Foremost writer, reformist, fearless journalist and social media
influencer, Japheth J. Omojuwa has finally expressed his mind concerning
the controversial 2016 Budget as he says the budget is disgraceful and
does not represent change.
He wrote: "Before I address the essence of this piece, I will
start by addressing the reaction. There are two main elements that are
likely to ignore rationality when reading and commenting on this piece;
the so called Wailing Wailers and the group of people who are still
voting President Buhari despite the fact that he is already president.
They are often both irrational groups who hold on to opposite sides of
an issue mostly based on where they stood during the last polls.
Of the two, the Wailing Wailers are of course the most
disgraceful, colourfully shameless and with zilch credibility. The
reason being that, everything they criticize today, they once cheered
and supported. Their only anger with anything today is that Goodluck
Jonathan is no longer president. For most of them, they would cheer the
stealing of billions of dollars, defend same and even protest if you
start the prosecution process of the suspects, all because they
supported Goodluck Jonathan. They do not love Nigeria and even if they
wail from now till 2090, those who know better will never take them
seriously.
The other group, those who are still voting President Buhari,
are held back by the desperation not to be seen that they made a mistake
at the polls. That is an unfortunate state to be in because of the two
major options before Nigerians last year, Mohammadu Buhari was a no
brainer. Goodluck Jonathan had supervised Nigeria’s longest oil boom,
despite that, he left Nigeria with its lowest foreign reserve in a
decade, less than 1000 MW of power supply, some 112 million poor souls,
over 10 million school kids out of school, gargantuan corruption of
which Nigeria would still be recovering the stolen funds 10 years from
now.
Buhari was the better candidate of the two and Nigerians
rightly settled that argument. What Buhari does with that mandate does
not make the Nigerians who voted him the wrong party. If doing the right
thing eventually results in a bad thing happening, you do not regret
doing the right thing.
But Nigeria is bigger than the so called Wailing Wailers,
Nigerians already proved that on March 28, 2015. End of. Nigeria is
bigger than the Buharists too, Nigerians proved it three times before
the 2015 elections. Buhari became president because non-Buharists voted
him. Let this be clear before people get swept off by the wind and tide
that swept Jonathan and his “best president ever” court of jesters.
The 2016 budget is a joke, a disgrace and a representation of
the unwholesome reality of governance in Nigeria. What that budget
simply shows is that we simply are not ready for the change we so
mouthed during the last elections. Government officials are speaking of
austerity measures and the need for Nigerians to make sacrifices, yet
our Budget Office is proposing to spend some bizarre sums on some
irrelevant, good for nothing materials that contribute zero-value to the
average Nigerian.
The 2016 budget has N1 billion for the purchase of tables and
chairs. We cannot introduce PDPian reality into governance and then
pretend things have changed. N1 billion? For what? That amount will
start a big furniture company with the capacity, not only to make enough
chairs for the federal government, it will also create jobs. I don’t
believe in government starting companies but I’d rather N1 billion spent
that way than spent buying tables and chairs.
Almost N7 billion will be wasted on the Senate President’s
residence and some joke consultancy distraction. If we want to run
Nigeria down, let us be frank with Nigerians, instead of telling them
now things will be different while continuing with the inanities that
led us here in the first place.
As we speak, no one knows how the National Assembly spends its
allocation. It collects its share and spends it without accounting to
Nigerians. We can fool one another, but we cannot fool those watching
from outside. So far, nothing has changed here! N4.8 billion has been
proposed for operational vehicles for Nigerian Prisons. Let us assume
these new vehicles are being bought in anticipation of the billionaires
that will be jailed by president Buhari, should they then have access to
the same exotic vehicles in prison as they did when eating out our
collective wealth out of prison? N237 million was spent in 2015 – at
least according to that budget – to purchase kitchen equipment for the
state house. Now, another N89 million has been budgeted for same. How is
it that kitchen equipment that cost almost N237 million cannot survive
beyond a budget cycle? Haba!
We cannot stay repeating the same mistakes – should they be
called mistakes if they happen every year? – and expect that somehow
things will change for the better. The biggest indication of a
government’s direction and intention is its budget. If this budget
represents the change the APC promised, we might as well now agree that
the disaster that was the “Transformation Agenda” has a match in the
joke that this is turning out to be. The most part of this is that those
who ought to speak are scared to speak out, they would rather speak
angrily against the budget privately, then go into the Senate chamber to
praise the very same document they tore apart just minutes before.
If we continue to make government about individuals, our
country will not move an inch forward. What has been stated above about
the budget is not a finger at who is wrong, it is a finger at what is
wrong. The 2016 budget is wrong. Capital Expenditure at 30 per cent,
despite an expanded budget essentially means the reality of recurrent
expenditure against capital expenditure remains as it was under the
Jonathan years. The difference is too marginal to be emphasized as
“change.” President Buhari presented a great speech at the National
Assembly when presenting the 2016 budget but if he had actually gone
through some of the items in that budget, he would have instead sent
those who prepared the budget to present it.
This is the first budget under a new party since the PDP’s
16-year reign. It was not expected to be markedly different from theirs
because reforms need to be gradual to be sustainable, and to avoid
shocks on the economy. Having said this, some items on the 2016 budget
could easily have been avoided altogether. Lessons must be learnt, the
Buhari administration must do better. If there is one thing this
administration can learn from the last, it is this; those who are seen
as critics are better than those who praise your every move. We cannot
afford to get carried away by the praises of those who will not be there
when we are out of power. Those who hailed the last president, as the
best thing that ever happened to Nigeria could not even spend a few
thousands to wish him a happy birthday just months after he left office.
It is the nature of power, it is transient and it carries sycophants
along with it, in droves.
Let it not be said that we did not speak when things go wrong.
Let it not be said that our voices went dead when the very things we
criticized under one government reared its head under another. The
Wailing Wailers will say this is being done because people like us were
not rewarded with government positions, but those with the power to
share the offices know those who are begging them for same. And those
who do not care who became what or didn’t. May we know to do better!"
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