When word came from somewhere in the Senate the other day that the entire 2016 Budget – all N6.08 trillion of it – had gone missing, disappeared, vanished, millions of Nigerians looking up to it for a reprieve from their miseries must have felt as if they had been pole-axed.
If there is one thing on which all Nigerians are agreed, it is that nothing is impossible in Nigeria. Still, it was almost inconceivable that such a colossal amount would have vanished in a mere three weeks. Not even Sani Abacha and the Goodluck Ebele Jonathan Administration in their cumulative profligacy and kleptomania could have made such a colossal sum perform a disappearing act so unceremoniously.
Much to everybody’s relief, it turned out that only the budget documents were missing – the tome President Muhammadu Buhari had presented to the National Assembly in a sturdy receptacle that looked like the national flag in three dimensions just before the lawmakers left for their umpteenth recess in six months.
They returned, only to find that the hard copy and the soft copies supposed to have been made for members of the Senate were nowhere to be found. Dutiful and public-spirited as ever, they raised the alarm: The budget documents had gone missing.
Not so, said the Speaker of the House of Representatives, the other chamber of the National Assembly. The documents were intact and available, and members of that chamber were not complaining.
Still, the word out there was that the budget documents were indeed missing, and public concern shifted to what must have happened to them.
According to one early theory, Buhari had pulled a 4-1-9 on the National Assembly. The box he had presented to the Assembly with such critical solemnity on December 22, 2015, so goes the theory, contained no documents at all, only stale air.
But how then did the House of Representatives come by what they are purporting to be Budget 2016 documents. Were they forgeries, like Standing Orders 2015 “as amended”?
Another theory posited that Olisa Metuh must have in a fit of petulant rage eaten up the documents. But why did he consume only the copies meant for the Senate and spare those meant for the House of Representatives? Plus, no one can eat up hundreds of pages and not succumb to terminal dyspepsia in the process.
According to yet another theory, following the mugging the Budget proposals suffered in the news media, Buhari had surreptitiously spirited away the documents, reworked them and returned them to the National Assembly in like manner.
Buhari’s Senior Special Assistant on National Assembly Matters, Ita Enang, seems to have rendered this theory plausible when he declined to address forthrightly the charge that the documents had been doctored, saying instead that the kerfuffle was “sensitive” and that both sides were working toward a resolution.
Nor did federal officials refute this theory when they described the controversy over the Budget offhand as a “distraction “and “a storm in a tea-cup.”
What is “sensitive” about a public document, the contents of which have been analysed in the news media and discussed and debated on dozens of various platforms? Why were Enang and other federal officials less than forthcoming on the matter?
In whatever case, why would Buhari withdraw the Budget documents surreptitiously when he can with a formal letter to the National Assembly change, modify or disavow altogether any request he may have placed before it? After all, the Budget is a work in progress.
Meanwhile, the Senate decided to take all the guessing and grandstanding out of the matter and directed its Committee on Ethics and Privileges to ascertain what really was the matter with Budget 2016.
The Committee has since “revealed” that the Budget papers were not really missing, only that there were “two versions” before the Senate. One version has been christened the Enang Budget, and the other one credited to Buhari.
But not before the story of the dodgy budget had made the headlines and front pages of the news media across the world and gone viral on social media. And not before Nigerians had lampooned it as only Nigerians can.
One comment doing the rounds on YouTube, with a picture of a man clutching a pile of akarawrapped in paper went thus:
“If you buy suya, akara or guguru, please crosscheck the (wrapping) papers to avoid eating our 2016 Budget.”
You hear, all ye patrons of roadside food vendors.
Another had a picture of stern looking armed security officials rummaging in cluttered office: Cutline: ”DSS raids Metuh’s office in search of missing budget.”
Another comment, entirely pictorial, shows two men peering intently into a sewer, hoping they might find the missing budget in the murky stench.
Yet another comment showed a long line of men trying to push a passenger down on its side. Caption: ”Don’t joke about this missing Budget O. They have checked the National Assembly. Now we are in Agege searching under buses.”
Another comment shows Buhari and Vice- President Osinbajo in a lounge chair as they laughed mirthfully, with Osinbajo proclaiming triumphantly, “We don play them.” To which a certain BGIS (who is he?) responded, “Dem go find budget taya. Oya, go edit am.”
Then, there is this evocative one showing Buhari in a white robe, hands clasped in supplication; the bubble from his mouth has him saying, in lamentation: “These people have come again o. They stole my certificate. Now they have stolen my Budget.”
One picture shows three rams, two of them chewing on opposite ends of a large piece of paper. ”Buhari,” one of the goats said in a manner both mocking and taunting, “If you want your Budget, you can come have it.”
Amidst all the theories, the declarations and the declamations and the proclamations, the best available information – I am here taking the Senate Committee on Ethics (ha!) and Rules (ha! ha) on trust, which is a risky thing to do – the best available information is that there are at least two versions of the Budget document.
Maybe we will know in the days ahead how one version differs from the other, the discrepancies and interpolations that have been discovered between the two.
The National Budget is fundamentally a political instrument. It often conceals at least as much as it reveals, and implementation always falls short of intent; in sum, there is always an element of dodginess to it.
Budget 2016 is no different. The Executive Branch and the legislative Branch are locked in dodgy games of their own, even before debate has commenced in earnest. When it eventually gets under way, the debate must not turn out to be one long exercise in dodginess.
By the way, have you heard that the Constitution has also gone missing?
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Olatunji Dare has to hold the Nigerian heavyweight record as purveyor of delectable sarcasm. Light hearted and yet thought provoking. I really wish there were more like him. Please keep it up my lecturer…