It is almost a year since we had a change of government and yet we do not have a budget. This is simply embarrassing and totally uncalled for. In any civilized country, the minister of budget and national planning should have resigned long ago when it was discovered that what our president was made to present was poorly prepared and was not vetted before the president was told the budget was ready for submission to parliament. Ministers and heads of departments one after the other disowned the figures and projects in their departmental and ministries budget.
The public was told that some people, presumably bureaucrats, had deliberately smuggled items and heads of expenditure without the knowledge of government. This is an act of sabotage and some people should be held responsible. This was also an act done to ridicule a president who means well for the country and who is doing everything to rescue the country from the abyss of stinking corruption the previous regime left us. I cannot imagine that anybody would have the kind of courage and audacity to frontally confront the president and his government in this way. This is why something must be done publicly to punish the culprits.
The budget fiasco raises several points in my mind. I think people are trying to test the resolve of President Muhammadu Buhari. They are hiding under the pretext that we are in a democratic regime and Buhari dares not act as a military man and that if he does they will enlist the support of their bevy of lawyers to challenge him. We may yet borrow from the book of late Justice Kalu Anya who said in the 1980s that a time may come in this country when a defence counsel may be jailed along with the accused in cases bordering on national political or economic security. It seems the president’s hands are being tied and he seems to be going along with his traducers.
If this goes on indefinitely without the president wielding the enormous powers of his office, people will lose interest in his reformist agenda and he will be perceived as a toothless bulldog or a bedraggled old soldier full of sound and fury signifying nothing. This apparent refusal to use the power of his office for the good of the silent majority has led to the National Assembly and particularly the Senate with its corrupt and compromised leadership blocking the moves of the president at every turn without consequences.
Many people have suggested that there is a need to have special anti-corruption tribunals to try the innumerable cases of corruption being daily exposed. If this is not done, the culprits would use their loot to hire lawyers who will collude with the apparently compromised judges to delay the cases by issuing one injunction after another to frustrate the cause of justice as they have been doing since 2007. The result is that this crowd of treasury looters would come back next election and buy themselves seats in the Senate and the House. They will continue to rule us and award humongous salaries and perks to themselves. In the meantime, the work of government is being held hostage and poor people in the cities and rural areas are beginning to take laws into their hands by attacking ordinary people doing their own businesses or minding their own affairs.
I just do not understand how members of the Senate would abandon discussing and passing the budget and troop down to the court where their so-called president has been arraigned for corruption. They say it is political persecution. Is the Nigerian government also involved in the Panama papers where the same money guzzler has been mentioned? We of course know what is going on. It is not that they love Bukola Saraki; what they are trying to prevent is so that the example of Saraki is not used as a template for their own treatment when the time comes. I wish these people know how angry the masses are with their shenanigans and irresponsibility.
The president must not be seen to surrender to the evil forces in the land without a fight. There must be some emergency powers the president can invoke to prevent a civilian coup d’etat against his government. This is what the inability to pass a budget in a year is.
The serious economic problem the country faces is being compounded by this inertia on the part of the legislative branch which instead of doing what is right for the people is nevertheless going on spending spree, buying jeeps whose prices are inflated by 100 percent and forging standing rules to permit all kinds of illegalities and untoward actions unbefitting of the status of the hallowed assemblies they temporarily occupy. The mistake Buhari made was allowing renegades take over parliament without the party whip. Once the leadership that emerged without party control was ensconced in office, the president lost all influence in parliament. If the president does not fight back, all will be lost and it will be goodbye to good governance. Instead of being sorry for their misdeeds, operatives of the regime that brought us to this economic pass are boasting that they will be back in 2019. If nothing is done quickly, their prophesy may just come true.
The campaign is on. Imagine the man responsible for the Boko Haram insurgency not only being appointed party chairman but also presumably gunning for the presidency itself! They are already blaming Buhari for the crash of oil price. The uninformed and even those who should know are saying things were better under the previous regime. They dishonestly give the impression that Buhari is wickedly withholding release of money to reflate a depressed economy. The myriad of problems arising from the collapse of the oil market does not allow President Buhari the luxury of being nice to those who want to bring down his government. He must confront them headlong. We did not elect him because of his democratic credentials or gentlemanly disposition to opponents, in fact we elected him because we want him to be tough to those who will sabotage the present and the future of Nigerians. We know one cannot make omelette without breaking eggs. What this country needs is not a pussy-footing leadership but a strong leader with clear conscience, incorruptible credential with the constitution in one hand and a whip in the other. Sometimes in strategy, it is not the actual use of force that does the trick but the threat of it.
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