- Many wealthy Nigerian individuals became who and what they are today because of the deep and pervasive culture of patronage in the Nigerian government, and to maintain their access to money and power, they have to continue ingratiating themselves to those in power.
Elites, big corporations and wealthy individuals are practically the same all over the world. They share the same disposition and creed when it comes to money. Their desire is to make money and spend less on things, like taxes and duties, that adversely affect their bottom line but increase the financial worth of other entities like the government and their employees.
On Wednesday, the federal government, through the Nigeria Customs Service, said it has grounded 60 private jets across major Nigerian airports over unpaid customs duties running into several billions of naira.
The Federal Government had, on October 14, 2024, announced a plan to ground over 60 private jets owned by very important persons in the country over unpaid import duty beginning from that day. This was not implemented as the NCS later that same day announced the extension of the verification exercise for private jet owners by one month, from October 14, 2024, to November 14, 2024.
This kind of evasion of financial obligations to the government by influential and wealthy individuals is at the heart of Nigeria’s dysfunction. It’s symptomatic of the problems that Nigeria grapples with when it comes to dealing with people who think they are above the law and can game the system. But this is not the first time wealthy individuals and business moguls have been when it comes to defaulting on financial obligations to the government. The Internet is littered with a litany of reports on how corporations and wealthy individuals find themselves in the crosshairs of Asset Management Corporation of Nigeria (AMCON) over non-performing loans (NPL).
The spokesperson of the Nigeria Customs Service, Abdullahi Maiwada, has underscored the importance of getting these crafty and thrifty billionaires why they owe in custom duties and ‘give what is due to Nigerians’. Hinging the decision to ground the aircraft on the need to generate revenue for Nigerians has a fine ring to it but we all know Nigerians are the least of the reasons they made the move.
In Nigeria, things are not always like they seem. Many of the owners of these private jets may be let off the hook without paying the import duties they owe. Many wealthy Nigerian individuals became who and what they are today because of the deep and pervasive culture of patronage in the Nigerian government, and to maintain their access to money and power, they have to continue ingratiating themselves to those in power.
The feelers we are getting now is that owners of the aircraft, including bank chiefs and multinational oil companies among other individuals, have begun to lobby the Presidency to secure the release of their jets. And, in Nigeria, lobbying government officials is an euphemism for impunity. When people lobby here, they simply ask that they be allowed to get away with breaking the law. Another troubling aspect of this development is that many of these private jets are foreign-registered aircraft, and they fly without security clearance to different parts of the country, which is a security risk to the country.
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