On the delayed Budget

GIVEN the current disarray of conservative forces and the increasingly fractious relationship between the legislative and the executive arm of government, this nation is entering a kind of dark hubris of a typically Nigerian nature where politicians rather than create context that favours the public interest are now resorting to behaviours that put people in arm lock. Our democracy is throwing up some troubling kernel of truth, which, any self-respecting observer could see.

The expected political synergy of both the Legislative and the Executive is becoming a fading illusion and, in its place, is a massive gulf that widens day by day. The feather ruffling, quarrel, stone throwing, accusation, counter-accusation, finger pointing and fault transfer that is trailing the 2016 Budget is dragging down the terrain of commonsense, compromise and civic patriotism expected from the people who constituted both arms of government.

What Nigerians want is the interplay of common bonds between the legislative and the executive and ongoing conversation that will encourage circle of political understanding that may eventually create mutual solidarity and trust which has been grossly lacking since the inception of President Mohammadu Buhari’s administration. This is an ideal legacy that is worthy of pursuit by our politicians but what is today ruling the political airwaves is a sad commentary on the evolution of our democracy.

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This newspaper recognises that what sustains modern democracy is a healthy rivalry that will encourage checks and balances to rein in abuse of power and privileges. However, when politicians are intransigent, placid and totally oblivious to the fierce urgency of national rebirth, then we have to let them know that Nigerians will no longer tolerate apathetic politicians who encourage sectarian politics of identity and mutual hatred that stifle action, initiative, debate, consensus and the real tenet of change which is at the heart of this administration.

For all its now yawning aberrations, the 2016 Budget has been hailed as people-oriented document crafted to radically redesigned Nigeria and take us out of the wood of social, economic, financial and infrastructure paralysis. Meanwhile, it has been accident-proned and entwined in so much controversy, blackmail, contempt and rejections to make any discerning observer wonder if we are saddled with an unworkable budgetary document. For instance the executive and the legislative accuse each other of misdeeds. There has been accusation of loss of the Appropriation Bill. Accusations and counter-accusations of padding the Bill.

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We have witnessed the removal by the legislators of sub heads included in the Bill by the Executive and the substitution of new subheads. There was the controversy over the alleged removal of Lagos-Calabar monorail from the Bill and the substitution with new roads that is yet to have any feasibility study. Are we saddled with an over-cautious, distorting, timid and hesitant Legislative and Executive arms of governance that specialise in disputatious political polarity to a healthy exchange of ideas for the progress of this nation?

The delay in passing the budget has caused so much psychological damage to our moral, social, economic, political and cultural renaissance on all levels. It has harvested victims among students, workers, businessmen, employers, market women, essential workers and just about anybody that has a conjugal attachment to this almighty budget. To put it aptly, our 2016 budget is lost in space. We are now faced with a time bomb. An Appropriation Bill submitted to NASS since December last year and is yet to become an Appropriation Act (Budget) in April, 2016 automatically hangs on a life support machine. The ticking time bomb is in the fact that the life of the subsisting Budget ends by the end of this April after which the government will shut down!

The warring politicians need to put on human face and arrest the ongoing antagonistic debates that tend to foster lockdown and disunity. The Executive and the Legislative must consider the human suffering of ordinary Nigerians who are confronted today with so much social, economic, political and infrastructure decay. They are anxious to see dividend of democracy especially under an administration that promised so much change for the common man. The political class must emerge from its insularity and fear and return back on track to the long, arduous and painful task of rebuilding Nigeria.