By Abdulfatah Babatunde
A pro-democracy group, The Democratic Front (TDF), has viewed the controversy trailing the acquisition of an aeroplane to service the office of the President and Commander-in-Chief of the Federal Republic of Nigeria as unwarranted.
Mallam Danjuma Muhammad, Chairman and Chief Wale Adedayo, Secretary of TDF made the observation in a statement emailed to TheNewsZenith on Monday.
The group stated that the controversy and condemnation following the acquisition was an unnecessary outrage.
It added that the opposition expressed so far, was tainted, biased and short-sighted.
TDF acknowledged the utmost importance of making its position public on the unwarranted outrage and biased opinion by the opposition about the recent aeroplane purchase.
The new Airbus A 330 is to replace the 19-year-old Boeing BBJ 737-700 by the Federal Government.
This is in a bid to facilitate the official trips of the President, both within and outside Nigeria.
The group stated that its background check revealed that all the 15 planes in the presidential fleet that the APC government inherited in 2015, are problematic.
They are also obsolete and costly to maintain, due to their years of production.
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“The costs for maintaining some of the planes are so prohibitive, exorbitant and constituted a drain in the resources of the government.
“This informed former President Muhammadu Buhari’s decision to reduce the fleet to 10 to reduce the cost of maintenance.
“In every country, the operations of the presidential fleet is the prerogative of the National Security Adviser.
“The Office of National Security Adviser (ONSA) has advised on the need to replace the Air Force One plane with a more recent brand.
“Nigeria can not afford to throw caution to the winds by exposing her number one citizen to the danger of avoidable air crashes,” TheNewsZenith quotes the statement as reading in part.
TDF further noted that many countries like Poland, Gabon, DRCongo, Burundi, Brazil, Venezuela, Pakistan and Iran have lost their Presidents to air crashes.
“These happened due to a lack of timely proactive action to attend to the demands for maintaining their presidential planes. Nigeria must avoid their costly inactions.”
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