BY REUBEN ABATI
“I hear that the National Assembly has approved the external borrowing of a $2.2 billion for the Tinubu administration to address the fiscal deficit in the 2024 budget.”
“Bros, I tire. I just tire. What on earth do they do with all these borrowings?”
“There is actually a $9.17 billion deficit in the 2024 budget, when you add Eurobonds, interest on Ways and Means, foreign debt and domestic debt. And, I hear that Nigeria can borrow more in line with Section 21(1) and Section 27(1) of the Debt Management Office (DMO) Establishment Act of 2003.”
“The DMO will quote anything to please any government in power. Is that woman still there? My concern is what they do with all the money.”
“They want to service debts and finance capital projects.”
“In November? I would have thought that by now, we should have been talking about Budget 2025. This is November. We are rushing to borrow more money as the year ends. Don’t they want to maintain the budget cycle again? I am confused. And which capital projects is anyone talking about? SUVs, for the lawmakers? Presidential jets? Foreign trips? I am sorry I can’t see any capital projects. They just want to borrow more money for consumption, not productivity. The roads are bad. Nobody talks about the railway system in the country anymore. Air travel is a nightmare. The refineries are still not working. The cost of living is high. The average man cannot breathe, cannot eat, cannot live. Yet, the Federal Executive Council approved more external borrowing and it took the National Assembly 48 hours to rubber-stamp the loan.”
“Did you expect anything different? The National Assembly is an extension of the Executive arm of government. It will rubber stamp anything that comes from the Executive and that is the case with the VAT Bill too.”
“But if it is a bill on things that would pave the way for good governance, the same National Assembly could spend years huffing and puffing, but anything that would benefit the elite and make it easier to have access to more of the state’s resources, the APC-dominated National Assembly would act quickly. The real wonderful in wonderland.”
“Have you heard?”
“You and your rumours.”
“This one is hot oh.”
“The problem with you people in this country is rumour-mongering. Una too dey carry gist. Una carry gist so tey, you even carry phone spread rumour that Otunba Mike Adenuga had died. This is a man who gave many of you the opportunity to use mobile phones in your life. The Spirit of Africa. A Patriot. I am sure it must have been one yeye man, using a useless, miserable phone. Nigerians are something else.”
“In Yoruba culture, when your death is prematurely and wrongly announced, it means the person will live long. We pray for long life for Otunba Mike Adenuga, in very good health, upstairs and downstairs and in all ways, with more grace and prosperity. Do you remember the story of Dr Nnamdi Azikiwe, nationalist, founding father of the nation, pan-Africanist. On 8 November, 1989, his death was announced; meanwhile the man was hale and hearty and working on a book in his library when he read his own obituary! NTA had rushed to do a documentary on the life and times of the inimitable Zik. Newspapers showed up the following morning with editorials. Columnists wanted to be the first to announce Zik’s death. Such was the force of his impact in politics, business and newspapering. Except that Zik was alive and he lived for another seven years. A burial committee was even announced. Bros, some of the members of that burial committee died before Zik. In Yoruba culture, when people wish you dead, they are actually praying inadvertently for your longevity. May Otunba Mike Adenuga live longer than those who want him buried before his time. So shall it be. Amen.”
“Is it not journalists? When journalists are not killing people, they are sending them to jail, without conviction. Who is a journalist these days?”
“I don’t know. I guess things are so bad now that anybody with access to the internet can put any information out there on social media. It is the price that the world is paying for the democratisation of the information process, the Indomie-nisation of news, the collapse of traditional media systems, and the emergence of charlatans in what was once a sacred profession. But let me give you my gist now?”
“Okay. Fire! Just make sure it is not a fabrication by some ignoramus.”
“Hen. Hen. I hear that.”
“You heard. Hen. Hen.”
“I heard that principal officers of the National Assembly, in fact two of them from the South, locked horns, with one holding the other’s agbada around the neck, both trying to suffocate each other. A blow. A jab. I don’t want to mention names. One Northern Senator had to wade in to prevent bloodshed.”
“The story sounds fabulous. Mention names.”
“I hear they are trying very hard to cover it up and to prevent pictures of the ugly tiff getting to the media. My source is impeccable.”
“Oh. Oh. Oh. Story. Story. But what has this got to do with the external borrowing approval. What we hear is that the lawmakers all agreed on that. So, what could be the problem after they passed one of the fastest pieces of legislation in Nigeria. No public hearing. Nothing.”
“It was a fight over who could show that he was more loyal to the Presidential Villa.”
“Must be a fight over who gets what for his own stomach or for his own people. After all, you said a Northern Senator waded in. He shouldn’t have, if that is true. What is wrong with that Senator? Who asked him to stop whatever could have been like a Jake Paul/ Mike Tyson fight or a Joshua/Dubois fight. He should have allowed the two gladiators to beat each other up, and by now, we would have known more. I like it when politicians fight. We get to know more, because it is we, the people who suffer in the long run.”
“Just as the people of Rivers state are the ones going to suffer if the Court of Appeal declares when it delivers its reserved judgement in the FAAC Allocation matter, that the Rivers State Government led by Governor Sim Fubara cannot receive any further federal allocations if it does not have a properly presented, passed and legally valid budget. Who suffers?”
“The people suffer, and that is because we are running a bowl-in-hand federation. The states are so dependent on the Federal Government for manna. But nobody should blame the judiciary.
to be continued…
