The 2006 Nigerian Budget

The 2006 Nigerian Budget: A Fairy Tale Like Others Before It

Prince Charles Dickson

Jos, Plateau Nigeria

I smiled crudely as I watched our “confusion” I mean leaders pose for photograph after the presentation of the 2006 budget by the President to the joint sitting of the National Assembly, the President had his trademark foolish grin which reminds one of a goat about to be slaughtered for Sallah, yet unaware of impending doom, the Vice President smiling with intent saying in his mind I wont give up now I have a dream that one day… the crooked Deputy Senate President was in his full official regalia, the wig making him look like a comic character out f rom a cartoon collection, Ahmadu Ali was there after all the budget by extension is a PDP budget with his son and wife still remaining PDP faithfuls…Behind were those that make up the party of our paw-paw republic like a friend puts it.

Each time I look at our nation’s budget also state budgets I ask what manner of fairy tale Nigeria is, in Rivers State Odili called his N160 billion budget “Budget of Sustained Consolidation and Development”. In Enugu, it was termed “Budget of Excellence”, Nigerians we love what my Yoruba friends call Efizy, Shakara, we Hausas call it chara. Big English empty nonsense. There is no mechanism in place to monitor these billions and trillions of Naira, once the cash is made available if they are…they (leaders) go a partying, they spend millions of Naira in paying for their kids education abroad because they have bastardised what they should be enjoying here. They organize rallies with hungry people singing their praises and the smile as they acknowledge their stupidity.

I have read the budget for 2006 which the President as usual in his lying nature said was “about people” as if the 2005 budget was about ghosts or he was afraid to say that the 2005 was all about the PDP’s war on the opposition. Not that I understand all the figures as I am not a statistician or economists but I understand enough like the common man that budgets are not about figures but people if you like spend quillion, gillion, and zillion whatever that sounds like, it makes absolutely no sense. The people that are supposed to benefit from these trillions are still left wallowing in abject poverty.

Regarding the 2005 Budget scored himself excellent, I did not expect otherwise, the President passed all his courses, from education to banking with no money to bank, and no access to quality education forget the blab dash called UBE…its all a big show, agriculture to power if I took a survey of how many cities had electricity) over the weekend of his Budget or is it appropriation bill presentation the statistics would be shocking. The agriculture sector got a meagre 4%plus yet while he spoke, his speech was interrupted with claps from shameless buffoons in the National Assembly (apologises to those who may not be) giving both standing and sitting ovations like kids whose xmas clothes were just presented to them by their parents. Cowards that they are, they all make noise when their interest is involved, when the public is involved they shout small, then go behind and are settled then their laughter always will occupy space when they are talking to their girlfriends, concubines and mistresses.

In this life I never thought I would live to see my nation talk in billions of Naira, much more trillions of Naira without achievement and poverty would still be walking in broad daylight and depravation and frustration mixed with confusion would be a three course meal for the average Nigerian. Pardon my use of the term average that class of people no longer exists; they have been eradicated like the West has done to mosquitoes and malaria since long time ago. In Nigeria you are poor of rich, a thief or a honest man…we have a sprinkling of contented men these days.

God bless the day, a Representative like Hon. Bashir Idris Nadabo (ANNP Katsina) apparently unmoved and embittered reacting immediately to the President, said “Ever since you assumed power in 1999,you have failed to implement any of your budgets”. True talk my brother, how has these budgets in billions, now trillions helped stabilize the price common salt, a cup of beans and local garri. We have had PAP, NEEDS, CONSOLIDATION, MERGER, REFORMS…the list continues but no visible sign of improvement all we are told is be patient…I am sure patience is not happy with us. The only noticeable improvement are roadside thugs that found their way to power and are now overnight billionaires.

We understand if cement prices rocket to space after all poor man no dey build house and can live on wood-constructed house (that is if the wood is available) or better still be a destitute, but when the increase then includes sugar and salt, the only sweet thing the poor masses has access to and the only medicine the poor man can afford. Government sits there and are moping. Hope definitely is far away, succour is not anywhere near.

At a local newspaper joint I overheard one of the masses lament, “s o-so billion, and we no dey see N5.00 to buy pure water”. I beg to state without fear, favour, and contradiction (the worst being that probably I would be “accidentally discharged” to my forefathers) that this government is a full-blown lie, the list of lies are just unbearable….

“With regard to power, we have also made steady progress…”. The federal government set aside N5 billion for palliative measures to support improved transportation services…in all the President said of his implementation of the 2005 budget. It was loaded with untruths, fallacy and government propaganda, the best one could ascribe as possibly commendable was the debt relief, which off cours e did not come without its own controversy. An economist friend of mine after ready the budget said he was simply dazed because he could not recall the budget as delivered by the President to anything on ground. The President self pass mark on the 2005 budget sounded like he was referring to its success in another nation, not Nigeria where poverty is ravaging the land.

Citizens are being evicted from government houses without my workable alternative, in Abuja people are living in abandoned vehicles, sleeping on street culverts and the government is praising itself as a success. A budget of accountability, a budget of innovative features, a budget of sensitivity, coming from a President who on that day “deliberately “slighted his Vice President in the order of protocol, his senses of sensitivity to his stealing VP who had been with through the rough and tough. Almighty Allah the wealth you have given us is destroying us…Do something, let our leaders wake up to a peoples’ revolt one of these mornings.