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Category: Sunday

  • 2024 and the belly of the year

    2024 and the belly of the year

    One of the most striking and most memorable idioms I have heard before is “Igi l’óyún.” (‘The tree is pregnant.’) This was used at a local community meeting by an elderly Yoruba man many years ago. He said the community needed to climb a tree (i.e., had a critical task to perform), but the tree was pregnant. Now, what does climbing a pregnant tree entail? It entails introspection (thinking deeply), ingenuity (thinking outside the box), circumspection (looking very well before leaping), and tenderness (avoiding harming the foetus and missing the goal). These are all values indispensable to successfully navigating Year 2024.
    As morning shows the day, the declaration by President Tinubu in his inaugural speech on 29 May, 2023 that “Fuel subsidy is gone”, and the removal of the dual exchange rate regime, ensured that the Nigerian economy would be the predominant subject of public discourse for a long time. Predicting what would be in the belly of year 2024 on 22 July, 2023 and reiterating it on 5 September, 2023, reputable economist and banker Mr. Bismarck Jemide Rewane remarked as follows: “The bad news is that there is pain and there will be more pain in the short run but the good news is that there will be gains in the first quarter of 2024.” I have heard people cite Mr. Rewane’s prognostication as a justification for anticipating, as with any normal pregnancy, the birth of succour or ‘a bundle of joy’ this year.
    Incidentally, President Tinubu himself said to a delegation of former Governors who visited him on 12 July, 2023: “I understand that our people are suffering, yet there can be no childbirth without pain. The joy of childbirth is the baby. Relief comes after the pain. Nigeria is being reborn. It is a rebirth of the country for the largest number, over a few smugglers.” In a related direction, the Minister of Information and National Orientation, Mr. Idris Mohammed, was reported to have said, “Certainly, there is a new wage regime that will come in on April 1, 2024.”
    As the President and the Minister continue to make such mollifying statements, some economic/financial experts seem to be more obsessed with economic/financial theories than with the alleviation of the pains of the populace. One scare-mongering expression with which such experts are enamoured is “hyper-inflation”. And they use it to support or recommend minimal salary awards or ineffectual wage concessions. The argument of such experts goes like this: If you grant substantial or significant wage increases or financial awards, it will create hyper-inflation. This may make sense to the theorists, but seems to make very little or no sense to workers or citizens whose purchasing power has been radically reduced by desirable, but painful government policies. This may be the case, because one of the justifications of such policies, especially the fuel subsidy removal, is that it would make more money available to the government who would then be able to serve the needs of the people better.
    This situation reveals an economic cultural conflict. In, for example, Yoruba cultural economics, the preoccupation is with ensuring optimal purchasing power, while with the Westernised economic experts, the priority seems to be with preventing inflation. The Yoruba position is encoded in the proverb, “Ọjà tí a bá rówó rà kò wọ́n.” (‘Goods that we can afford to buy are not expensive or inflationary.’) In other words, anything that the generality of hardworking people can afford is not expensive. This cultural attitude needs to be taken into consideration in designing and implementing economic policies. Where such policies that put the people’s welfare and not fidelity to economic theories at the centre of public policy results in problems such as inflation, it would be the duty of economic experts to innovatively think of strategies to mitigate the concomitant problems. A related issue concerns the appeal to the people to be patient while awaiting the positive impact of painful economic policies. The cultural attitude to such appeals is shown in the proverb, “Àyangbẹ ajá dùn, ṣùgbọ́n nǹkan kan la ó ma jẹ kí ajá ó tó gbẹ.” (‘Dry roast dog meat is sweet; but there has to be something for us to be eating before the dog meat gets dry.’)
    Education, especially university education, is also of key significance in Year 2024’s multiple birth, and how issues in contest are resolved deserve attention. Arising from the unsavoury 8-month-long strike of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) in 2022, various sections of society suffered different kinds of casualty. Students suffered dislocation in their education; businesses that depend on students to thrive recorded avoidable loss; student-related businesses that depend on bank loans to survive suffered repayment default; some parents incurred huge unanticipated financial burdens, because they had to seek alternative educational opportunities for their children and wards in high-fee-paying Nigerian private universities and foreign institutions; some Nigerians fell prey to fraudsters in substandard or fake foreign universities; some university lecturers suffered financial embarrassment and some lost their lives due to the International Labour Organisation recognised “No work, no pay” policy; and the “japa” syndrome (the large-scale emigration of Nigerians from the country) was aggravated. In other words, the 2022 ASUU strike caused what may be called “Equal Opportunity Loss”.
    In the light of the Renewed Hope Agenda of the President Bola Ahmed Tinubu administration, steps have started to be taken to address the areas of conflict between ASUU and the government. One such step is the decision of the President to pay four months out of the about eight months of lecturers’ salaries withheld on account of the strike. One snag with the Presidential magnanimity is the condition that ASUU members would sign an undertaking that this is the last time that they would be paid if they go on strike again. This condition would be creating the kind of ambivalence which a Yoruba proverb enacts as follows: “A ní ká jẹ èkuru kó tán, ẹ tún ń gbọn ọwọ́ rẹ̀ sáwo.” (‘We ask that all bean cake granules should be totally eaten and cleared off a plate, yet you are shaking off the bits stuck to your fingers back on the plate.’) The union has suffered enough and the enforcement of this humiliating condition is unwarranted. In fact, even if all of the eight months withheld salaries are paid today, the value of the money has depreciated so much that the eight months’ pay would just be like paying them around two months’ salaries. Certainly, demoralised academics are neither good for the academia nor for the nation. In line with President Tinubu’s metaphor of birth, its pain and its eventual joy, let all that has happened between ASUU and the government so far with respect to strikes be seen as part of the pangs of birth which would henceforth herald joy.
    The issue of withheld lecturers’ salaries even has an ironical twist. The government has invoked the “No work, no pay” principle ostensibly to dissuade ASUU members from going on strike. At the same time, the government is withholding the salaries of members of the Congress of University Academics (CONUA) whose guiding principle is that flippant strikes are detrimental to the nation’s university system and who have therefore never gone on strike since the formation of the union in 2018 and did not take part in the 2022 strike. In other words, the government has been penalising those who were on strike for going on strike and seems to have been penalising those who were not on strike for not going on strike. The Ministries of Labour and Employment, Education, and Finance need to resolve this queer situation expeditiously.

    Read Also: Adeleke’s sacking of 1,500 teachers increased out-of-school children in Osun, says Oyetola

    The catastrophic explosion in Ibadan, the capital of Oyo State, on Tuesday night also shows what is in the belly of 2024. The explosion was so massive that it has been reported to have had damaging effects within a 25 kilometre radius, and many parts of Ibadan look like a war zone. According to the Governor of the State, the explosion was caused by explosives stored in a residential area by illegal miners. As misty-eyed as we may be arising from that disaster, we cannot stop seeing critical questions calling for clear answers. One, where was the Chairman or Chairmen of the affected Local Government Area or Areas in the aftermath of the explosion? Two, were these government officials hamstrung even in a time of calamity, when they should have demonstrated more responsiveness to their constituents? Three, have efforts of the Government of Oyo State to effectively tackle miners’ deleterious conduct in the state not been undermined by the existing Mining Act and Mining Regulation?
    The last question is critical because the Governor referred to the fact that mining was on the Exclusive List and was the preserve of the Federal Government. But he also referred to the fact that the Land Use Act vested all land in State Governments. This ambivalent and conflict-generating situation makes it imperative for the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria (as amended), the Mining Act 2007 and the Mining Regulations 2011 to be reviewed to give State Governments a bigger role to play in mining matters. Moreover, the roles of different stakeholders need to be made clear to avoid situations in which State Governments would be issuing illegal mining-related directives to Community Leaders, land owners, land users and other stakeholders. The Ibadan disaster also shows why reluctant State Governments should embrace or be made to see the value of Local Government Autonomy.
    So much hope has been raised about this year, and Nigerians are entitled to expect that out of the belly of 2024 would be delivered sustainable good governance. In this regard, in an earlier article titled “Tinubu, the Baobab”, the following thoughts of Yap Kioe Sheng of the United Nations were quoted, and they remain critical: “Good governance has 8 major characteristics. It is participatory, consensus-oriented, accountable, transparent, responsive, effective and efficient, equitable and inclusive and follows the rule of law. It assures that corruption is minimized, the views of minorities are considered and that the voices of the most vulnerable in society are heard in decision-making. It is also responsive to the present and future needs of society.” The article further quotes the following UN-related key question which any effort towards good governance should answer: “Are the institutions of governance effectively guaranteeing the right to health, adequate housing, sufficient food, quality education, fair justice and personal security?”
    2024 is still in its infancy, but there is hope that it would meet the legitimate expectations of Nigerians. Some policies, decisions and actions of the government in these early days of the year justify keeping hope alive. May the government bear this burden of hope with grace.

  • Random Hints

    Random Hints

    Painful like an own goal
    Disastrous like an ill appointed joke

    His sound was faster than his sense
    He fell from the tree of words

    Like fated cockroaches
    We die on our backs

    The baby on mother’s back
    Never knows the pain of distant treks

    The Elephant says its head is too big
    The crab rues the absence of its own

    “Hunger is killing me” is no alarm
    To be raised in a gentle whistle

    Read Also: Adeleke’s sacking of 1,500 teachers increased out-of-school children in Osun, says Oyetola

    Fickle like a politician
    Prodigal like a mindless lottery winner

    Those who underrate the fury of fire
    Will go back home with blistering fingers

    I have mastered the alphabet of your soul
    I can read you like a book

    Every pro-verb carries the burden of knowing
    Every pro-noun the naming of the act

    The tall never goes with short shadows
    Life’s burden calls for those with strong necks

    What will it mean
    To kill two stones with one bird?

    Random HintsDownload
  • THE HOUSE OF HUNGER 2

    THE HOUSE OF HUNGER 2

    Rice is rare
    Gari is distant
    Yam says
    ”Don’t touch me without a golden knife”
    The town is loud
    With the thunder of growling stomachs

    The land lord
    Has jerked up the rent
    And papered hallway walls
    With red-lettered eviction notice
    “If you think my act is evil,
    Ask how cheap a bag of cement is now
    Or the staggering cost of roofing sheets
    Or what the plumber took home
    The last time he fixed the kitchen sink ….”

    The crowded Under-Bridge estate
    Has no room for new comers
    Remember the drenching ferocity
    Of the tropical rain
    And the scorching fury
    Of the Nigerian sun
    Rentable rooms do not fall from the sky
    It takes hard cash to put a roof above your head

    Think twice, dear friend,
    Before falling sick in these precarious times
    Common aspirin will hike your aches
    With its forbidding price
    The traffic between the hospital ward
    And the mortuary is heavy
    And frightfully predictable

    Penury strides along the streets
    Hand-in-hand with Hunger,
    Its fatal, ubiquitous envoy

    All in a land of Big Budgets
    And volatile pledges
    Of a few ‘clever’ billionaires
    And countess, betrayed papers.

    The ruling clan are busy thanking their stars
    The people are soberly counting their scars

  • Now we’re counting the unintended gains of his heroics

    From what has been observed of President Bola Tinubu‘s way of doing things, it is daily becoming clearer that Nigerians have finally gotten themselves a President who does not just listen, but committed to always giving them reasons to delight. A workaholic, who will not allow any sort of barrier, no matter how stringent or flimsy, deter him from a life goal of turning situations around.

    The past week, which happened to be thirty-third of his Presidency, did not fail in sustaining these characterizations of the Jagaban, he did it again. In one week, he made it a draught of significant and landmark achievements. He did so well that a former Presidential aide, under former President Goodluck Jonathan, Reno Omokri, on his X handle on Wednesday, drew a list of the President’s achievements worth broadcasting. That was on Wednesday, but Asiwaju inadvertently responded with some more ‘you ain’t seen nothing yet’ attitude by making more laudable decisions.

    “Suspended an errant minister, summoned another minister over a controversial contract, reduced his travel entourage and dramatically cuts costs, acted on the six weeks degree for cash program by blocklisting Benin and other nations, announced plans to build a new Chinese-built steel plant in Nigeria, launched the automated passport portal, cleared the ₦12 billion outstanding for the Super Eagles and other national teams, began paying the wage support benefits to civil servants, disbursed ₦105.5 billion for 266 road repairs, intervened to bring peace in Sierra Leone after the foiled coup attempt”, Reno highlighted on Wednesday.

    However, as exhaustive as that list of the President’s one week achievement seemed, there were much more that Omokri was able to capture. Of course traditionally, the effects and of some sounds reverberate longer and farther than others, among his many heroics within the week, the sudden suspension of the Minister of Humanitarian Affairs and Poverty Alleviation, Dr Betta Edu, over a N585 million scandal, bagged star report of the week. It stood out for more than a reason; besides the fact that it might have proven a difficult decision for the President to make, being a compassionate man, but then it just has to be done, even if just to set a tone for other appointees.

    Another reason why the N585 million scandal trumped others is the fact that it has positioned itself as a broken lock threatening to exposed other hitherto secured secrets. From events that played out in the cause of the week, it looked like the scandal that has claimed one of the youngest and brightest appointees was yet to be sated, its gaping gash continued to gnaw at other people and things. It actually still claimed more casualties, either for alleged crimes committed before the advent of Dr Edu in the ministry or those connected to the investigations surrounding her matter. For instance, the papers were awash with the report of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) about 20 officials of the ministry, including Directors.

    Read Also; “Frank Kokori is here!!”

    Then on Friday, the President fired another shot, this time around it was not an arrest, but the suspension of the activities of the National Social Investments Programmes Agency (NSIPA); N- Power Programme, Conditional Cash Transfer Programme, Government Enterprise and Empowerment Programme and Home Grown School Feeding Programme, all shut down for the ongoing investigations into the various financial malfeasances oozing out of the agency.

    However, the suspension of the Minister of Humanitarian Affairs actually became the star event because it uncovered the very determined, no-nonsense side of the President, in fact, it became a new introduction of who Jagaban can really be when the table turns whichever way, an introduction to those who had all along been blinded to his real nature by wickedness of the propaganda machine of politicians. Most of these people, whom I like to call victims of ignorance, mostly young people and those chronically sold to religious dogma, have all along failed to meet the real Jagaban and have been conveniently cruising their bliss.

    Besides Omokri, who has been rather charitable towards Asiwaju, even in the course of the campaigns, though he professed loyalty to another party, and has been consistent with his fanship of the President, many who used to wilfully dislike him, not necessarily for any reason, have come out to hail him as a patriot, whose only interest is seeing a working Nigeria. Those who had bought the lies about him from his political traducers are not returning such lies to their sources without refund.

    Sharing the hotspot with his the hard work of clearing the Augean Stable, although a bit edged down, was the President’s announcement of a 60% slash of travel expenditure by cutting down on the number of aides that travel with federal government officials. In this particular business, there was no sacred cow, not even himself, the Number One Citizen.

    “President Tinubu has, by his most recent directive, approved a massive cost cutting exercise that will touch across the entire federal government of Nigeria and the offices of the President himself, the Vice President and the First Lady. It will be conducted in the following fashion”, Ajuri Ngelale, the President’s spokesman had announced to State House Correspondents on Tuesday.

    He explained that this was part of cost-cutting measures of the Tinubu administration. He said while the number of persons to travel with the President on local trips has now been cut down to 25, the number of those to go with him on foreign engagements has also been cut down to 20 persons. The numbers of personnel to escort the Vice President, First Lady and the wife of the Vice President, have also been cut down considerably. Also, the directive has reduced the number of persons to accompany a minister on a foreign trip to four, while it cut the number for a head of federal agency to just two persons.

    This act has been described variously and all in the positives. While some have termed it as a way of the President showing Nigerians that he respects and listens to them, some zoned it to him being sensitive to the times, like he realizes, just like everyone else, including the ordinary man on the street, that the country is struggling to steady the course of its economy, hence the need to give the people an example.

    However, there are still those who believe that though the President did well by leading the belt-buckling cause, the parameters drawn, especially for the Presidency, were too stringent, which if he must force the systems around him, being the Presidency, to fit into, might result some form of bureaucratic bruises. These lines of thought are of the opinion that it is not all about the money, the safety of the official, especially himself, must not be sacrificed for penny-saving.

    Of course it was a week full of activities, like Omokri lined out in his table-shaking post, and these activities hold their various significances. For instance, it was during the week that Jagaban relieved two agency heads; the Chief Executive Officer of the Federal Competition and Consumer Protection Commission (FCCPC), Mr Babatunde Irukera, and the Director-General of the Bureau of Public Enterprises (BPE), Mr. Alexander Ayoola Okoh, of their duties, just as he appointed new Board and Management teams for the National Hajj Commission (NAHCON) and the Nigerian Christian Pilgrim Commission (NCPC).

    Also on Friday, he appointed Obi Asika, Ali Nuhu and nine others as chief executive officers of agencies under the Federal Ministry of Art, Culture, and Creative Economy, as well as the appointment of a 9-member Governing Council for the Midstream and Downstream Gas Infrastructure Fund (MDGIF).

    It was a week filled with meetings and visits. He met the Imo State Governor, Hope Uzodinma, on Monday and some ministers, Ms Hanatu Musawa (Arts and Creative Economy), Shuaibu Audu (Steel Development) and Adebayo Adelabu (Power) and Olubunmi Tunji-Ojo (Interior), on Tuesday. He met the Governor of Akwa Ibom State, Umo Eno and the Chief Executive Officer of Airtel Africa, Mr Segun Ogunsanya, on Wednesday. Then a little later on Wednesday, he hosted legal practitioner and spokesman of the Atiku Abubakar presidential campaign during the 2023 elections, Daniel Bwala.

    On Thursday, it was the turn of the Minister of Budget and Economic Planning, Atiku Bagudu; the Minister of Steel Development, Shuaibu Audu. Audu came with the Minister of Defense Mohammed Badaru, to brief the President on the outcome of a Chinese trip. It was all about increasing foreign direct investments, growing the steel sector and securing Nigeria. They left with an approval for an inter-ministerial committee to work on a range of deliverables. Then in the evening, he received the Rivers State Governor, Siminalayi Fubara.

    On Friday, it was another deluge of events and audiences. First it was with the Progressive Governors Forum (PGF), led by its Chairman, Governor Uzodinma. He also granted audience to the departing French Ambassador to Nigeria, Emmanuelle Blatman. The suspension of the NSIPA activities was pronounced later in the evening.

    Now it is a new week, hopefully holding some new promises for the nation and the citizens. We just need wait to see the week unfold.

  • Indeed there are presidents and there are presidents

    Ironically, all these happened under the president that came with so much fanfare and avowed commitment to tackle insecurity, economy and other problems headlong.

    From the time Buhari assumed office, he showed lack of ability and competence to manage the diverse challenges in Nigeria. He was withdrawn from the realities in Nigeria as he made constant travels his mainstay as against tackling threatening economic and security challenges that reduced lives to nothing under his watch” – INDEPENDENT, 5 January, 2024.

    If anything gratified me, looking back now at President Muhammadu Buhari’s time as president, it is the fact that I was able to “eat my words” – yes indeed – reverse those words I had written on these pages  concerning his suitability for the office of the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, while he was still in office.

    Before that ‘Pauline conversion’, I doubt if anybody believed in Buhari’s appropriateness for that office more than I did. Given my implicit confidence in him I had, as far back as September 21, 2014 in a 3- part article titled ‘Periscoping The Ideal APC Presidential Candidate(1) when campaign for the APC presidential primaries was still ongoing – confidently written as follows on these pages:”Nigeria needed Muhammadu Buhari more than he needs Nigeria”. I have gone further to write:”Here is an absolutely honest man against who, to date, no Nigerian anywhere has come up with any allegation of  shady financial deals in any of the high positions of responsibility, including that of military Head of state, he has held in the country”. “His  mistakes, for which he paid dearly, were his weak campaigns which did not adequately  emphasise his personal qualities of incandescent honesty, and an unalloyed commitment to the public good, both of which he continued to demonstrate by calling attention to how people in government have turned themselves to ‘authority stealing’, as he called them.”. His greatest sin, however, was his equating Northern Nigeria to the entire country, believing that he was home and dry, once he won there – a chimera.

    Alhough there are no allegations of impropriety against him, even now, safe his literally gifting the former CBN governor, Godwin Emefiele, a carte branche, to run the bank aground and, ipso facto, ruin the Nigerian economy.

    It was, therefore, extremely saddening for me  to see him, in office as president, make ethnicity and religion the two principles around which his government revolved.

    When President Buhari was not  ethnicising the Nigerian security architecture, he was busy, coyly trying, through such devices as RUGA, Cattle Grazing Routes, as well as a controversial Water Resource Bill once smuggled into the National Assembly, to turn over ownership of ancestral lands, all over the country, to Fulanis from wherever, as was then being canvassed by Bala Mohammed, the Bauchi state governor who theorised that Fulanis have no nationality and, could therefore, claim any country as theirs.

    That was not all.

    Read Also; Dangote thanks Tinubu, Nigerians over refinery’s takeoff

    Until the pragmatic Northern APC governors successfully took it off  his hands, President Buhari did everything – this time around through the good offices of Senator Abdullahi Adamu – the man he singularly inflicted on APC  as Chairman – to ensure that Ashiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu never sniffed the presidency. Left to him, a Northerner just must succeed him.

    The lietmotif for this article, therefore, is President Tinubu’s prompt action on the allegations of corrupt practices involving some government officials, ministers inclusive.

    This past week saw him suspend from office, a minister and a programme National coordinator both of who, together with the former minister of Humanitarian Affairs, are now being grilled by the EFCC in connection with fraud allegations running into billions of Naira.

    This is in sharp contrast to President Buhari who, in office, demonstrated such egregious lethargy that President Tinubu’s procedural, indeed, routine actions, described above, now seem like a revolution of sorts in Nigeria.

    President Buhari would not only do nothing, he  would not even act like he heard the loud murmurs of the people on any issue. And when he, surpringly, showed he heard, as in CBN governor Emefiele throwing Nigerians into penury by confiscating their money in banks, with no new ones available, President Buhari would, for some shadowy and totally untenable reasons, side with the wrong party.

    Instances of this abound, like his insistence on having pre – colonial Grazing Routes re- established afresh in Nigeria, even when land developments, everywhere all over the country, have rendered it absolutely inconceivable.

    Another is his laizerfaire, ethnic motivated attitude towards the fight against insecurity which very seriously, and negatively, impacted the efforts of the hardworking men and women of our security forces.

    In the wake of the unfortunate killings on the Plateau two weeks ago, President Tinubu had promptly ordered the arrest of the killers. Although I wrote here a week later that such an order was medicine after death since the killers, though always in their hundreds, would have, as usual, evaporated into thin air , I have since been proved wrong as some arrests are reported to have been made.

    The practice under President Buhari was always to shield the killers who, were they not Fulanis, would have been arrested in action. In fact, a research by the Achebe Foundation has long ago discovered that top security officials of a particular ethnic group around wherever there was going to be a Fulani herdsmen attack always have prior information and consequently give others to rank and file security people to stand down. Although that report was published many years ago, it is yet to be creditably disputed. Add to that General T. Y Danjuma’s claim that the killers are usually assisted by some security men which tends to explain the lopsidedness in the numbers of locals killed in the recent Plateau massacre compared with that of the attackers.

    Let us also examine the case of Benue state where, rather than support the state’s Anti- Grazing Law, President Buhari’s spokespersons always railed, and railed against the state governor, Samuel Ortom, thus indicating their principal’s displeasure with the state law.

    For instance, responding to editorial comments by two national dailies, the Daily Trust and ThisDay both of which blamed the security situation in Benue State on the inactiveness of the Buhari government, Garba Shehu showed neither remorse, nor decorum, when he replied:”Perhaps if the disgraced governor had been more concerned with doing his job than politicising the tragedies so frequently taking place under his watch, the situation in Benue might be very different, like in any of its neighbours – Taraba, Nasarawa, the FCT”

    But worse was to come when all President Buhari could tell a delegation of visiting, mourning Benue elders, was that ‘in the name of God, Benue people should go and love their neighbours”- the same neighbours that have just killed over 100 people?

    Granted that no two persons or administrations are the same but who will forget, in a hurry, that  the Accountant – General of the Federation during the Buhari administration,  Ahmed Idris, who was  unconstitutionally re- appointed by President Buhari after he turned 60, and should have automatically retired from public service, was arrested by the EFCC on allegations of laundering  N109B.

    But even with President Buhari in office, Idris was, for weeks avoiding EFCC invitation to him  for interrogation. Just compare that with what happened within a week in the current administration even when Idris was charged with a much more grievous crime. And that, by the way, was the same man who claimed to have cleared two officials of the Federal Ministry of Justice, accused of embezzling N104 million Duty Tour Allowance (DTA).

    The least said about the trial of Boko Haram sponsors, a matter over which his  Attorney – General Abubakar Malami gushed, and gushed every day, deceiving Nigerians that they were going to be tried. In the investigation ordered by President Buhari, over 400 alleged sponsors of terrorism were reported to have been arrested. Sahara Reporters alleged that Malami released about 300 of them, leaving behind only their foot soldiers who also, apparently for ethnic, and religious considerations, President Buhari and Malami still  refused to have tried till the end of the administration. This was after the United Arab Emirates  had given them  names of those sponsors who were indicted in that country.

    Only 35 of the foot soldiers were deliberately taken before a vacation judge who they know was retiring in 3 months, and have since retired without indicting any of them.

    That exactly is how well President Buhari served Nigeria. But we still must thank God for small mercies as this looks like a new day in Nigeria.

  • The battle for economic modernity

    The battle for economic modernity

    Superman comes to the Supermall

    In the struggle to reorder its governance architecture and economy in line with the best practices of modernity, Nigeria faces daunting challenges. There is a siege on rationality everywhere. Nobody ever thought that an ethical challenge of such magnitude would have faced a government trying to revive an economy that has been battered to stupor. But here we go once again. The good news is that there is a silver lining in every adversity.

      Just before the Russian Revolution, a European diplomat to the court of the ancient Tsars was asked what he thought the Russians did best. Casting furtive glances across his shoulders, the old spook blurted out in good-natured exasperation: “They steal!” Given the rate at which everything lootable in Nigeria is being looted, and the rate at which the country itself is being canonized as an authentic crime site, we will be lucky if the Russian moniker does not become the enduring epithet of this generation.

      But believe it or not, stealing directly from the federal coffers, as heinous a crime as it is, should not be our greatest headache if every other thing had been in place; if Nigeria had been able to move from being a nation in itself to becoming a nation for itself.

    As the old Russian stealing class, the Chinese economic scoundrels, the Cuban corporatist crooks, the Korean chaebolists and the Singaporean cartelists  would later find out to their utmost peril, stealing can be swiftly eradicated or substantially curtailed once all other things that make a nation are in place.

       No nation can exist in a permanent vacuum. Even nature itself abhors a perennial vacancy. An uncultivated garden soon becomes a weedy nuisance. It is our inability to work out our fundamental and foundational problems and come up with a consensual organogram for the nation that has turned stealing into such a compelling and compulsory national pastime. It has made almost everybody with access to feast on the nation to a state of stupefying self-engorgement.

      Perhaps because of Nigeria’s size and stupendous riches, no one has seen anything like this before. No human magic can procure straight furniture from crooked timber. And no sleight of hand from a tailor can restore sartorial fidelity to a pair of trousers that has come up for short. It is a fundamental design mishap.

    Read Also; Confusion as sacked Plateau legislators vow to retake seats

      It is just when we think we are getting on top of a particular problem that other unresolved problems come rearing their head. Just imagine the renewed mayhem on the Jos Plateau, the return of marauders to the Abuja-Kaduna highway and the growing restiveness of military hoi polloi against lawfully constituted civil authority all sucked into an already seething vortex of instability and disquiet.

    The irony of it all is that it is when a government shows unusual courage and initiative in confronting the problem head on that we begin to see the issues in all their enormity. How do you begin to assimilate someone who has been acculturated not to see the distinction between private and public coffers into the norms of modern economic order?

     How do we collectively transit from an outmoded economic model in its various forms, formations and formats that privileges sharing over producing to a modern economy embedded in our own indigenous notions of rationality and thrift without some apocalyptic fatalities?  The kind of figures bandied about as missing or misappropriated from the Nigerian treasury is an affront to common sense and reason.

       But as we have shown, it could not have been otherwise. Nigeria is plagued by institutional debility compounded by deep structural and systemic miscarriages. This is what makes the ongoing saga of the youthful Betta Edu and other instances of larceny a mere symptom, a short hand for something more fundamental. How do we account for the role of the civil service which is supposed to be the Praetorian Guard of fiscal order and bureaucratic rigour in all this?

     The back and forth memos, the spate of lies, evasions and the criminal duplicities show that rather than act as a bulwark against disorder and irregularity, the civil service itself has suffered a bureaucratic meltdown of catastrophic proportions . Let us not deceive ourselves or underestimate the immensity of the rot. Such is the web of complicity, the net of extortion and shameless racketeering that the lone crusader caught up in all this is fated to forlorn martyrdom.

       What then do we do? Do we simply wring our hands in helpless submission to fate? Or do we fold up in hapless fatalism as our country is buried in a cosmic avalanche of sleaze and malfeasance? Not on their life. But as are about to show shortly, this is where structure and national configuration matter, or in the alternative and interim a ruthless law-giver with the courage and balls to put an end to the nonsense no matter whose ox is gored.

       There is no single route to economic and political modernity. Most human societies as a result of their historical trajectory have developed a system of economic check and political balance which would have allowed them to transit to some versions of modernity on their own steam and without any colonial irruption. In oriental societies, there is a culture of shame and proper conduct which forbids sleaze and a run on the exchequer. The culture also demands gentlemanly conduct and good public relations.

      A personal example is illustrative. As a visiting scholar to the University of Leiden’s African Studies Centre about twenty five years ago, yours sincerely shared a flat with a well-heeled Japanese postgraduate student. A few weeks into cohabitation, one was woken up one night by a foul and putrid smell emanating from the washroom. The chap had fouled up the toilet after a night of carousal in the dark alleys of the ancient city.

       The fellow was woken up and given the most severe verbal upbraiding. Before dawn, he had disappeared after making a heroic effort to clean up the place. Thereafter, he only made furtive nocturnal returns like a ghost until he showed up about a week after with a retinue of his Japanese compatriots who came to apologize on his behalf. It is from such minor encounters that you know the character of a people and a nation.

       In South Korea, there is a ritual of shaming and publicly humiliating their leaders who have infracted against public norms. In the not too recent past, one of such leaders jumped off the cliff rather than face the prospects of such public disgrace. In Malaysia its revered leader, the nonagenarian Dr Mahathir bin Mohamad, stormed out of retirement to confront a corrupt and amoral leadership caste. He won hands down.

       Before it was forcibly incorporated into the rubric of modern Nigeria by a vengeful Lord Lugard after the Adubi War, the Egba city-state had already solved the problem of corruption and public malfeasance through its own formula of public shaming and exiling of errant public officials. Such officials were hounded out of town never to be seen again. In many Yoruba towns before independence, this unique inquisition was visited on many erring officials with their homesteads incinerated.

      The problem with fractious, heterogeneous and multi-ethnic colonial nations in Africa is that the little gains many of its component societies have made in terms of probity and public order have been wiped out in the postcolonial maelstrom, leaving them morally and ethically hamstrung. The falcon can no longer hearken to the falconer.

      It is exactly forty years ago that General TY Danjuma remarked with wry prescience after the fall of the Second Republic that corruption and sleaze in Nigeria had assumed a “transnational efficiency”. One can only wonder what the old man would be thinking now. 

      The fact is that we have finally arrived at ground zero. This is what eventually happens to nations without core values or a consensual elite agreement about the political architecture or destiny of the nation. In such circumstances, somebody has to be the “carrier”. In Yoruba ritual politics, the “carrier” is the person who by mystical assignation or secular instigation is chosen to carry the sins and infractions of the society to the outer boundary and margins of possible remission and restitution.

      Judging by the spate of retirements, dismissals, dissolution of ossified boards and interdictions of banks this past week, the superman might have finally arrived at the supermall. It may be too late for the owners to close shop or for the shoppers to bolt. There will have to be an audit.

       When this column mooted the idea that given the countervailing perplexities that have brought Nigeria to this sorry pass, the sum total of a Tinubu presidency may be greater than the man himself, many scoffed at the idea. In saying this, one is not unmindful of the possibility of the cooling off of the reforming ardor as sheer survivalist instincts and electoral gaming take over, or as the outfoxed and outgunned forces of reaction and retrogression rally to deliver a crushing veto. But this will be when other countervailing forces triggered by the ethical implosion of the nation kick in. Nigeria is on the cusp of momentous developments.

  • “Frank Kokori is here!!”

    “Frank Kokori is here!!”

    To know where a nation is headed in the comity of great assemblies of humanity, look no further than how such a nation treats it authentic heroes while alive. According to Louis Althusser, only the production of new heroes keeps old heroes alive.

      The problem is that in fractured and fractious colonial nations where even the issue of a federal identity remains prone to fierce intellectual contestations, the notion of who is an authentic federal  hero keeps rearing its head. One can understand such a dispute among the polarized elite formations in the country. Just begin to rhapsodize about the virtues of the late Major Chukwuma Kaduna Nzeogwu or Eman Ifeajuna in certain circles and you will be told to shove it down wherever it was coming from.

      What is strange and intriguing is the fact that as a result of partisan politics, such shabby treatment could be extended to heroes even within their own catchment area. Politics can be a very brutal war indeed with no hostages taken.

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       Several years back in Benin City at a public lecture to mark the momentous two-term tenure of the feisty, occasionally tempestuous but politically gifted Adams Oshiomhole, yours sincerely as the guest lecturer had noticed two gentlemen lurking faraway in the hall in bemused anonymity. They did not interact with the crowd and the crowd did not interact with them. Nobody acknowledged their presence in the hall and they did not acknowledge anybody either.

      But yours sincerely was having none of that. As the lecture got underway, one had noted the presence of these men in the hall without whose heroic exertions, the current democratic experiment would have been impossible. “Please step forward for recognition, Chief Frank Kokori and Great Ovedje Ogboru!” yours sincerely rallied.

      Muted and grudging applause followed to the consternation of the hard men in the crowd. It was only then that the two gentlemen were chaperoned to the front of the gathering. While Kokori donned a grin of worldly wise sangfroid, Great Ogboru wore a bemused frown as they were led to the front. They probably knew what one did not know at that particular point in time that past distinctions cannot count where current contentions are unfolding.

      A few weeks back, Frank Kokori went to join his ancestors perhaps nursing the quiet regret that his heroic sacrifices at the behest of his society have all been in vain. Such is the whirligig of postcolonial politics. May his great and heroic soul rest in peace.

  • And now the Anthony Aboki Ochefu conundrum

    And now the Anthony Aboki Ochefu conundrum

    Although they may arrive at political modernity via different routes, all good governments are the same everywhere in the world. It is only bad governments that are unique in their specifically evil and whimsical ways. All reforming governments that want to live in the heart of their people are often confronted by the Anthony Ochefu conundrum. Put baldly, it is what do with high-flying and brilliant officials who have committed infractions against the stated wish and philosophy of the government.

      Ochefu? Does anybody remember Colonel Anthony Ochefu? The Idoma-born military red-neck was a high-flying and highly charismatic official in the early days of the Murtala administration. As a result of his derring-do as a garrison commander in the events that led to the ousting of General Yakubu Gowon, he was made the military governor of the entire East Central State as it was then. He proved highly proficient and briskly competent, not to talk of being compassionate and caring.

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      The Igbo race thought that a messiah had come from nowhere to reintegrate them into the Nigerian society. As a serving corper then, one should know. Ochefu paid a scheduled visit to the Youth Corp camp in Awgu and was given a heroic, rapturous welcome. Then everything unraveled one dark night. In a broadcast to the people, Ochefu explained that he was resigning and retiring from the army as a result of the completion of investigation into some infractions committed in his earlier post.

      Please note that Ochefu had to go on the basis past infringements rather than current infraction. The Murtala administration was firm and unwavering in its resolve because it knew how an administration can be damaged by question marks on its credibility and legitimacy. A dark pall of resentment and misgiving descended on the old Eastern region. But his successor, Colonel Atom Kpera, proved equally competent and proficient, thus dispelling the clouds of suspicion.

      If our memory serves us right, Anthony Ochefu would later succumb to a gang of armed robbers in his Otukpo homestead. May his noble soul rest in peace.

  • Lean convoys

    Lean convoys

    President Tinubu’s directive on delegation size is commendable. But let’s see it work first.

    President Bola Ahmed Tinubu‘s directive, Tuesday, slashing the size of official delegations for foreign and domestic trips by Federal Government officials by as much as 60 per cent, beginning with himself, should naturally be well received by the generality of Nigerians. I don’t know what informed the president’s decision. But there were strong criticisms in recent times, first of the number of people that attended the COP28 Climate Change Summit in Dubai, United Arab Emirates (UAE), last month. Although the Federal Government only sponsored 422 of the 1,411 delegates to the conference, people thought the government sponsored the entire 1,411 that attended from Nigeria. But the message was nonetheless clear.

    Then, the president’s trip, last month, to Lagos, to celebrate the festive season, that many people were worried by what some of them referred to as the huge number of cars that came with him. But, whatever the motivation for the directive, it is something to cheer.

    Presidential spokesman Ajuri Ngelale told State House correspondents on Tuesday at the Presidential Villa, Abuja, that “President Tinubu has, by his most recent directive, approved a massive cost-cutting exercise that will touch across the entire Federal Government of Nigeria and the offices of the President himself, the Vice President and the office of the First Lady. It will be conducted in the following fashion.

    “One, the official trips that will be undertaken within the country, that is when Mr. President or the Vice President travels to any state within the country, the massive bills that accrued due to allowances and estacode for security details coming from Abuja going and travelling into those states, will be massively cut due to the directive of the President, that the security outfits within states, whether it be Police, DSS, or branches of the military, will frontline his protective detail when he travels to those states, a major cost-cutting initiative that will affect the Office of the Vice President as well as the office of the First Lady.

    Invariably, not more than 25 persons would accompany the president from Abuja to any part of the country he is travelling to; the vice president 15, while the First Lady and the vice president’s wife would have 10 persons each. 

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    For foreign trips, Tinubu’s delegation will now be capped at 20 people, down from the previous 50-man delegation. The vice president, the First Lady and the vice president’s wife are entitled to just five members each. Every minister is limited to having just four members of staff on any foreign trip while chief executive officers of government agencies are limited to two. Ngelale said the secretary to the government of the federation, George Akume, would monitor the implementation of the directive for compliance, warning that dire consequences await whoever violates it.

    This should be sweet music in the ears of the average Nigerian who are the beasts of burden for these needless expenses, except the public officials who have been used to such freebies.

    Without doubt, this is a thing many Nigerians had looked forward to.

    For so many years, many Nigerian leaders have been going about in convoys that are figuratively as long as Okoti-Eboh’s wrapper. By the way, Okoti-Eboh was Nigeria’s Minister of Finance from 1957 to 1966 during the administration of Sir Abubakar Tafawa Balewa. He was an affluent chief from the Itsekiri and Urhobo tribes of the Niger Delta who left no one in doubt about his pride in showing the rich traditions of his roots, through his elegant and flamboyant dressing. His usual cap and feather, as well as his long cloth that flowed behind him and was usually attached to a boy some distance away, making the wrapper to continue to drag behind him long after he had passed. That is what some convoys look like. Long after the president or governor has alighted from the vehicles conveying them, their convoys would still be queuing behind each other hundreds of meters away!

    But Okoti-Eboh was able to maintain that flamboyant dressing because he could afford it ever before he became a minister.

    The problem with Nigerian leaders is that they don’t know when to stop their flamboyant lifestyles. They seem to have perfected it more than the military rulers who reigned when the economy was by far buoyant and so could possibly carry the weight of the heavily-laden convoys. In spite of the country’s precarious economic situation, many Nigerian leaders still see nothing wrong in needlessly burning fuel and incurring other costs on behalf of hapless Nigerians, by sticking to long convoys, even as they continue to tell the people in the world’s poverty capital to continue to make sacrifices.

    Nigerians may not know the amount spent on those long convoys, but they can at least guess that it must have cost a fortune to put those glittering jeeps on the roads, especially at today’s price of both the imported vehicles and petrol.  

    May be that is why these days, rather than merely waving the national flags jubilantly when our leaders come to town, an increasing number of Nigerians are questioning the wastefulness in their long convoys. That is aside the fact that they most unnecessarily waste our time, as roads have to be closed in several instances for the convoys to pass through before other road users can now start or continue their journeys.  

    But, aside these critical few who are worried about the financial burden and the insensitivity of the country’s leaders to the plight of the mass of the people, many other Nigerians are just going about their businesses as if the president’s directive has nothing to do with them. In fairness to them, it is not their fault. As the saying goes, ‘once bitten, twice shy’. Most of these Nigerians had been bitten not once, not twice (I cannot even count the number of times myself), by several governments — local, state or federal. We have had all manner of governments that equally promised all manner of things that they ended up not delivering on. As a matter of fact, Nigerians can count on their fingertips the number of governments that have promised and fulfilled their promises. Yet, none of them ever came to tell us that they would leave us worse than they met us. Yet, that has been the situation: they have almost always left us worse than they met us. If not, we would not be where we are today; our lot would have been far better.

    We should therefore understand where the skepticism is coming from if the people refuse to see anything good in Tinubu’s announcement of drastic cut in travel expenses. Several of his predecessors had done such things when they started only to become something else by the time they were through with us. We remember his immediate predecessor, Muhammadu Buhari, who before becoming president threatened to sell off some jets in the presidential fleet but never did until he left office eight years after.

    But, no matter our misgivings on the cost-saving measures, we should accept one thing; and that is that the country would make some savings from these cuts and this should count for something. I agree with many people that this is just one of the areas where the government can stop the hemorrhaging of our common wealth. But even if you see the present measures as tokenism; take the tokenism first, put it inside your pocket and continue to ask for more. After all, Yoruba people say ‘ako sapo la nko  owo’. I think what we should look forward to is whether this directive would be strictly adhered to or not. Perhaps more important, we should try our best to ensure that the money is not saved with the left hand only to be stolen with the right hand. No thanks to corruption! 

     For me, however, the problem is not just about the long and expensive convoys. We also have issues with reckless driving on the part of most drivers in the convoys. Often, we hear of people being knocked down or knocked out by these reckless drivers in convoys who drive as if they are not bound by any traffic rules and regulations. That happens every now and then and, more painfully, we do not see anyone punished for such reckless driving. This is why we continue to have such avoidable casualties.

    I have a friend who as commissioner in a strategic ministry would never travel with his governor’s convoy. He would usually arrive early at the venue of whatever event they were attending and leave either earlier than the convoy at the end of the event or be the one to leave the venue last. He told me he was doing that because he could not cope with the speed of the governor’s convoy and that life has no duplicate. The moment something happens and the ‘honourable commissioner’ is no more or incapacitated, people, including those close to him, would start jostling for his position.

    This seems what is lost on many people in such killer convoys. They behave as if all that can happen when there is an accident is for them to be wheeled to the theatre, have life transplant and walk back to resume their daily activities. Interestingly, no governor has ever died in these convoy crashes. Rather, it is their aides or other innocent people just going about their duties that had often been victims.

    The question now is: where are the convoys rushing to? Who are they running away from? Apparently from the consequences of their bad governance and corruption! Otherwise, why would politicians, after winning elections, be running away from the same people that they walked with side-by-side when they were seeking votes?

    Anyway, as I said earlier, President Tinubu has given the directive on official convoys and Federal Government’s delegations, let us wait to see how long it would last or whether it would even be obeyed at all by civil servants who know how to exploit any loophole in such policies. The problem with Nigeria is not necessarily about lack of laws or rules; but enforcement. The responsibility for monitoring and enforcement has been placed on Akume. Let’s see how far the secretary to the government of the federation can go in this direction. 

  • A piece of social engineering

    A piece of social engineering

    I got into the habit of listening to national budgets during my brief period of exile in Britain, at a time when I was a postgraduate student there. This is partly because of the fan-fare attached to the presentation of the budget by the Chancellor to the British parliament. Weeks before the event, the newspapers were awash with speculation as to the character of the next budget and It appeared as if all  the serious discussions on the three available television channels at the time had something to do with the intriguing subject of the budget. Days before the big event, every little comment about anything at all by the Chancellor was eagerly seized upon and minutely dissected just in case it had something to do with the upcoming budget. The budget was prepared or rather, was put together by the office of the Chancellor, of course with relevant inputs from all ministries making up Her Majesty’s, as it then was, government. Each government spoke to the budget from basically, an ideological point of view with the Labour Party leaning closely to the left of the political spectrum and trying as much as possible to secure a few crumbs of comfort for their constituents, majority of who, at least in principle, were card carrying members of the working class. The other party, the Tories were of course entrenched, some of them truculently so, to the right of the political spectrum and was interested in winning economic concessions to their more privileged supporters whose primary interest was to shore up as many of their class privileges as they could without alienating the majority working class too much. Both sides looked at the budget from their respective class interests knowing very well that their political fortunes depended very much on what the budget had to offer, with some of them losing power after a particularly disastrous budget presentation. In this regard the ousting of the short lived government of Liz Truss immediately comes to mind. Her more illustrious and one of her long lived predecessors in office, the Iron lady herself, Margaret Hilda Thatcher contacted rust poisoning and did not survive matters connected with budget matters long before Truss crossed the carpet from the left and became a born again Tory. There is no doubt that there is a lesson to be learnt about the British budget here.

    Immediately after the Second World War, with the sounds of bomb detonations still echoing in the air above the country, perhaps the most important general elections in the history of Britain took place. With many of the war regulations such as food rationing still in place, the country went to the polls to decide how their country was to be governed for the next five years.

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    The outgoing government had been dominated by Winston Churchill of the Conservative party, the face and voice of Britain throughout the turbulent years of the war and without his combativeness and determination, the war would, in all probability would have been lost. On the other side was Clement Attlee, leader of the Labour party, a self effacing man ruled by his strongly held socialist principles which had helped him to climb the very slippery slopes of Labour party leadership over a period of many years. He might have grown to become the eloquent spokesman for the working class later in his life but he himself was born into considerable wealth and affluence. His father, a property owning barrister was a nailed on member of the upper middle class and his children were brought up more or less in the lap of luxury. It was from this position of privilege within a mercilessly stratified society that Attlee developed a social conscience and decided to pitch his tent with the suffering underclass of his society. In other words, he became a traitor to his class in all matters economic and political.

    Having just won the war, Churchill must have been quietly if not deeply confident that his Tory party was going to win the imminent elections. He probably did not remember that almost from the beginning of the war and indeed for several years during the thirties,  Britain was ruled by a National government which contained personnel from both sides  of the political divide for the simple reason that the country needed the people in government to put their differences aside and make a spirited attempt to confront the myriad problems that stood between most of the people and their aspirations to a halfway decent quality of life. And this was at a time when Britain ruled nearly half the world whilst the vast majority of her citizens were trying to eke out a precarious existence most of them working like moles extracting coal from seams reaching more than a thousand feet under ground in order  to eat. Not to eat to the point of satiation but just enough to fuel the drive, if one can call it that, to return to the coal face on each of six days a week in order to create fabulous wealth for the benefit and totally immoderate enjoyment of the entitled minority of people who were embedded in the very thin upper crust of a patently unjust society.

    At this point a wise old bird chirped its way into my consciousness to remind me of the fact that my original intention was to write about the budget or at least, the issues surrounding the presentation of that budget to Parliament. I thought I should get back on track immediately but then, I reckoned that without an identifiable economy, there can be no budget, at least not one that could be described as viable and worthy of any reasonable discussion.

    The point to be made here is that, beginning from the end of the First World War, to pick an arbitrary point in history, Britain was a real basket case, rather like Nigeria is today. The only point of departure between the two countries being the quality of those selected to provide leadership. Britain was fortunate to have a steely man of principle in Clement Attlee whilst   Nigeria cannot boast of anyone that can stand on a pedestal beside him. The driving force at the heart of our rulers is cold and calculating avarice standing between them and a capacity to provide selfless service. The British economy of the time worked very well for a few people in the same way that today, the so called economy of Nigeria is working only too well for only a handful of Nigerians who are totally oblivious of the precarious existence of the battered majority of their compatriots.

    To return to the British general elections of 1945. The senior partner in the war time coalition government, the Conservative government was confident of winning and all objective indices pointed to that probability. But fortunately, there was an alternative unlike in contemporary Nigeria where the alternative is between Twiddledee and Twiddledum. Against frightful odds, the Labour Party won and through legislative means and her control of the power of the economy, changed the face of Britain forever. It was that government which held power for only five years that built the foundation of the modern British society that is now irresistibly attractive to hordes of Nigerians seeking the green pastures that elude them in the unfortunate land of their birth, the land in which their grandfathers are buried for all time.

    It was the Attlee government that provided the social security system that has tried to give all the people of Britain some access to whatever wealth their country can put within the reach of her citizens however rich or poor. They did this without changing a comma in the British constitution which in any case is unwritten but very powerful and effective as an article of societal regulation for all that. Here, our governments are held, bound hand and foot by a bastard document prepared by dummies whose only excuse is that they were caught in a cloud of ignorance as they wrote it. Our constitution is plainly bad but for all that, it can be made to work for us provided that our motives are driven by sincerity of purpose. The deafening calls for constitutional amendments is no more than a distraction from  doing the work of government. Take the example of the budget. Every year as stipulated by the constitution, somebody presents something called a budget to the nation knowing fully well that the provisions of the budget are to put it mildly, fictitious. As expected the dishonourable opposition both inside and outside the houses of legislation oppose every aspect of the budget only because they think that that is what they are expected to do. The budget is presented but it means little or nothing to that proverbial man in the street who is only interested in finding some food to tide him and his unfortunate dependants over for a few days. In the meantime, the budget informs him that the food to be consumed in Aso Rock for the next one year will cost the tax payers of this country billions of Naira. It must make that poor man on the street wonder if they do anything but eat on the fabled corridors of power in the bowels of the lair in the belly of Aso rock.

    I was interested in the contents of the British budget because it meant something to the way the people in Britain lived their lives. Because of the budget, the man in the street could start to pay more or less tax, pay more or less for the beer he drowns his sorrows in or the cigarette he smokes himself to hell with. The contents of that famous briefcase from which the Chancellor dramatically pulls out the budget in Westminster will have a significant impact on his life over the next one year. In Nigeria, the budget means absolutely nothing. It is no more than a guarantee of more suffering in the coming year. Let nobody talk to me about any budget in Nigeria as I have no time for horse manure.