and April 2026.
The
spending peaked in 2024, with the analysis linking the increase largely to
foreign exchange allocations and funding for the Presidential Air Fleet.
The
records also showed that $553,884, valued at N700.7 million at the applicable
exchange rates, was released for overseas trips involving First Lady Oluremi
Tinubu between 2023 and 2024.
President
of the Transparency and Accountability Group, Ayo Ologun, questioned the legal
basis for using public funds to finance official foreign trips by the First
Lady.
“Because
her office is not recognised by the law, if it is established that public money
was spent on supposed official travels, the question should be: what is the
duty?” Ologun said.
“If it is spent on the wife of the President, that is abuse
of power,” he added.
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