Vice President Kashim Shettima touched down in Kenya in the early hours of Monday on a chartered aircraft after two airplanes in the Nigerian presidential fleet developed technical malfunctions that rendered them inoperative.

Mr Shettima is billed to represent his principal, President Bola Tinubu — currently attending a session of the World Economic Forum in Saudi Arabia—  at the International Development Association (IDA21) Heads of State Summit in Nairobi, Kenya.

A video seen by Peoples Gazette showed Mr Shettima descending a commercial plane early Monday as Kenyan officials warmly welcomed him.

The vice-president resorted to flying commercial after his dedicated aircraft Gulfstream G550 class, sent to relieve Mr Tinubu’s faulty Boeing 737 jet, also developed mechanical complications resulting in an oxygen leak that nearly left the president stranded in the Netherlands last Friday.  Mr Tinubu had to alternatively charter a jet to Saudi Arabia to avoid missing the two-day event.

But Mr Shettima’s Gulfstream jet, already repaired, is now waiting in Saudi Arabia to return Mr Tinubu to Nigeria at the end of the economic summit on April 29.

Left without an official carrier, Mr Shettima used commercial aircraft to transport himself in and out of Nigeria on official trips.

The Gazette learnt that over $8 million had been spent between December 2022 and present to repair Mr Tinubu’s 26-year-old Boeing 737 jet.

The aircraft manufactured in 1998 and delivered to former Nigerian leader Olusegun Obasanjo in 2005 has served five presidents and may have outlived its usefulness given its incessant mechanical faults that cost hundreds of thousands of dollars to fix. 

Aviation experts rebuked the Nigerian government for squandering the nation’s meagre resources on an outdated aircraft and advised the presidency to acquire a new jet.

Whereas Mr Tinubu has managed to carry out his official duties despite a pattern of last-minute troubles with presidential planes, administration officials are nonetheless concerned that the frequent glitches, besides being immensely embarrassing for the country, could potentially inflict a catastrophe of historic proportions.

Aside from the humiliation the Nigerian president has experienced due to the ongoing malfunctions, government officials worry that Mr Tinubu’s prolonged use of the Boeing 737 jet posed a much higher risk, from which the terrible consequences could take years to heal.