The budget presented by Goodluck Jonathan to the joint session of the National Assembly on Tuesday December 13th, 2011 is exactly what Nigerians deserve as far as I am concerned, warts and all. What we got is a budget that is long on rhetorics and short on promise, though we shouldn’t have expected anything better from a government that is deaf and dumb as far as the problems of Nigerians are concerned. The people that went round the country begging for our votes six months back are now treating us like something the cat brought home from the streets. The oft repeated cliché that Jonathan never had a shoe to his name while going to school was to draw sympathy from poor folks who may expect empathy for their plight from a village boy who couldn’t afford shoes while a kid. Alas, what we got is a Jonathan who empathises more with the oyibo and their agents. What we got is a government that is more interested in taking out the small change in your pocket for their foreign junkets like birthdays in far away Australia or going to France to “seek for investors” when the French were hanging on the coattails of Germany for their economic survival. What we got is a Jonathan that always believed in good luck, a hostage to militants and their godfathers and a gullible man who is made to believe it is his destiny to rule Nigeria. Jonathan is a man without focus or any articulated agenda whose campaign revolved around the divinity of his mandate and Nigerians were swayed by primordial sentiments to “elect” him president. We all know this and accepted it.
The budget is in line with Jonathan’s provincial background and a mind set shaped by the militancy of the Niger Delta, led by the nose by the likes of Okonjo-Iweala, with her neo-conservative economic theories shaped by the American conservative establishment in charge of the Bretton Woods Institutions, and the hawkish group under the leadership of the National Security Adviser (NSA), Azazi. Here is a budget heavy on security (whatever it may mean) and wanting in all key ministries that is sure to engender security. While ministries like those of agriculture, power, education, health – critical ministries that will have direct bearing on employment generation and job creation are allocated measly amounts compared to security, Nigerians should be wiser as to why the government is bend on stealing the little money in their pockets by increasing the price of petroleum products. If we had a government worth its name, then they don’t need to be told that there is no greater security than a society fully employed and contented with life. A restive society is the greatest threat to peace and security, and this should be an elementary knowledge to any serious leader.
The Nigerian Labour Congress (NLC) a congress that is increasingly making itself irrelevant, will soon realise that the N18,000 minimum wage it threatened to bring down the country for, could hardly fuel their vehicles come January next year let alone put a plate on their tables. Jonathan and his promoters have promised us a “transformational government” in the run-up to the 2011 elections but we didn’t bother to find out the kind of transformation they were talking about. We are on the road to being transformed – only into a country of beggars.
Our crowd of environmentalists will have something to celebrate in the 2012 budget. With the anticipated increment in the price of petroleum products, there will be fewer cars on the road and still fewer generators to pollute the environment. I know it will be asking too much to know how the N921billion budgeted for ‘Security’ will be expended. But our docile legislators could not summon the courage to question the executive on the details of the allocations. The heightened state of insecurity in the country since Azazi became the National Security Adviser (NSA) needs to be interrogated. Is there a deliberate policy to generate fear among the populace in order to achieve a certain goal, part of which is the increment in the vote for security for some people to line their pockets? The allocations to critical sectors like education, health, agriculture and power says much about the direction of the government. Those who sold Jonathan as dovish and caring person may be forced to change their slogans before the end of the first quarter.
A whopping sum of N124billion is allocated just to the office of the NSA, what in God’s name does he need that for? What capital projects are we talking about under the office of the NSA that, to all intents and purposes, is just a clearinghouse for the other security agencies? Are they going to build barracks, state offices, buy armoured tanks, fighter and bomber planes, guns and ammunitions or what? Nigerians go to India and Egypt for ailments that, under normal circumstances, should be treated in our dispensaries because though the manpower may be available, our health institutions lack the necessary equipment. The kids of the rich and powerful go to other African countries like Ghana and Togo for elementary school because our public schools – the same system that afforded a poor kid from the creeks who couldn’t afford shoes to be educated up to Ph.D. level – have collapsed and the government is not ready to do anything about it. With a vast arable land and massive human resources to till the land, we still import the bulk of what we eat from far-off places like Thailand and Brazil. Power and potable water supply are luxuries reserved for only those who can afford a generating set and a borehole in their houses. Yet the total budgetary allocations to all the ministries concerned with the provision of these services are far less than what is allocated to security.
Has it not occurred to Jonathan and his praetorian minders that they are the greatest culprits in endangering the security of our lives and property? When there is no food or social security, how do you ensure “security”? coercion has never, ever guaranteed security else the Palestinians will have been long subdued by the Israelis or ‘Yar Adu’a won’t have bothered with the amnesty programme for the Niger Delta. Security cannot also be bought. If the government is serious about ensuring security in the country, they should address the social insecurity bedevilling the nation and not allocate huge sums of money that will ultimately end up in peoples’ pockets. It is not bought. It is achieved through good governance.
No comments:
Post a Comment