By
Wada Nas
Let us start with the budget, since it
affects our development and national progress. By now some Nigerians must have
lost hope that budget estimate no longer mean much to them. Others may infact
go for the extra length to say that budgets are official lies, where
government deceives the people by telling them what it (Government) knows it
would not implement.
And who, honesty, would blame anybody who
reasons this way? If we reflect on our budget estimate since the democracy
project took off, in 1999, we cannot but sincerely, though painfully, admit
that government has indeed made budget as a programme of lies designed not to
be implemented but to deceive the people. According to informed sources, only
15% of the 1999 supplementary budget was implemented. The one for 2000 was
slightly better as it recorded about 20% implementation, while the current
one, soon to run out, was just about 30%.
What this means is that government has
deliberately failed to meet all the promises it made in the budget to the
people of Nigeria. In 1999, budget promises were made and never fulfilled.
There was a solemn promise to live up to expectation in 2000. Again,
government failed the people by not living up to its promises. As if it has
now become a tradition of the administration, again this year, it never felt
the need to, for once, live up to its obligation to the people. Inspite of
what Hon Minister Jerry Gawa and his media “tourists” would say, this
explains why this administration has failed to commission a single physical
project since its inception. We have been seeing Mr. President commissioning
projects executed by states and councils during his several official visits to
the states. But not once have we ever seen him commissioning a federal project
in all the place he visited. Reports by journalists on the Gana media Tour
never contradicted this.
This, therefore, goes to confirm the
popular verdict that the federal government never delivered much since coming
to power in 1999. The media tour was put in place to contradict this popular
assumption. Instead of doing so, however, the tour rather confirmed it.
Nigerians, never disputed the achievements of the states and councils since
the dawn of the democratic era. The focus was on federal government
achievements if any. The tour ended up highlighting what the states and
councils did and little about the federal side.
The issues here, however, is why the
federal government could not achieve as much as the other tiers of government
when it controls the greater chunk of our resources, perhaps more than any
before it. It is hard, therefore, understanding why the federal government has
been unable to honour its budget promises to the people in the face of
available resource.
The explanation by the followers of IMF
is that we must cut public spending in order to control inflation. For how
long shall we remain stagnant waiting for inflation to come down, which it has
refused to, inspite of the cut in spending.
One wonders whether the Fund is giving
similar advice to other countries, especially America and others.
The entire Nigerian budget is nothing near the budget of the New York
City police alone. Yet we don’t
hear Americans cutting down on public spending.
The sum of my submission here is that
budget no more inspire hope in Nigerians, except perhaps hoplessness, since
budget planners are never serious in implementing their own proposals.
By the refusal and failure to implement them, they are more of budget
of deceit than programme of action.
It is important, at this stage, to draw
attention to postings in the Nigerian Police Force, if only to put it at the
back of our mind in case of the future. My
focus therefore is not necessarily to highlight default but to remind us that
we should not cry when things change in future.
Of the
six or eight zonal Police Commanders in the rank of AIG, five are from just
one ethnic group. Of the three
most sensitive positions at the headquarters, all are occupied by the same
ethnic group. All in all, there are five positions being occupied by AIGs at
headquarters, in addition to the two top positions of IG and DIG.
What this means is that out of 13 or 15 such positions, including the
Zonal Commands, nine occupants are from one ethnic group leaving 4 or 6 to the
rest of 240 tribes.
Let me stress that security people do not
base their positions on ethnic basis as what is happening in the other
services shows.
But the issue, as I have pointed out, is
that no one should complain tomorrow should the situation change.
Let us have the average to remember at the appropriate time, that there
was a situation when 9 out of 13 or 15 top positions in the Force were
occupied by persons from one ethnic group.
As the National Assembly prepares to
create five position of DIG,s which we understand are in the offing, let them
take the courage to find out if senior positions/postings in the Force serve
the principles of Federal Character.
It is important to draw the attention of
the Federal Government to the dangerous plots by AD/Afenifere/OPC to cause
serious bloodshed in Ilorin. If
violence breaks out in that city tomorrow, we know, right away, who is
responsible. We are yet to be told what right the trio have to seek to impose
a traditional leader on Ilorin people without their consent.
Aware of the firm position of the indigenes of Ilorin on this matter,
no one needs to be told that the
planned havoc by the AD/Afenifere/OPC is an invitation to chaos and bloodshed.
There is yet another growing danger.
According to news reports, the Police in Port Harcourt reportedly
arrested three Igbo youths, who disguised as Northerners, and were about to
set a Church ablaze in order to justify an attack on them.
Luck run out against them when the Police arrested them. Had they
succeeded in their plot, every one would have believed that Muslims in Port
Harcourt set a Church ablaze and therefore deserve to be killed.
No one would reason that with their
minority positions in the entire East, it would be suicidal for them to
provoke religious violence in any part thereof.
This brings us to the recent utterances
of a senior citizens on an NTA network programme, when he said that some
people import and recruit jihadists from Niger Republic to fight Christians in
Nigeria and that such Jihadist are paid based on the number of Christians they
could kill! So, even leaders
could be gullible as to buy fiction for truth.
How would a jihadist count the number of Christians he killed and how
could he convince his masters that he was the one who actually killed them?
In what way are Niger jihadists, assuming there are some, better
fighters than their Nigerian counterparts?
How many of such Niger nationals have been arrested during such
violence? Are we now to believe
that all Niger Nationals in Nigeria were recruited by Nigerian Muslims to
fight their Christian brothers? When
those who are supposed to know and are looked up to as responsible people,
patronize gossip as a fact of truth, knowing same to be false, and further
allow themselves to be gullible, buying rumour and motor park stories as
truth, then Nigeria has no hope, but doom.
Well meaning leaders have no business championing falsehood.
Such gossip could have caught fancy, had
the plot to burn a church in Port Harcourt, by three Igbo youths, as reported,
taken place. Every one would have
been condemning Muslims without asking questions.
In near by Benin, there is yet other
report, which again plots to provoke ethnic violence in that city.
According to one of such reports, Igbo youths go about to frame up
Northerners by accusing them of taking their manhood and no sooner they shout
accordingly than the accused is beaten up.
Let such a few misguided people be reminded that there is no city in
Nigeria where there are no “settlers” to use the current slang.
For those whose owns live in virtually all parts of the country, such a
plot is too dangerous to embark upon. In the event of a nationwide ethnic
violence, no ethnic group would have a place to hide.
It is terrible that some people could embark on falsehood in order to
have fellow human killed. It is
equally terrible that people take the law into their hands using falsehood as
an excuse. But then, this shows the level of decadence into which our country
has fallen, where human lives are no longer worth a Kobo.
Where responsible people believe more in gossip than truth, what do we
expect of an ordinary man, whose vision of the world starts and ends within
his immediate environment?
Painfully such gossips would keep
attracting followers as years roll by and as poverty spreads among the
ignorant and the deprived.
The plan to ban the importation of
tokumbo vehicles, along with the decision to increase fuel price, next year,
would most certainly create more hardship and poverty among the people thereby
creating more avenue for idle minds to feast on falsehood.
One really cannot understand the logic behind these two evils.
Experts have estimated that government would lose about N20 billion
when this said tokumbo policy comes into operation.
Worse still, it would create more unprecedented hardship for the people
whose poor economic status is already very frightening.
The same could be said of the planned
increase in fuel prices. One
wonders whether government would not be satisfied until it sees many dying of
want. Otherwise, how could a
responsible democratic government embark on policies that would cause more
hardship to the people and serious injury to society by way of increase in
violence which is what these twin policies are all about. And this is a government wishing to re-seek the peoples
mandate. It is in our own
collective interest for the government to learn to be sensitive to the feeling
of the majority of the people. It should listen to the voice of moderation
pleading with it not to embark on this tokumbo anti people policy and be seen
as a truly government of the people.
These policies are coming at a time when
the United Nations is telling us that workers have been pushed to “the
margins of poverty lines”. It
is for this reason that an agency of the organisation was reported to have
offered N480 million to improve transportation in the country in the face of
the tokumbo policy. If an
international organ could express serious concern over such a policy, one
wonders why our government is pushing ahead with it?
Like Transparency International, TI, the
UN has also expressed concern over the rapid growth in corruption in the
country. In 1999, TI rated us the
most corrupt country in the world.
We came second in 2000 and perhaps still in the same position this
year, as indicated by the UN report. How
much effort are we putting in to the war against corruption?
If, after about three years, only the Abachas are found to be corrupt,
then we know the rest of the story.
As the UN was rating us low, so was a
university Professor in US saying that our democracy rating has fallen from
80% in 1999 to 52% this year; that the people are fast losing hope in the
democracy project because of galloping unemployment, insecurity, growing
poverty and collapsing social services. We really do not need a US Professor
to tell us that our yesterday is better than our today.
But for the achievements recorded by some states and council areas,
what really has the federal government achieved in the last two and half
years, except failure to implement budget proposals?
When people point out these things, it is not that they only want to
criticize the government, but more importantly, they do so because failure to
improve the lot of the people may cost us the democracy project and nobody
wants this. Government must wake
up to its responsibilities so as to save the country from painful collapse.
Recently, the Federal Government ordered
a planned meeting between governors of Oil Producing states and British and
American Officials be stopped. While
this is a wise decision, it is necessary to point out that it because we have
allowed these foreigners, particularly the Americans, free reign in Nigeria
that they could initiate such a meeting without the knowledge of federal
authorities. We now appears to be
a vassal of Washington such that most knowledgeable Nigerians know that Aso
Rack is a unit in the American oval office, from where we take dictation.
The recent deportation of some Pakistan
Islamic Preachers is being seen in this light. In the wake of the attack on
the world trade center, such Muslims missionaries have twice been arrested in
the country while others are encouraged to come in. I want to appeal to the Federal government to be extra
sensitive in handling such matters in the greater interest of the county.
Discriminating policies could be capitalized upon by some people to
cause confusion.
It was good to hear that the Arewa
Consultative Forum, ACF was able to wade successfully in to the unfortunate
Tiv - Jukun Crisis, which has been going on for a very long time.
ACF deserves commendation for this, but it should not rest on its oars
until lasting peace is achieved between the two communities.
It should also explore the possibility of reconciling our communities,
especially in the North, so as to achieve the much desired unity of the region
within a united and harmonious Nigeria.
Personally, I do not want to comment on
matters affecting any of the political parties. However, since these parties are
the common property of the Nigerian people, put in place to sustain the
democracy project, there is no way a citizen could avoid making comments on some
of their activities. It is in this light that I wish to say that the PDP
derailed from the path of democracy during its recent convention in Abuja.
As Dr Ekwueme rightly put it, it was not a convention but a ‘pleasure
jamboree” for the imposition of favoured candidates.
Democracy was put on its head in a manner that tells us what to expect in
2003. The desire to occupy offices
and remain in same, has been the greater pre-occupation of the PDP jamboree, and
this is very unfortunate.
However, the new PDP Chairman, Dr. Audu
Ogbe is a man of character and principle and deserves the position.
But how much would he be able to achieve in an environment hostile to
true practice of democracy? Would the anti-democratic elements within allow him carry out
true democratic reforms within the party?
Finally, let our three political parties
be told that they were never created to practice dictatorship, through election
by selection. Rather they were
established to strengthen the democratic pillars. Anything short of this would
diminish their democratic relevance.
Meanwhile, ASUU is again bracing up to
embark, yet, on another strike over the issue of its members at the University
of Ilorin. This is not a good
reason for ASSU to throw the university
system in to yet another chaos. In the last several years ASUU has been known
for strikes than teaching. In a
situation where a four-year degree programme lasts six years to achieve, the
moral sounding of lecturers becomes hollow. ASUU should, for once, turn its
search light on some of the criminal things its members do, including paid
handouts, for it to convince Nigerians that these members are not above the laws
and rules of their respective universities, as in the case for which it wants
the whole system to crumble. It is
inappropriate to disrupt a whole academic programme because of the cases of a
few lecturers. While it is
important to listen to ASUU, sometimes it is becoming irritating as they cause
frustration to both students and parent alike.
We as Nigerian ought to be disturbed by
the several threats on the local government issue. In a civilized circumstance,
all that needs be done is for aggrieved parties to take the matter to court.
This is the most acceptable way of doing things, not issuing threats over
the matter. Democracy has some responsibilities attached to its practice,
one of which is the respect for the rule of law. For leaders to be threatening
the country on a matter that could be settled in court amounts to undemocratic
conduct. Why are people behaving as
if their entire political life depends on the dissolution of councils in March
next year? There is something fishy about the threats coming out on the council
issue such as to suggest some hidden agenda.
The states want more autonomy from the center but are not prepared to
grant same to the council! Double Standard.