As the Speaker of the University of Lagos Students Union Government
\nbetween 1993 and 1994, at a time student unionism had not been castrated
\nand rendered an impotent buffoon it has become today, I know a bit of
\nbudget presentation and its ratification process by parliament and
\nsubsequent signing into law by the President.\u00a0 Yes, you might say student
\nunion politics is different from national politics and you might be right
\nto the extent that student union politics, in its very best, as we had at
\nthat time, is far more refined and sophisticated than the rumble in the
\njungle we have in Nigeria as politics. In student union politics, as we
\nhad in ULSU in those days, you have members of parliament drawn from all
\ndepartments and faculties, an admixture of the brightest and best drawn
\nfrom various shades and races.<\/p>\n
When the campaign for change was trending, there was a firm promise that
\nthe old sordid way must give place for Nigeria to recover its battered
\nsoul and move on in the comity of progressive nations. This was the
\ncentral message of Change and the philosophical gird of the Muhammadu
\nBuhari regime that berthed in May last year. Yes, things must change from
\nthe very insidious ways that have seen Nigeria almost crumbled to its
\nknees in five decades of uncensored larceny. The old, stale order that has
\nfired the shooting pins of unimaginable corruption, which has hobbled the
\nprospects of an oil rich nation for decades must be overthrown for a newer
\nand saner order that will lead Nigeria’s recovery and kick start its
\nmeaningful quest for greatness.<\/p>\n
In the budget cycle, the executive proposes its yearly financial estimates
\nand lays it before the parliament. The parliament on its part and in line
\nwith its constitutional duties, goes through the budget proposal,
\nscrutinises the provisions, crosses the t’s and dots the i’s to ensure
\nthat the resources are rightly allocated to the budget heads without
\ninflating allocations. In ULSU in those days, budget periods are the\u00a0 most
\nactive periods when parliamentarians, drawn from the various departments,
\nfaculties and interests, come to the parliament with their calculators and
\nother mathematical gadgets to scrutinise the budget to ensure that cheeky
\nmembers of the executive do not inject their own interests into the budget
\nthrough inflating the costs of items in the budget heads for their own
\nselfish benefits. As parliamentarians, it was not our duty to insert newer
\nbudget heads (or line items) to the proposal because it is not the duty of
\nthe parliament to propose projects but to scrutinise and ensure that funds
\nwere appropriately allocated.<\/p>\n
It is not the duty of legislators to allocate funds. That is exclusively
\nan executive function.\u00a0 It is not within the power of legislators to
\ninsert new projects into the budget. It is not the duty of legislators to
\nassume the duty of executives but to checkmate their antics by ensuring
\nthat budgets are not inflated for selfish reasons or funds are
\nrealistically allocated. No law anywhere in the world, gives the
\nlegislature, invested with powers to scrutinise and approve, the added
\npower to insert new budget heads or line items in a budget. It is absurd
\nseeing legislators today shamelessly parroting the nonsense in the media
\nthat legislators have powers to include line items or budget heads in a
\nbudget. This is pure fallacy and no law in any part of the world grants
\nlegislators power to assume executive duties. Most importantly, it is the
\nfunction of the parliament to monitor budget execution to ensure the
\nexecutive does not deviate from rightly implementing what were approved in
\nthe budget.<\/p>\n
For decades, the Nigerian legislature has brought to bear on the culture
\nof budgets, a deep corruptive influence by taking over the duties of the
\nexecutive by initiating fresh budget heads outside the proposals of the
\nexecutive. It is not like a military take over but rather a rip off from
\nthe compromise it struck with equally dubious executives that had the
\nsingle mindset of defrauding the masses and growing fat on the lifeblood
\nof the Nigerian masses. At the end of each budget year, monies in the
\nbudget had been shared between the executive and the legislature while the
\nmasses hold on to empty shells of multi trillion Naira annual budgets that
\nend up not holding even a flimsy candle for them. A culture of inserting
\npersonal projects into the budget in the guise of constituency projects
\nhas ensured that parliamentarians not only infringe the constitutional
\nculture of budgets but corrupt it for their personal interest by
\ninitiating dubious, self serving interests and going further to directly
\nand indirectly execute such projects and making most illicit capital of
\nit. This is the anomaly of constituency projects that has endured for a
\nvery long time and had drained the country by appeasing the corrupt
\ntendencies of legislators, now fondly called legislooters, in deference to
\ntheir insatiable crave for illicit emoluments.\u00a0 This has ensured that
\nNigerian budgets, before the coming of Buhari, has largely been shared
\nbetween corrupt and hawkish parliamentarians and an equally corrupt,
\nacquiescing and wheeling-dealing executive. In the sequel, Nigerians, for
\nwhose interests budgets are supposedly made, had been left high and dry.
\nThis was one of the cultures the change agenda targets and which was why
\nwe saw the drama that attended this year’s budget as the old rugged
\nculture clashed with the determination of the Buhari regime to change this
\nculture for the betterment of the Nigerian masses.<\/p>\n
In the present Abdulmuminu Jubrin versus Yakubu Dogara et al dirty
\nslugfest over the padding of the 2016 budget, let us know that we are not
\ndealing with a new culture but an old culture that has long endured but is
\nbeing threatened by change. Poor Dogara, Jubrin and their fellow
\nlegislators, they read badly of the change for which Nigerians endured
\nmassive onslaughts to bring in last year. They are rugged students of the
\nold order that came to a head on collision with President Buhari’s
\nunsmiling commitment to cap the wellhead of corruption and free hitherto
\nstolen funds to attend to the country’s many challenges. We are having the
\nopen sesame happening presently because we voted for change otherwise, the
\nrotten order of the executive and the legislature colluding\u00a0 to share the
\nyearly budgets would have passed quietly as it has been before Buhari
\ncame. So budget padding either by soiled civil servants planting and
\ninflating budget heads for their selfish interests, corrupt ministers and
\npoliticians, appropriating all for their selfish benefits or by
\nsupercilious parliamentarians, inserting various dubious interests into
\nthe budget in the guise of constituency projects, is not new. In fact, it
\nhas been an old corrupt culture. What is new is that\u00a0 change is
\nunravelling it and opening its behind for Nigerians to know why they have
\nbeen so short changed.<\/p>\n
In the present squabble, let us recall that the President presented his
\nexecutive’s budget estimates to the legislature and let us recall that
\nwhen the legislature returned the approved budget to the executive, the
\nBuhari government refused to sign, raising serious charges that most of
\nthe proposals it sent to the legislature, were deleted and replaced with
\nvarious doubtful insertions that never emanated from the executives as it
\nshould be. Let us recall that Dogara et al and Jubrin were in the same
\nboat, frantically denying such charge and alleging the executives rather
\ndid not present the budget well and that they did a damn good job
\ncleansing what Jubrin said was a badly presented budget. They were
\ntogether in defending the legislature even when it was obvious that
\ncritical projects proposed by the executive, such as the Calabar-Lagos
\nrail line were expunged from the budget and replaced with so-called
\nconstituency projects that were not proposed by the executive. It was
\nbased on such inconsistencies that the President refused to sign the
\nbudget and had to take it back to the parliament. Let us recall that
\nJubrin in particular was so vociferous defending the legislature and
\naccusing the executive of multifarious offences and going further and
\nthreatening fire and brimstone should the President refuse to sign the
\nbudget.<\/p>\n
So when did the cookie crumble in the relationship between Jubrin and
\nDogara and co such that they\u00a0 are washing very dirty and messy linens in
\nthe public? When did Jubrin now realise that Dogara inserted many projects
\nin the budget to support an offence he had so frantically denied in the
\nrecent past? When did it occur to Dogara that Jubrin took over the budget
\nprocess to steal in his fancy projects into the budget?\u00a0 When did it occur
\nto both Jubrin and Dogara that indeed the House of Representatives
\nmutilated\u00a0 the budget to the extent of inserting billions of Naira worth
\nillegal projects in the budget? These are just a few critical questions
\nthat dog the present admission from the horses’ mouth that indeed the
\nHouse of Representatives leadership altered the budget and some members
\ninserted dubious items in the budget to defraud the country. We must thank
\nGod for this change when we review what is happening in the House of
\nRepresentatives at moment. We must see reason to thank God that one of the
\nold corrupt orders that have so robbed the country is on the verge of
\ntumbling down today because the rays of change beamed on it and Nigerian
\nofficialdom will not be the same again.<\/p>\n
So let Jubrin and Dogara et al fight on. Let all the dirty details of the
\nsame shenanigans with which past governments and politicians have robbed
\nthe country continue to flip open for Nigerians to know where indeed the
\nrain started beating them. Let the fight get messier because this will
\nreveal messier details of why we are where we are today and most
\nespecially ensure that we don’t continue threading the same paths that
\nhave so destroyed the country for the last five years.<\/p>\n
Peter Claver Oparah
\nIkeja, Lagos.<\/p>\n