Yes, they showed their hands again this past week and Nigerians now know exactly why it took the National Assembly over six months to complete work on a national budget upon which the Buhari government had hoped to leapfrog a post recession economy on the path of growth and development. This meant nothing to our legislators who are least bothered by either, as long as enough money could be made, whichever way, for the next election.
For them, it is of no moment, whatever, unlike the Socio- Economic Rights and Accountability Project (SERAP) which observed that: “cutting funding for essential public services such as health, education and security, constitutes a serious human rights violation which potentially rises to the level of crimes against humanity, against the Nigerian people, which amply deserves to be taken to the Internal Criminal Court (ICC).”
You can bet your last dime that not even this scares the gluttons who will always argue, forgetting that their individual mandate represents only a microcosm of the president’s, that “the reason the constitution directs the bill to be submitted to the national assembly is that it expects it to vet it and make inputs before passing it in readiness for appropriation Act”,’ as if the letter and spirit of the constitution ever envisages that a time would ever come when those revered chambers would be populated by a bunch of self seekers who would rather hijack appropriations to their farms and bore holes, rather than make them serve the needs of the poor masses of Nigeria .
But as our people would always say, it is every day for the thief but one day for the owner. Nigerians can gloat, this time around, that the greed which has always united the national assembly leadership, year in, year out, emboldening their padding propensity, has scattered them as I shall proceed to show below, quoting some of their own members who I know Senator Bukola Saraki would now be eager to haul before their overly misused Ethics committee.
Hear the Southeast caucus in a senate where their man, Ike Ekweremadu, who in his own eyes is the waiting Igbo choice for 2023, is number 2, after discovering that a N2B allocation sustained by the two aviation committees of the senate, and the House, had been shredded to a mere N500M wondering that: “a region that hardly receives a fair share of the national patrimony, the little that came it’s way could be reduced as to make nonsense of the entire budget for the Enugu Airport Terminal.”
Rather than own up to his role in this thoroughly ungamely act, but to cover it instead, a clever Ekweremadu is pleading that the measly N500M their lordships allowed should be “released immediately”, saying through one Uche Anichukwu: “I am happy that the presidency has indicated that he would send a Supplementary Appropriation Bill so by the time we are briefed by the relevant committees, we will work with our colleagues in other zones to ensure adequate provisions for the airport.”
If only Ekweremadu knows he is about the least wise Igbo!
It will be nice, if for once, Buhari – loathing, Igbo army of e-rats would now know exactly where to fix their gaze. For additional help, I plead they go read the inaugural speech of Chief John Nwodo, as Chairperson, Ohanaeze Ndigbo, concerning how Igbos are their own worst enemies, who share funds meant for infrastructural development in their region.
For me, personally, the item that gladdens me the most is this, and not to be misunderstood, I shall quote newspaper reports directly.
“Abaribe, who is the Chairman, Senate Committee on Power, Steel Development and Mettalurgy, said that a humongous N30B was smuggled into the Power budget “without his committee’s knowledge”. According to him, the N30B was listed for expansion and reinforcement of infrastructure in the distribution companies to reduce stranded firms. The amount, he said, “never passed through the Senate Committee on Power.” Now if a ranking senator of Abaribe’s ilk, and chairman of the Power Committee to boot, can be treated this shabbily, two things become obvious: both Minister Tunde Fashola SAN, and his former cabinet colleague, Dr Kayode Fayemi, could never have been a darling of the vicious small cabal manipulating and orchestrating the scientific padding of the national budget. How Fayemi fought back an attempt to use his then ministry’s budget to launder 500Million dollars even after they had earlier appropriated N2B in the 2017 budget for concessioning feasibility studies, readily comes to mind. And what spurious lies didn’t they tell against him?
It is fascinating that, for once, critical segments of the Nigerian society are getting to know what manner of people they call honourables, and distinguished. It is great to know that the Nigerian Labour Congress, The Ijaw Youth Congress, the ever perspicacious Nigerian Manufacturers Association, would soon be joined by bodies like NANS and others to deprecate these heinous actions of people we, no doubt, wrongly dashed our mandate.
But if anything fascinates me the most, it is the decision of President Muhammadu Buhari to come forward to make a full disclosure to Nigerians. What name has this man of integrity not been called by some myopic, ethnicity and religion – clutching bigots, even if the latter worked in cahoots with a President Goodluck Jonathan during whose administration Nigeria was nearly stolen off the face of the earth.
The president bared it all: how a small crowd of less than 500, very selfish Nigerians, misused their office, cutting off 4,700 people – impacting projects amounting to N347B from what he proposed, to accommodate 6,403 of their own , at a cost of N578B which their constituents know they ALL come round to corner, where executed, at all.
Among the president’s projects substituted for things like bore holes and sewing machines are: Lagos – Ibadan Expressway, the East-West road which PDP turned go a sink hole in its 16 years, the Enugu Airport, Itakpe – Ajaokuta road, Mass transit and major arterial road in the FCT where they all own eye popping mansions, as well as funds for the very sensitive and crucially important Maritime University in the Niger- Delta area where the funds they’ve turned to the object of their infatuation comes from.
In conclusion, no less fascinating, indeed more invigorating, is President Buhari’s decision not to engage in any discussions with the nPDP people whose members, incidentally, constitute the leadership of the National Assembly, and who, for a very long time, you could not distinguish from PDP members given their iron cast opposition to anything coming from the executive branch.
You would most probably think the president was reading this column in which, on Sunday, 13 May 2018, I wrote as follows: “it is, however, absolutely nauseating, if not puke inducing, that it is the nPDP, which has constituted the greatest enemy to Buhari’s government, especially at the National Assembly, that would now come out, sabre rattling, and giving ultimatum. Were I President Buhari, I would, even at the expense of losing the forthcoming election, which God forbid, tell them to just go do their very worst. Let them head back to their vomit, the PDP, and let Nigerians decide as to whether they want their very lives stolen all over again.”