AS if to remind the public that he was once an activist lawyer, Minister of Aviation and Aerospace Development, Festus Keyamo, recently moved to ensure that Very Important Personalities, VIPs, who have hitherto enjoyed some free services at our airports will now pay for them.

Such services include toll gate, parking and executive lounge fees. Almost everyone who is anyone touting bombastic positions in society, especially those who travel in security convoys, bluster their ways through without paying.

Lamenting the losses to government, Keyamo said: “This has led to the annual losses of billions of naira, not millions, in the past. Yet, our airport infrastructure, you know, is decaying. I am helpless. I am looking for concessionaires”. He pointed out that the same VIPs are the first to complain about the poor state of our airports.

Keyamo disclosed that when he tabled a memo to President Bola Tinubu to compel everybody, except the President and Vice President to pay, Tinubu made sure that even the President and his VP will pay.

The principle of getting people who use facilities at the airports to pay, irrespective of their stations in government or society, is well-placed, provided a sustainable mechanism is designed to make it work. We should go beyond just the airports and put an end to the entitlement mentality that contributes in rendering our society backward. We live in a fractured society where the rich and powerful enjoy “free rides” while the struggling masses are made to pay through their noses from their lean pockets.

We see the self-inclusion by the president as a mere pandering to populism. In the first place, the president and his deputy have the presidential wings in our airports which they use as part of their official entitlements. Are they to pay now? Even when they have to pass through airport toll gates, which attendant will have the nerve to close the gate against a president’s (or even governor’s) convoy?

Even if Tinubu opts to pay, imagine how long it will take for his usually large convoys to settle the bill before moving on to his destination? We must avoid taking knee-jerk measures even when seeking to do the right thing.

We suggest that only the President, VP; Senate President and his Deputy; Speaker, House of Representatives and his Deputy and the Chief Justice of the Federation should be excluded for obvious reasons. At the state levels, the Governor and his Deputy, Speaker of the House and his Deputy and the State’s Chief Judge, should be similarly privileged. The rest must pay.

Increasing government revenue sources is important. Equally important is the need to spend it prudently. That is an area this administration must work harder on.

Government officials must live in the same economy that they create for the masses.