Things will never be the same. It
is official: Pandora is out of the box and cannot be placed back in. She
has now grown too big for her old home. In a clumsy attempt to generate
more revenue for its insatiable coffers, the government has allowed its
citizens to glimpse under its skirt and the vision is not pretty. The
greatest entertainment is currently being provided free of charge
courtesy of the government.
From our armchair we are beginning to
decipher the many truths and lies behind what is now universally thought
of as one of the country’s worst-timed and implemented policy. The
weekly soap opera provided by the newly awakened House of
Representatives has lain bare what people have suspected for a long time
– namely that Nigeria in the hands of a few different citizens would
have been the envy of the world.
Our consciousness as citizens has been
pricked; we are now spending our days crunching numbers and wondering
aloud how a country can allocate huge amounts of money with such
carelessness. It is obvious that budgets are seldom tied to development
plans, while it seems chief executives have an inordinate amount of
power when it comes to allocating how funds should be directed. It is
also becoming clearer that the needs of the citizens are not uppermost
in the minds of our chief executives when it comes to deciding how our
national cake is shared.
The government’s nakedness has not been a
pretty sight. We now know that it is fat and bloated, disease-ridden
and full of black scars. We have also seen that a lot of the pillars
holding it up are too far gone and not fit for service. For years they
have fed on the fat of the land, handed to them on a platter by the
people whom they have treated with nothing but contempt. Now that we
know that the emperor has no clothes, the psychological advantage they
held over us is no more. We can look them in their naked eye and dare
them. We know now that we have the power collectively to make them
blink.
We are at the point of separation – a
parting of ways between the governing and the governed. Is divorce then
the next step? They should be afraid, very afraid. All the key elements
for a permanent separation are there: contempt, lack of trust,
disrespect and deep-rooted anger. While it is true that the present
administration inherited a lot of the problems that has brought us to
this sorry state of affairs, it had an opportunity to reverse the trend.
It did not but seemly carries on with the same decrepit template
perfected by its predecessors. We are beginning to scrutinise the 2012
Budget, a budget conceived before the separation. And now we understand
that they had intended to go on with business as usual.
For the past few years, the government
has done almost nothing for its people. All jobs, even minor contracts
that have in the past provided succour to the people, they have
unilaterally split up between senior members of the executive and the
legislature .Majority of companies getting jobs in Nigeria now belong to
them. Never mind that half of these jobs are never completed yet their
companies collect monies in full. At their hands we have become
perpetual losers.
Left to fend for ourselves, we have
devised all sorts of ways to survive. Many have become traders or shop
owners due to the virtual impossibility of making a living through other
means. Others are investing time and energy in the fastest growing
industry we have currently – that of crime.
Development is about vision, humility
and a pride and commitment to changing the lives of as many as is
possible. It begins but is not confined to leadership. It is about solid
values that place humanity above oneself. It is about national pride,
the feeling that you want your country and its citizens to be and to
have the best in the world. It is about a confidence and a belief that
you can guide that process by doing the right thing at every stage. In
this case it could have started with the national budget; it should have
been a people’s budget, one that would have put the needs of a hundred
and sixty million Nigerians above that of five or ten million Nigerians.
But it did not. It was consumed with
paying itself, thus, the consumption of 75 per cent of its allocation to
servicing pay roll. While I am not of the view that public
officeholders should go without pay, I also hold that a government that
is determined to do the right thing would have used a more creative
approach to cut it many frivolous gluttonous expenses, not budgeted
only to serve itself but channelled such funds to its neediest.
A government that cares would not allot
its first priority to its personal comfort but would have first ensured
that its people are taken care of first.
It is becoming clearer that money or the
uneven allocation of resources is the root cause of our many different
strands of terrorism. The Niger Delta boys were silent when they were
paid, and the Boko Haram group has made claims that they had been paid
monthly by some governors. They are simple agitated when this payment
ceased.
Many of the unemployed had come to view
this payment both in the Niger Delta and some northern states as social
welfare. Without jobs and means to earn a living humans still have to
survive. That’s why some countries provide social welfare to the
unemployed.
What Nigerians need overwhelmingly is
not to be paid to keep the peace but a means to earn a living. We want
budgets to be primarily about job creation so that our children can live
in hope and dignity. Without that there is no peace, and that is why
the citizens are on the brink of divorce from their government.
As anyone who has travelled on this road
knows, divorce is nasty. With its many victims and collateral damages
some never recover and most will remain tainted. Nigerians are really
not ready for a divorce but with Pandora firmly out of the box, the
government must woo us all over again. They must begin to regain our
trust, and it has to start with ensuring that the 2012 budget is a
people’s budget reflective of our wishes.
Communication has broken down in this
marriage because of years the government has ceased to listen to us.
They must come back to the table with their mediators and begin to
listen to us. The poisonous friends that have led government down this
road must be shed. This is a time to reconcile. If handled carefully,
this marriage will emerge stronger than ever.
God save our crumbling giant.
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