President Muhammadu Buhari is not in an enviable position right now. Just a year ago, Nigerians were chanting “FeBuhari” and piling their mountains of soteriological expectations on him. In about six weeks, it would be one year since he won the presidential election and if anything, Nigeria has proved tougher than what body language, or mere force of the President’s much touted incorruptible personality, can successfully heal.
For a man who became President by surfing on the wave of democratic discontent lunged at his opponent, it was clear from the start to any perspicacious observer that his administration would be weighed down by the burden of proof: to show the crowd of fawning admirers, supporters and believers that he was in charge, that their truth in him was not misplaced, and that he was indeed winning the war against bad governance.
One way to do this was to ramp up mundane government activity and milk it of its highest propaganda value.
I have been an adult citizen for a while but I cannot recall any other government that ecstatically wallows in pornography of propaganda like this present one. Everywhere one turns in Nigeria these days, it seems there is a loud raucous noise of government officials emoting over the President’s successes in the past months, a pesky din aimed at drowning dissension, reason and well-meaning criticisms.
In the past few weeks, in a bid to share testimonies of government magic, we have been treated to exaggerated claims of government efficacy, larded with what the late Ola Rotimi would have referred to as “terminological inexactitudes.”
One example is the claim that the government has saved a whopping N2.2tn in three months, a feat owing to the Treasury Single Account initiative. Let me acknowledge that all governments in the world routinely lie to their citizens but the nature of the lie, and the depth of thought that enshrouds it, shows the level of respect they have for the citizens. I will not dismiss the N2.2tn story as an outright lie but consider the remote possibility that the truth exists somewhere but only as a thin film of truth that is being overstretched to the point of illogicality.
How does a country that can barely pay salaries save so much in such a short time and yet nothing still changes in her fortunes? Did they mean they save some existing money from being spent or that sum is the amount that could have been wasted if they had not been so diligent? How does this government begin to even convince us that it saved the nation such exorbitant amount when her 2016 budget is replete with errors, duplications and frauds so massive that reading through the items analysed by various media made one tremble in shame at the outright lack of attentiveness that was invested into its preparations? How can you be so grossly incompetent in one aspect and then claim you are opposite in another?
For a President who embodied the image of military discipline and asceticism, this budget deconstructs and demystifies him. From the way the budget was presented and withdrawn amidst lies and denials, a lot has been going wrong suggesting poor administrative capability. Buhari owes Nigerians an explanation and an apology for the inferior effort that went into this budget preparation. Rather than outsource the blame, he should take responsibility for it. In a sane society, whole heads of department would be tendering their resignation by now. One is tempted to ask how Nigeria got to this level but then, has our national existence not been characterised by such slipshoddiness?
Rather than continue to peddle propaganda and spread false cheer about the progress we have made, I think it is time we admitted that our systems are warped, unwieldy and unsustainable. Like the budget itself, Nigeria was designed to sustain the mechanisms through which corruption operates rather than advance the nation. We do not need the Minister of Information and Culture, Lai Muhammed, to come up with another excuse to cover sheer incompetence.
The lies told by this government are not helping anybody – neither government nor citizens. What it does is to further erode our collective integrity and the will to transcend our shortcomings. Telling lies about defeating Boko Haram in order to overshadow the fact that we are fighting a resilient war with largely analogue methods has not as much as deflated reality, so why not try tell the truth for a change? Rather than the hysterical claim about some officials “sneaking” in huge sums items into the budget, we need a more introspective look at how these things happen. We need genuine answers based on sincere analysis of the problem, not more lies or excuses exonerating themselves from these glaring failures.
How is it possible for anyone – mafia or not – to sneak items into the budget? What of items that were not sneaked in -such as the huge sums allocated to running facilities in Aso Rock at the expense of poor deprived citizenry? What level of oversight went into the preparation that a number of items escaped scrutiny? This is a part I do not understand: Is the budget manually prepared? I mean, do civil servants compute the national budget through manual calculation or they take the smarter, efficient route of using modern computer software, customised for Nigeria? The scale of fraud and shoddiness in that budget suggests that there are too many human interventions in the process. How does a nation progress when it micromanages itself?
For a while, Buhari’s government has had it good with Nigerians who keep extending it a long rope of excuses. Now, the length is enough to hang everyone. Rather than throw up our hands and jump on the same old gravy train of blaming previous administrations, or mouth the same set of impotent excuses of corruption, the government should look inward and admit to itself its own lack of preparations for the huge task that Nigerians handed to it in 2015. There are many days when it seems that the All Progressives Congress was never prepared for the reality of victory until it was too late. That is why they have been floundering, weighing every day of their administration against the unpopularity of their hapless predecessor.
For people who were ushered to power mouthing some of the most outrageous promises ever, their days in office should have exposed him to the cold stinging harshness of reality. They – like many of us – would have learnt that there are no easy solutions to Nigeria’s many problems. Our problems are many, twisted, unending but not insurmountable.
One only needs to pay attention to President Buhari himself to realise that he is overwhelmed and probably privately haunted by the scale of challenges facing his government.
Lately, in a conversation with members of the Nigerian community in the United Kingdom, he stated that he had wondered to himself why fate would deal him an unruly hand – making him President at a time when the nation’s fortunes were plunging; that he prayed for Nigerians who would suffer the consequences of the circumstances. These words, when taken up by the most fanatical of his followers, will expectedly be misconstrued as a testimony of his honesty. Underlining it however is the ruminations of a man yet to understand why he was chosen to occupy office at such a time like this. Buhari has never been a philosopher-king but his private cogitations like this one, voiced out, are less than inspiring. By now he should have known that great leaders are not made in good times. Rather, they are forged in the crucible of dwindled fortunes. Coming into office at the time oil rate is falling is not the problem; not having enough imagination to confront what looms ahead is what dooms us.
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When we criticize, we should endeavour to be factual. Our efforts should be geared towards making our country a better place for all. My brother, Dozie, disputed that TSA is this administration’s initiative, but failed to tell us the regime that had used it before in all the democratic efforts of our country.
If the Governor of a state, upon whose shoulder the day,-to-day administration of the state lie, affirmed that no LGA in the state remains under the control of Boko Haram, and Dozie says I should not believe that. Rather, it is the claim of the representative of a senatorial district in the state, who spends more time in Abuja, to the contrary that should be held authentic.
It is noteworthy however that we all agree that efforts of our military have yielded more apparent positive results today, when compared the situation under former President Jonathan’s six years reign. The present leadership do not lie to Nigerians.
@Olasunmade, in ur effort to dispute all dat Adelakun asserted u only succeeded in reinforcing them. First, TSA is not an initiative of this administration. Adelakun didn’t dispute d efforts of our military in d NE but d claim (but d claim of PMB and Mr Lai Mohammed) dat BH has been defeated whether technically or real. Ask the Senator from Bornu central and other pple there, some or parts of some LGAs re still under BH control contrary to claims be Mr Lai and PMB. If a statement isn’t true then it’s a lie and surely doesn’t represent ”integrity”. God bless Nigeria
Haba, Nigerians; why are we so difficult a people to be led. One thing no one can take away from our present leadership is the ability to speak the truth always. The personalities of both President Muhammadu Buhari and Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo are of high integrity, so strong that nothing to the contrary has been proved against them till date. That someone now openly describe them as liars, under whatever guise, is totally unacceptable. I will try and address the issues raised.
Treasury Single Account(TSA), an initiative of this government, is something Nigerians should be proud of the regime for. It is a veritable tool to curb wastages, as well as put corrupt tendencies in the management of our national economy under check. It is discerning to note the ease of managing transactions in one account, as against having such transactions scattered into multiple accounts. With TSA, wastages arising from bloated overhead costs will be saved. In addition, corrupt tendencies of officials managing the multiple accounts will be seriously curtailed. In an economy like ours, where daily total turnover of such accounts will be in tens of billions, saving N2.2trillion in three months must have been conservatively stated. The government of President Muhammadu Buhari and Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo cannot lie to Nigerians.
The current discordant tunes over Budget 2016 is another testimony that this present government does not lie to the governed. Under the previous governments led by the PDP for 16years, such differences would never have been made public; it would have been shrouded under the cloak of corruption. For instance, while defending his ministry’s budget before the National Assembly committee, the Honourable Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Muhammed, disclaimed the N358million budgeted for purchase of computers for two agencies under his ministry. Has this ever happened in the history of Budget defence in this country. We should not give dog a bad name because we want to hang it! This present government will NEVER lie to Nigerians.
Even if people like Mr. Abimbola Adelakun fail to see that Boko Haram has been defeated, our brothers and sisters in the North-East that are directly affected know better. He who wears the shoe knows where it pinches. For someone to deny successes recorded by the military in the current fight against insurgency is like playing politics with the lives of our people.
Irrespective of what the likes of Mr. Adelakun feel or say, this government of President Muhammadu Buhari and Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo is not one revelling on propaganda. Their integrity has never, and will never be called to question. I will only appeal to the detractors to give this government enough time, so that we all can benefit from good governance they have sworn to deliver.
God bless PMB and VPYO!
God bless APC!!
God bless Nigeria!!!
Sir,it’s people like you that encourages the government to keep lying to the governed. Even when the truth is in front of you, you close your eyes to it simply because you do not want to make ourself believe that you have made mistakes. The only way we can help our country and this govt is to point out to this govt where it has failed or lied to its citizens. For your information TSA is not an initiative of this government. I voted for Buhari, but the truth be told he is not different from the previous govt.
This failed attempt at making a national budget, that one filled with outright criminal figure inflation and duplication, sneaking in, padding and ”typographic errors” has happily come early enough to inform Mr President that he is alone and on his own in this ”cleansing efforts”