Yar’Adua may not have what it takes to throw out these Yan-Kisan-Raba daylight pen robbers in Revenue Mobilization Allocation and Fiscal Commission but give him his due for spilling out some sugar in his mouth on excessive salaries. It’s unbearable enough for looters to go into rage demanding his head. We cannot be seen as fair, feeding into looters’ rage when we condemn any good issue coming from Yar’Adua; because we see it as a ploy to play to the gallery. Of course we know corruption in high places is the big flying elephant but it does not have to be all or nothing just as prosecution of petty thieves must not shield the obligation to go after the king fish.

Many of us cannot figure out what became of the monetization of allowance policy of the past administration. Cars and public housing were sold with the justification that it was too expensive for a government like ours to waste so much on maintenance for a few. Some men of “timber and caliber”, Yan-Kiran-Raba, healthy but lazy, entrenched in the system have sworn that Nigerians will never see the light of the day at their inconvenience. If NEPA came alive, they would smother the day light out of it to make money. It may remind us of Ajaokuta Steel industry. These are progress killers who talk about one Nigeria as long as it is bleed-able.

We know that their allowances and loots are way more than their salaries. Out of about N1.3 trillions, over a trillion is spent on allowances alone, while junior civil servants without housing cannot live on minimum wage. Most Nigerians realize salary and allowance are comparatively small compared to their real loot under the table where all the contracts and deals are made. This has not, by any means daunted the Commission from showering them with money that is not coming from their backyards’ products. If income generation is the criteria by which we pay our politicians, their creativity would be directed to producing multiple income generating sources.

Nigerians have been crying for years that members of that august Commission are worse than armed robbers, yet they remain unmoved and unrepentant. Only heavens know where these crack heads get their “scientific” formula for allocating salaries in an unfortunate Country reduced to perpetual mass poverty.  Some of the indices used to arrive at this senseless salary included but were not limited to the need for a living image, external reserve, oil production, average crude oil prices and inflation rate. The rich are put on welfare while the poor are left on their own.

Indeed, it is why we hardly have enough left for infrastructure, to subsidize budding agriculture, education and youth development that will prepare us for the next generation. If we cannot take care of the present and we show deliberate intolerance for others’ children with the wishful idea that we can steal enough to insulate our family overseas, we are fools. Healthy but lazy brains are now encouraged to go into politics not to serve, but simply to become instant millionaires.

Most of these politicians that are being pampered as if they live in England or United States are so unproductive; they cannot tell the difference between a light bulb and a candle except in their own houses. They lack guilty conscience when they see people on the road, in their villages and those helps who worked for them are paid pittance. In fact some of them take kickbacks from the pay of their subordinates if they are direct employees of the same Government.

You can hardly tell the difference between the politicians and the RMAFC anyway. They shower allowances on one another as if the money comes from a bottomless pit while the masses and the producer of the same income suffer as if they live in hell. It was only last year that RMAFC increased the basic salaries of these legislators to that of the executives and backdated it to a year before in spite of cries and protest from little people like us.

No institution is safe from Yan-Kiran-Raba. We have confirmed that armed robbers, mentally deranged and the well qualified are competing to get into our police and army by no less an authority than a former President. What he forgot to say was that these same qualifications were needed to get into RMAFC. There is no way a rational well qualified Nigerian can outsmart or logically outdo robbers in power. At some point, what we see are some hard working Nigerians throwing up their hands and submitting to irrational behaviors. Join them if you cannot beat them.

Since over 17 thousand public and political office holders will be affected out of a population of 140 millions, some lament that heaven is going to fall on trickle down naira livelihoods. The main reason has to do with the fact that many Nigerians encourage corruption because they gain or wish to gain from it. A few people have come out to tell us the type of activities they see when they visit some political leaders. Bundle of cash are given out about ten times in a single day without counting petty cash. Anyone giving that amount of money out has to get much more in.

The point is that those who have been reduced to beggars of their own money will increase. This in turn will swell into the population of street urchins. However, it is not easy out there on the streets either. For those who have ears to listen and eyes to read, the genuinely disable beggars on the street have declared war on the Yan-Kisan-Raba (healthy but lazy) bodies encroaching on their territories. It is tough enough making a living out there, influx of those who do not belong will dilute their income drastically.

Disable people do not get the sympathy and respect they deserve in Nigeria, as their counterparts in Europe and America, they warned. Any influx caused as a result of cut in salary or allowance must be balanced with adequate compensation for the disables or the Yan-Kisan-Raba invasion of every institution and community will rise. Enough is enough. If we want to prevent another world war and promote peace, don’t mess with the disables. Some years ago before coins went out of circulation; you dare not give them coins if you do not want it pelted on your forehead. We know many disables are World-War veterans with connections all over the globe. All they have to do is call for help. Aren’t you scared already?

Yan-Kiran-Raba have now become nuisance to every facet of Nigerian society from the RAMFC, the legislators, the executives to the Disable bodies of the country. They have brought us down to our knees where any amount of money can not solve what other countries with less endowment have taken for granted like clean water for the masses and energy to power the basic necessities of life.