- The budget furore should not have arisen if the executive and legislative branches considered the larger Nigerian interest
From the row that has racked Abuja in the past few days, many would think our political elite have been bolted away with. They have lost their perspective as role models and exemplars of good conduct. They have turned acrimony into the directive principle of governance.
News reports triggered unease in the country to the effect that the National Assembly had flushed cardinal aspects of the 2016 appropriation bill, and that the exalted vision of the Muhammadu Buhari administration was inevitably heading for the rocks. They included the Calabar- Lagos railway and huge chunks from allocations for road projects in major parts of the country. They also reportedly turned a blind eye to the proposals for the purchase of essential drugs for major health campaigns like Polio and AIDS, as well as diversion of funds to rural health facilities and boreholes for which provisions had been made earlier.
The furore erupted over the inclusion or otherwise of the bill on the Calabar-Lagos railway. It began with a querulous tone from the presidency over the National Assembly’s deliberate removal of the all-important Calabar –Lagos project.
The culpability of the lawmakers was taken for granted by the average citizen until the prominent National Assembly players roared back in defence of their work. It was not true, they asserted, and it must be on record that the budget office of the executive branch failed to present the project. It was not a case of malice on the part of the lawmakers but negligence by the presidency.
The exchange of brickbats and inflammatory rhetoric reflected the sort of sloppiness our leaders have demonstrated for too long. No party is ready to admit to doing any wrong. Yet it is clear there is enough blame to go round. The presidency triggered this and the National Assembly fumed in vengeance.
The drama has unfurled in irony. While the nation bustled in a quarrel over the bill, the President and his team were on a plane to China, the Asian tiger that has provided part funding for the project. The president travelled to the country to etch signatures to kick off the project. For irony, we can recall that the same project was reportedly paralysed by the profligate Jonathan administration because it would not provide counterpart funding for the rail projects. We have a government that has decided to do it but seems to have lapsed in paying attention to details.
Also interesting is that before Senator Gbenga Ashafa, who heads the committee on land transportation in the senate, noted that his committee looked at the Calabar – Lagos bill, some Nigerians dressed the row in potential ethno-regional combat. Some thought the northern lawmakers retained the Lagos–Kano and spurned the Lagos – Calabar segment. Some others had started to pan the south-south and southeast legislators as sellouts.
This row about nothing has brought out still latent regions of suspicions not only in partisan ways but also in primordial calculations.
But some points are clear in this matter. If the National Assembly failed or even rejected the bill as the executive branch posited, it did not mean a death sentence on the project. The budgetary process is often an exercise in the give-and-take of decorum while a few anaemic tantrums are allowed.
The fact that it exploded into fractious and potential ethnic dimensions reflects our lack of maturity as a nation. The Calabar – Lagos project has been in the news for months and many Nigerians have been waiting to see it take off with that of the Lagos – Kano route as major projects for this generation.
Even if the bill did not come with the package from the presidency, although the budget office claims otherwise, the Ashafa committee sent it to the appropriation committee. It amounted to institutional hubris and lack of patriotism to have spurned it on the technicality that they did not see it in the presidential package.
It all reinforces fears by well-meaning Nigerians that our politicians have not yet learned to distinguish politics and statesmanship.
There was too much grandstanding from both sides. On the side of the presidency, there was an urgency to tar the lawmakers as obstructionist. We hope it is not a revanchist spirit owing to the bad image it suffered when its first presentation was marred by discrepancies and fairy-tale projects that it had to withdraw.
On the part of the lawmakers, they spew out rhetoric of institutional umbrage as though some of its mavens had been baying for blood.
It was a show about nothing. But they have seen it as opportunity for vacuous grandstanding. It was also a pettifogging contest among adults. It is the sort of standoff required of the immature, and they made us into a laughing stock as though as a people we have not imbued the world with enough of our inanity.
The fixation on the Lagos –Calabar project has diverted attention from other important doings, especially on the part of the National Assembly.
Why did they slash with prejudice the allocations for infrastructure, especially roads that have either been begun or about to be begun or have gone far? Rather, they approved road projects for which feasibility studies have not been assigned. This action reveals a sense of mischief. Some analysts see it as a way of asserting institutional hubris and a sneaky way to assert their claim to the so-called constituency projects. Lawmakers are not supposed to execute projects. Their jobs are clear in the constitution. They do not govern, they make laws.
They also rejected proposals for the purchase of essential drugs for major health campaigns like polio and AIDS. These are important issues and they will do well to revisit this issue. Polio has been a Nigerian scourge for years. We seem to have reduced it substantially and it will be tragic if it resurrects because of the ignorance of our lawmakers who are out of touch.
Again, the lawmakers also diverted funds to rural health facilities and boreholes for which provisions have already been made. This is what is called pork. It is another assertion of their yearnings for constituency projects.
These issues did not generate bad blood in the polity. But they should, even if they are not as far-reaching as the Lagos – Calabar project.
