President Buhari is unsettled by the obscene and ill-advised decision of the Senate to waste N4.7b on toys called state of the art, Sport Utility Vehicles (SUVs) disingenuously described by a self-serving Senate as “operational cars for its 109 members and the Lower house’s plan to, in the words of Leo Ogor, spend ‘about N4b’ on cars for its 360 members. An exasperated President who turned down the recommendation for a N400m presidential fleet and forfeited part of his allowances and had expected the lawmakers to take a cue from his actions has indirectly asked the public to go to court if the lawmakers fail to see reason.
And come to think of it. Some of these lawmakers driven by greed and covetousness are former governors, ex-ministers, commissioners who from their submission to the Code of Conduct Bureau (CCB), we know have fleet of cars and houses in Abuja and elsewhere. They have nonetheless gone ahead to collect car loans and bulk running allowances in advance. Curiously, one of them crying like a child whose ice cream has been taken away self-conceitedly told a Punch reporter: “does the president expect us to use our personal vehicles, bought with loans, to carry out oversight functions within and outside Abuja?”
Another without thinking wondered aloud why the President thinks ‘spending one percent of the nation’s N4trillion recurrent expenditure to buy utility vehicles for a whole arm of government was too much.’
Some of these self-serving senators are former employers of labour with private sector orientation. They should tell Nigerians whether they give their workers car loans, running allowance and buy them utility cars maintained by the employers. They should tell Nigerians if they pay their employers housing allowance, furniture allowance and clothing allowance among other allowances they immorally collect in advance. Do these fellows who are expected to find solution to our economic woes realize there are thousands in the media, public service and private sector who are being owed six to nine months arrears of salaries? Of course they don’t seem to understand that over 70% of our university graduates are roaming the streets.
Buhari who has publicly declared that the cars he inherited can last for another 10 years, and who needs all the time to face Boko Haram insurgency, mass unemployment and prostrate economy, the result of the collapse of the manufacturing sector occasioned by profligacy and cash and carry economic policy of the past PDP government has now decided to have a closed door meeting with these legislators who are behaving like kindergartens quarrelling over toys totally oblivious of the economic crisis the nation faces.
Fortunately, Nigerians no more needed to be told why Saraki, Ekweremadu and Dogara, once upon a time PDP family members were so desperate to hijack the National Assembly, employing sometimes ignoble strategies to achieve their objectives. They all want business to continue as usual. Their first protest was over a suggestion that the scandalously $189,500 high salaries they inherited from the 7th assembly be scaled down. But now we know, like gluttons who consume immoderately, they want more for themselves.
One way of doing this was an indefensible increase in the number of committees to ensure the largesse goes round. As Punch cynically asked in an editorial last week, ‘since committees are tied to the number of federal ministries “With a GDP $565 billion, (and) 25 federal ministries, what would 65 Senate and 96 House committees be doing? And for maximum effect, the paper went on to inform Nigerians that the Senate of long established federal systems like that of United States with a GDP of $17.9 trillion, has only 20 committees, Australia with a GDP of $1.2 trillion 20, the French with a $2.4 trillion economy, six, and Germany with GDP of $3.3 trillion 21.
The 8th Senate seems to be confirming the fears of those who argue that as an offshoot of the 7th Senate presided over by David Mark, Ekweremadu and in which Saraki was an influential member, it cannot bring joy to our people. In spite of the outrageous and scandalous earnings of $189,500 per lawmaker which the influential Economist of London, described as the highest in the world, unfolding events seem to confirm it as an accessory to crime against Nigeria. In spite of their SUVs, we did not see them in the besieged North-east where two million Nigerians have been rendered homeless living in camps. Mark and Ekweremadu did not think their oversight functions included raising alarm when the CBN ferried $2.1b raw cash in 11 boxes to President Jonathan NSA’s office where instead of buying arms for the military, it was shared by PDP members to fight the 2015 re-election contests.
Newspapers also reported over the weekend that government is planning to spend N5b this year ‘on providing official residences for Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, Senate President Bukola Saraki and House of Representatives Speaker Yakubu Dogara’. The budget indicates the Senate President complex will receive an allocation of N502.5m while the official residence for House of Representatives Speaker Dogara who we are told currently lives in a private house received a modest N1, 035, 652,
Nigerian taxpayers would rather Osinbajo remains in Aguda Guest House which housed all the past vice presidents since 1999 except for Atiku Abubakar who opted to stay in one of his houses in Abuja when asked to vacate the house of the Chief Justice of Nigeria he was occupying. With an expenditure of N2.1b according to a report by Ini Ekot (Dec 28, 2013), going into upgrading facilities in the Aguda Guest House between 2012 and 2013’, it should be good enough for our humble vice president.
Even if the budgeted N3b is for the completion of the N7b VP mansion which was derailed by Smart Adeyemi committee over the request by a former Minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) Bala Mohammed, his FCDA Executive Secretary Adamu Ismail for an additional N9b to ‘provide furniture, fencing, two additional protocol guest houses, a banquet hall and security gadgets’, Nigerian taxpayers would rather Osinbajo remains in Aguda Guest house while the mansion is converted into commercial use to earn funds badly needed for development.
As for housing the current National Assembly leaders who we know have mansions in Abuja from their submissions to Code of Conduct Bureau, I think it will be immoral to put additional burden on taxpayers. First it is on record that in 2013, FCT proposed N50b budget provisions “for the designing and construction of the residences of the President of the Senate, David Mark; his deputy, Ike Ekweremadu; the Speaker, Aminu Tambuwal; and his deputy, Emeka Ihedioha”. Nigerians have not been told what became of the mansions occupied by their predecessors or the ones the above men occupied until May this year. If the properties in accordance with PDP immoral monetization policy have been sold to their occupiers, Nigerians would expect the proceeds from the sales deployed towards building new ones instead of imposing additional burden on taxpayers.
Some of our current office-holders have beaten the record of Ozumba Mbadiwe’s Ijora land deal where he bought government land at reduced rate and sublet back to government. Today they renovate government houses with taxpayer’s money, sell to themselves and turn around to ask government for accommodation. We have no evidence the current office-holders seeking accommodation fall into this category but this is a widespread practice the media exposed since Babangida’s era.
But I however think there are one or two lessons about public morality and propriety we need to learn from those from whom we copied democracy. In contrast to our public office holders, parliamentarians in Britain, a few years back, who took the advantage of low rent in government quarters to sublet their London flats out, were forced to apologise to the public. The world watched defeated Gordon Brown drive out of 10 Downing Street in his own old rickety car leaving behind his official British made Jaguar for David Cameron, his successor.
