By Halimah Olamide
Chief of Staff to President Bola Tinubu, Femi Gbajabiamila, on Wednesday opened up on alleged huge sum of money being bandied for the renovation of his official residence. Gbajabiamila, in an X post said he still lives in his private residence adding that there is no provision for the renovation of his residence in the 2024 Appropriations Bill.
he Chief of Staff said he has seen social media commentary regarding the 2024 Appropriation Bill, particularly the provisions under the Office of the Chief of Staff to the President.
He said, “Owing to the erroneous nature of these reports, it has become necessary to clarify that there is no provision in the 2024 Appropriation Bill for the renovation of any residence for the Chief of Staff to the President. I live in my private residence.”
Gbajabiamila said the sums being quoted online are “mischievous” adding that they are also for renovating the Presidential Quarters in Dodan Barracks and the Vice President’s Lodge in Lagos, to overhaul the information management and communications facilities in the Presidency to meet modern standards and to provide vehicles for the staff of the Presidency.
“The sums proposed for these projects are clearly stated in the budget proposal and bear no resemblance to the deceptive online commentary.
“This administration welcomes and encourages scrutiny of government expenditure; this is why the Budget proposal is publicly available.
However, healthy public debate about government actions requires us to be responsible with our utterances and engage based on facts rather than insinuations and falsehoods.”
A data analysis group, Statisense, had quoted the budget of the office of the Chief of Staff in the last 5yrs stating that this is the first time the office of the Chief of Staff alone would have about N21bn.
Statisense had quoted the figures as follows:
2020: ₦24.35 million
2021: ₦76.55 million
2022: ₦526.47 million
2023: ₦517.95 million
2024*: ₦21.22 billion