Faulty Presidential Jet Aborts Vice President Shettima's US Summit Trip

Plans by the Vice President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, Kashim Shettima to represent the President at the 2024 US- Africa Business Summit in Dallas Texas has been aborted by a faulty presidential jet today.

According to sources, the presidential jet was said to have developed fault as the Vice President took off for the trip to the United States for the 2024 US- Africa Business Summit in Dallas Texas, forcing a detour.

The Vice President’s jet, a Presidential Gulfstream 550 which is usually a backup and also used by the Vice-President was said to have developed a similar fault, during the recent trip to Kenya.

Reports said the Vice President arrived a recent event in Kenya on a "chartered" aircraft. One wonders what could have happened if the fault was not detected on ground. 

Sequel to the development, the Minister of Foreign Affairs,Yusuf Tuggar is now scheduled to represent President Bola Tinubu at the 2024 US-Africa Business Summit in Dallas, Texas.

Stanley Nkwocha, Senior Special Assistant to the President on Media and Communications, Office of the Vice President, in a statement, said the fault was detected by vigilant technical team attached to the Presidential Air Fleet. 

According to the statement, " Vice President Kashim Shettima who was originally scheduled to represent the President was unable to make the trip following a technical fault with his aircraft, forcing him to make a detour on the advice of the Presidential Air Fleet.  

The statement said, the Vice President will carry on with other national assignments in the absence of the President who is currently out of the country.

Open Television reports that the target summit is a global class, high-profile summit, taking place at the Kay Bailey Hutchison Convention Center, where political and business leaders from across Africa, the United States, and other regions will converge on Dallas Texas with high-level dialogues, networking sessions, and plenaries prominently featured at the summit.

 Other African heads of state expected at the summit are: President Joseph Boakai of Liberia, President Lazarus Chakwera of Malawi, President Joao Lourenço of Angola, President Mokgweetsi E.K. Masisi of Botswana, President José Maria Neves of Cabo Verde, and Deputy Prime Minister Nthomeng Majara of Lesotho.

The US-Africa Business Summit aims to foster economic cooperation and explore investment opportunities between the United States and African countries.

Open Television Naija recalls that Nigeria’s Presidential fleets have in recent times, witnessed similar awkward situations where the President’s jet could not fly due to technical faults.

From the records, former President Muhammadu Buhari and his delegation experienced similar challenge when he traveled to the United States, where he was reported to have narrowly escaped an air mishap after the presidential jet marked 5N-FGT suddenly developed a fault while they were returning to Nigeria from the United Nation’s General Assembly, in September, 2021.

A similar scenario played out in 2018, when one of the aircrafts in the Presidential fleet Gulfstream 550, could not fly back to Nigeria, after the 2018 United Nations Climate Change Conference, tagged COP24, at Katowice, in Poland, due to technical faults as it took the vigilant Polish aircraft technical team to notice the fault in the aircraft attached to the then National Security Adviser NSA.

Following to observed fault, the aircraft spent extra four days in Poland for some maintenance before returning to Nigeria.

Recently, there are unconfirmed reports in some quarters, suggesting that President Tinubu’s jet has equally developed faults during the President's trip to Saudi Arabia, from the Netherlands.

The President was said to have waited for the aircraft to be repaired before he left Saudi Arabia.

Meanwhile, President Tinubu is yet to come back to Nigeria, a full week after the event in question leading the Presidential aspirant of the opposition party, Atiku Abubabakar to throw jibes at the Presidency in a press interview granted by him in which he pointed out that the absence of the President in the country coupled with the trip by the Vice President suggests that Nigeria is momentarily set on some kind of rudderless auto-pilot mode.