Encomium
‘It’s can’t be more than N36,000’
-Shoes designer explains
In what could be labelled as an attempt to whip up public sentiments against the President, Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) new Media Secretary, Deji Adeyanju on Monday, March 14, 2016, claimed that President Muhammed Buhari’s shoes were worth a whooping $8000 (around N1,576,000 at official rate).
He made the claim in a series of tweets along with snapshots of the said shoes as the President boarded his flight to Equatorial Guinea in Abuja.
His words, “The so called poor man turned President now wears $8,000 shoes. How interesting”.
Adeyanju, who tweets @adeyanjudeji, continuing added: “same poor Buhari who they told you will sell off our Presidential Jets is now wearing this type of shoe. Look closely.”
Squashing the erroneous claims, Richard, a shoe designer, who ENCOMIUM Weekly spoke with stated emphatically that there was no way the shoes could cost that much.
His words, “The worth of those shoes should be between N24,000 and N36,000, and that’s stretching it. It’s a loafer, it shouldn’t be more than that except it is custom made. We can’t conclude it is. But if it’s a regular shoe, it can’t cost more than that.”
On what brand he thinks the shoe is, he said: “I can’t tell what brand it is and there’s no monopoly of design. Except there’s a name crested on it. It could even be a Nigerian-made shoe. If it’s foreign made, it can’t be worth more than that. But if it is custom made, it could be much more than N36,000 but there’s no way that shoe is worth $8,000. It doesn’t look special, it looks like a normal shoe to me”.
-MICHAEL NWOKIKE
