Condoling with 2016 budget

Condoling with 2016 budget

May God save Nigeria 

— 29th April 2016

At a time, as we were growing up, there was

this story and later an illustration, especially

on the front pages of some brands of exercise

books, of a man virtually being crushed to the

ground by the weight of the universe that was

hoisted on his shoulders. Part of the message

l gleaned from that grotesque and frightening

illustration of the person we commonly then

referred to as the Atlas Man was that we,

even as kids, should be mindful of how much

of the world’s worries we should carry on our

shoulders. And it also included being careful

about our ambitions and how much of the sky

we aspire to conquer. So, the fact that man is

finite in what can be accomplished had been

ingrained in the subconscious since the

formative years.

With maturity and further exposure, learning

veered into diverse fields, including

psychology, mysticism and philosophy and yet

much more. We began to learn about ancient

kingdoms and empires and the myths and the

gods that men created, gave to themselves

and then turned around to fear them and to

ultimately worship them. It was at this stage

that we encountered afresh the Atlas Man in

Greek mythology. It was here that we learnt

that Atlas was a titan god of ‘endurance and

astronomy’, who was ‘condemned to hold up

the sky for eternity…’ In spite of maturity, still

the prospects of condemning a man [god] to

hold up the sky for eternity was no less

troubling.

The image of the Atlas Man that was

ingrained in my mind as a child decades ago

has kept recurring in the last several weeks in

the wake of the controversies and

expectations from the President Muhammadu

Buhari/Senate President Bukola Saraki/House

of Representatives Speaker Yakubu Dogara

2016 National Budget of Nigeria. From Buhari

to his spokesmen to ministers to other

appointees in the MDAs [ministries,

departments and agencies], the refrain we get

to hear these days is that the prevailing

CHAIN shackling Nigerians will be replaced by

the promised CHANGE once the 2016 Budget

bill is signed into law. For now, nobody knows

about the fate of the Appropriation Bill. It

must be somewhere between the presidential

palace and the National Assembly complex in

Abuja, the nation’s capital. And in the context

of the uncertain relationship between the

president and the leadership of NASS,

particularly the Senate president, the budget

might as well be said to be in no man’s land.

For me the 2016 budget marks the return of

the Atlas Man. It’s the new beast of burden.

At every turn what you hear now is that once

the budget is signed into law all our troubles

will go away. And our problems are many. For

a start, the country has been enveloped in

perpetual darkness for as long as anybody can

remember. Certainly, for much of the life of

this administration, which turns one in the

next one month, darkness has been our

companion. It must be said that darkness was

a carry-over from preceding regimes of the

PDP. But the situation became acute soon

after we celebrated the generation of a little

over 5,000 megawatts of electricity in March.

In the typical Nigerian story, we moved from

5,000mw to zero; yes, zero megawatts of

electricity within just a few days in March. The

celebration turned sour in our mouth. The

other day, our super minister, Babatunde

Fashola, who superintends ministries of

power, works and housing, claimed that less

than one third of the about 150 electricity

turbines of the national grid are functional. He

has served us notice that the end is not in

sight for blackouts. The same minister has

also said we should virtually forget improved

federal roads when he declared that barely

N500 billion was voted for the three ministries

under him in the 2016 budget while to recover

federal roads alone would require in excess of

N2 trillion. And we are still being assured that

once the budget is signed our pains will go

away.

The signing of the budget is also expected to

end the nightmare Nigerians have been

suffering in the area of the steady supply and

ready availability of petrol.

When the Minister of State for Petroleum

Resources, Ibe Kachikwu, said in March that

the problem will only abate by May, Asiwaju

Bola Ahmed, national leader of the ruling All

Progressives Congress [APC], savaged him to

no end. Kachikwu was forced to recant. He

was stampeded to revise the timeline to two

weeks. The two weeks have since come and

gone. We are virtually in May and the petrol

queues are still with us. It is safe to believe

that petrol queues will outlive the month of

May. And probably 2016 until Buhari musters

the courage to do the needful.

Early this week, Minister Kachikwu traced the

scarcity to diversion of petrol from Nigeria to

Chad and Cameroon just about the same time

that the Ekiti State chapter of the APC was

heaping the blame on the opposition Peoples

Democratic Party [PDP] governor of that state,

Ayo Fayose, who has been a fierce critic of

Buhari. The APC said that the governor was

diverting petrol trucks to neighbouring states

and ghost fuel stations. The problem with the

claim is that no state, bordering Ekiti is in a

better standing on the issue of availability of

petrol. I had thought that the issue of cabal

has gone with the PDP. If petrol is diverted, it

is because there is a premium for the product

across the border.

In addition to the signing of the budget,

bringing respite in the petrol supply sector,

Kachikwu has created a new oath of

allegiance akin to Hitler’s, which he now

administers on Nigerians at the so-called

town hall meetings organised and delivered

by this government. Our situation is now so

desperate that we will say Amen to anything.

A few weeks ago, Kachikwu had told

Nigerians that magic was not part of the

training he received in the course of his

education. But you certainly need some

magical skills to craft an oath, put a spell on

your listeners, administer the oath on them

and get them to chorus Amen. So, on the

issue of not having training in magic,

Kachikwu lied.

The N5, 000 to be paid to the poorest of the

poorest of Nigerians is also awaiting the

signing of the budget. Nobody has publicly

apprised Nigerians with the modalities of

identifying the poorest of the poorest one

million Nigerians, who would benefit from the

handout. We just have to accept that it cannot

come on stream because the budget has not

been signed. The same applies to the 500,000

Nigerian graduates, who will be recruited and

deployed to teach. Again it is the budget. One

meal or snack per day per primary school

pupil, a promise of candidate Buhari during

the 2015 campaign, which has not yet been

denied or declared non-priority, cannot

commence because of the non signing of the

budget. Everything that was promised and that

has not been delivered has been heaped on

the delayed 2016 budget. Fortunately, we have

been told that the budget will be signed by the

president next week. Hallelujah! But let us not

forget that this same fiscal document was ab

initio “contaminated, compromised and

ultimately corrupted”, to borrow the words of

Johnnie Cochran, the forensic defence lawyer

of American football legend, O.J Simpson,

who was accused of murdering his ex-wife

and her boyfriend about 21 years ago.

Fulani militia

They have done it again, this time in Enugu.

Their signature of blood and sorrow is written

all over Nimbo community in Enugu State. The

governor, Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi, was reported to

have wept when he saw the carnage.

Somebody should, please, tell the governor

that crying does not solve any problem. If

crying is the solution, the governor should call

a solemn assembly of all Enugu indigenes and

their friends at Michael Okpara Square where

everybody will cry from sun up to sun down to

will the merchants of death away. Where the

federal government has willfully abdicated

securing the people [and indeed appears to be

sympathetic to the marauding murderers],

then resort to self-help becomes legitimate

before man and God. We have example in the

Civilian JTF [the citizen-soldiers] in the North

East. Eternal vigilance is the price for liberty.

Ndigbo should not willfully offer themselves

to be victims of the 97%/5% treatment.

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