Miffed by the 2016 Budget controversy that is capable of discrediting his anti-corruption campaign, President Muhammadu Buhari’s anger appears to know no bounds, DAYO OKETOLA writes
Going by the massive criticisms mounted by the All Progressives Congress (when it was in the opposition) against the then ruling Peoples Democratic Party, there was no doubt that the APC would form a better government in Nigeria when elected.
The APC, as indicated by the general disposition of Nigerians, is believed to be the game changing political party that will not only right all the wrongs said to be committed by past administrations, but will be effective and result-oriented. At least, this was what the former spokesperson for the party, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, who is now the Minister of Information and Culture, made Nigerians to believe.
The APC had promised to up the ante in governance in Nigeria and millions of the people believe the party, voted for it and hoped for the best. Although the delay in forming the cabinet that turned out to be a usual one like we have had in the past had caused public outrage and general disappointment, the doggedness with which the APC-led Federal Government has pursued its anti-corruption campaign had almost obliterated the cabinet delay brouhaha.
But revelations that the 2016 budget was padded by a ‘mafia’ in the system in a massive scam that has become a national shame does not go down well with President Muhammadu Buhari.
The Lead Director, Centre for Social Justice, Mr. Eze Onyekpere, on Monday, said the 2016 budget contained N668.8bn expenditure that was “frivolous, inappropriate, unclear and wasteful.”
In the same vein, the Partner and co-founder, BudgIT, a group campaigning for transparency in public spending, Mr. Oluseun Onigbinde, had in a recent interview with Bloomberg, described as “suspicious and wasteful” N111.32bn allocations in the budget. This includes N53.7m repeated 52 times, N37.8m appearing over 369 times and N3.9bn allocation for the presidential clinic that exceeds funds designated for all the country’s 17 teaching hospitals combined.
The revelations of unprecedented discrepancies in Buhari’s first budget have sparked public criticism of the government of change.
Onigbinde said, “The key line items you find in the budget are a disservice to the idea that this government has come to represent change.
“There was a lot of expectation that there is a clear departure from the past where previous budgets have been padded. All we have seen with this budget is that they have done even worse than the past.”
Bloomberg, in its own view, concluded that the errors spotted in the budget blight Buhari’s anti-corruption posture.
Miffed by the unwarranted disservice the padded budget is doing to his government especially as some people see the development as a sign that the government is not fully in control, the President has wielded the big stick. This, experts said, reflected that the entire budget mess is painful to the president; hence, he would stop at nothing to discipline whoever is found culpable of sabotaging his government.
Of course, it is no longer news that the Director-General (Budget), Mr. Yahaya Gusau, was sacked by Buhari over the embarrassing discrepancies in the 2016 budget.
Twenty-seven heads of government agencies have also been sacked by the President and the APC Chairman, Chief John Odigie-Oyegun, accused those sacked of helping the PDP to sabotage Buhari’s government and participating in the colossal padding of the budget.
Already, permanent secretaries and director-generals across several federal ministries are said to be under investigation for their alleged roles, but it is not clear whether the President has got over the embarrassment caused him by the budget controversy. There is no doubt that more heads will roll. However, while that is being awaited, a lot of questions are being thrown up.
Should the director of budget be the only one to be sacked by the President? What about the Minister of Planning and Budget? Was Oyegun right to have accused the sacked CEOs of government agencies of sabotage? Were they (the sacked CEOs) the ones who retrieved the budget from the Senate through the back door in the first place?
These questions, among others, have continued to engage experts who have expressed diverse opinions on the matter.
Ekiti State Governor, Mr. Ayodele Fayose, said the budget controversies could not be totally addressed by merely sacking the DG of the Budget Office of the Federation and appointing a new one.
In a statement issued by his Special Assistant on Public Communications and New Media, Mr. Lere Olayinka, Fayose said what the controversial 2016 budget required was a holistic approach, and not just making one person a scapegoat.
“The President must take total responsibility for the budget scam and apologise to Nigerians for the government’s embarrassment caused by the display of gross incompetence,” he said.
Fayose maintained that padding of the budget with strange figures, now being denied by APC ministers, was a clear intention to steal in advance.
He said, “Though it is good that the President listened to my call for the punishment of those responsible for the national embarrassment, mere sacking of officers at the Budget Office will not remove the stain splashed on Nigeria by the shameful budget.”
He likened blaming an imaginary “budget mafia” for the padding of the budget to a driver blaming someone else for not applying the brake when it should have been applied. “The buck stops on the President’s table, he can’t blame anyone apart from himself for this national shame,” Fayose said.
“Sacking one or two persons on this budget scam is just like using some people as cover-up for the national embarrassment caused by the President himself. Even the President himself signed a letter wrongly as of October 22, 2016 and one is tempted to ask who the President will sack for these avoidable errors.
“In my own opinion, it is necessary that those handling the President should bring it to his consciousness that he is not God that cannot make mistakes and this budget scam must be seen as part of the mistakes that President Buhari is capable of making.
“By doing this, the President will be provided with another opportunity to represent the budget because I wonder how Nigeria can operate on a budget already disowned by notable ministers, including the government’s spokesperson.
“Or what remedy can anyone do to a budget in which 2015 budgetary allocations of an agency was reproduced verbatim? Even N180m was discovered to have been allocated to NIMET twice,”he further averred.
Fayose insisted that the budget must be withdrawn from the National Assembly and a new and error-free one re-presented.
Similarly, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria, Mr. Yusuf Ali, described the budget controversy as a national embarrassment.
He said, “I believe that the budget saga is quite an unfortunate thing, but it also tells us that we are making progress because this has been going on for years and for the first time, we now have a National Assembly that is doing its work.
“It was the National Assembly that first raised the alarm about the budget whereas the National Assembly used to pass everything as okay. So, we should commend the National Assembly for drawing the attention of Nigerians to what was going on and we must also commend the President for acting like a statesman.
“He has sent the correct signal that people will not be covered up when they do something wrong. With all said and done, Nigeria and Nigerians have been the winners of this saga. We now have a National Assembly that is up and doing and a President who has shown that he cannot protect government officials who have violated their ethics.”
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