- Government has a duty to get to the root of the budget padding allegation
Padding was not a word associated with the budgeting process in Nigeria until 2016 when there was an outcry that legislators and civil servants usually connive to distort the finance plan. Since then, the government has only been successful in discovering the evil, but not in terminating it.
External help came from the Socio-Economic Rights Advocacy Project (SERAP), a non-governmental organisation that has become the scourge of slothful governance in the land. The organisation is in court seeking prosecution of lawmakers, especially principal officers of the National Assembly allegedly indicted for padding the 2016 and 2017 national budgets.
We salute SERAP for the breakthrough recorded in the sanitisation campaign when Justice Muhammed Idris of the Federal High Court, Lagos, granted the rights advocates order of mandamus to compel the Attorney-General of the Federation to charge the alleged lawbreakers to court.
We agree with SERAP that “unless the principal officers indicted in the alleged padding of the 2016 budget are prosecuted and any stolen funds recovered, the Federal Government will not be able to stop padding in “future”. It is equally correct to hold the view that “alleged corruption in the budget process will not melt away or simply evaporate without addressing the fundamental issue of impunity of perpetrators.
Corruption can creep into any process where vigilance is lacking, and impunity itself is corruption of sort. Given its importance, lawmaking process, especially treating and passing the Appropriation Bill should be transparent.
However, because the AGF is the chief legal adviser to the President as well as the administrator of the Federal Ministry of Justice, his motive should never be suspect.
By the role Mallam Abubakar Mallami has played in the temple of justice since the inauguration of this administration, it will be difficult to sustain the view that he is always guided by the public interest. His rushing to court to halt legislative interest in probing the surreptitious recall of Mallam Abdurahman Maina into the public service has fouled relationships with the National Assembly. In order to eliminate politicisation of the trial, a fiat should be given a private prosecutor known to be a crusader to handle the matter.
This is another call on all principal officers of the government in the executive, legislative and judiciary arms of government to sit up.
There should be scrupulous adherence to best practices. The appropriation law is too important to be a subject of speculation about the motives of members of the executive and legislative branches of government. This matter should be quickly dispensed with to prove to citizens that this government is not a mere change of personnel, especially as the 2019 general election draws near.
At a time when government revenue cannot keep pace with expenses, what is expected of leadership is commitment to drastic reduction of the cost of governance, not the evident message usually associated with Nigerian leaders. Legislators should shun the reckless purchase of exotic cars and undue attachment to constituency projects which informed the padding. Project execution is an executive function, if the lawmakers are able to whittle down their appetite for power aggrandisement and consumption, the country will be the better for it.
