Government Shutdown: Blocking the budget to punish the people - by Reno Omokri
Article written by Reno Omokri -
Special Assistant on New Media to President Jonathan. Please read!
When
I heard about the directive from the All Progressive Congress, APC, to
its members in the National Assembly to block the passage of the 2014
budget, all Executive Bills and to abort the screening of the Service
Chiefs as well as any Ministerial nominees, my first reaction was that
the news couldn't be true. And then it was confirmed on television by
Lai Mohammed.
I
thought, why would a political party that styles itself as a
progressive party take such an anti people action? Block all Bills, even
if they are in the interest of the masses! Imagine that! Well, there
are progressives and then there are pro-aggressives!
The
APC claim they are taking this route in order to protect the lives of
the good people of Rivers State from alleged police brutality.
Really! Let's fact check this assertion.
Since
the administration of Rotimi Amaechi of Rivers State started having a
power tussle with their opposition, it is on record that not one life
has been lost due to the activities of the Nigerian police. The only
reported loss of life occurred when an ally of the governor, Honourable
Chidi Lloyd, allegedly ran down a political rival, Kingsley Ejeuo, with
his car, as well as a police sergeant, Urang Obadiah, who was performing
his legitimate duties.
On
the contrary, in the APC controlled state of Ogun, several people have
been killed in the last month in intra party conflicts over who controls
party structures in the state. In one of these incidents, eight people
were killed as they met with members of the National Assembly from Ogun
State including Senator Gbenga Kaka, Senator Akin Odunsi, Hon. Kunle
Adeyemi, Hon. Olumide Osoba, Hon. Segun Williams and Hon. Ibrahim
Ogunola . Now, the APC want these same Ogun legislators, whose lives
were almost taken by alleged APC thugs working for the faction opposed
to the Segun Osoba faction which they belong to to help them shut down
the government because of a crisis in Rivers State where no life has
been lost? What about their own lives that were almost lost and the
lives of their supporters?
Now
let us zero in on Ekiti state. Since Honourable Opeyemi Bamidele
indicated interest in challenging Governor Kayode Fayemi in the upcoming
gubernatorial election, he has not known peace. First, he was
undemocratically ordered to pull out of the race, when he insisted on
his constitutional right to contest. Then he was ostracized by the APC
hierarchy. When this did not dampen his enthusiasm, he and his
supporters suffered persecution and on the 4th of November 2013, one of
his supporters, Mr. Foluso Ogundare, was shot to death during a meeting
of Bamidele’s support group, Ekiti Bibiire Coalition. Another member, Mrs. Beatrice Ige, was shot and almost lost her life.
As
I write, Bamidele's supporters continue to be hounded in Ekiti and the
man himself has been forced to leave the party he helped build for the
Labour Party after he was told unequivocally that the party was set on
giving its ticket to Governor Kayode Fayemi even without a democratic
primary.
Being
addicted to propaganda, the APC has used the media to blow the
situation in Rivers out of proportion while minimizing media coverage of
the killing spree in Ogun and Ekiti States.
Now
let us ask ourselves objectively, which state is more deserving of the
scrutiny of the APC amongst Rivers, Ogun and Ekiti states?
But
then you may argue and say that even if lives were not lost in Rivers
State, there have been rallies called by Amaechi's loyalists which have
ended in violence.
But
then, much of that violence was contrived by a media manipulating
administration that carries out government business like a Nollywood
script.
Nigerians
witnessed firsthand a demonstration of this media manipulation when
Hon. Chidi Lloyd and certain other legislators of the Rivers State House
of Assembly claimed they had been beaten by their colleagues and the
police in July of 2013. For a few days they dominated the media and
gained public sympathy until a video of the incidence was released on
the Internet and Nigerians saw that rather than being a victim as he
claimed, Lloyd was the main aggressor who almost killed his colleagues
by repeatedly pummelling him on the head with a mace! If not for the
release of that video, Nigerians would have been none the wiser and
would have been duped by the sleek and well oiled media team operating
in that state whose job is to manipulate the minds of Nigerians by
manipulating events in the media.
It
was a matter for tears that the same governor for whom the APC want to
shut down Nigeria was present at that event and that his ADC and Chief
Security Officer were captured on tape actually beating up elected
assembly men in their hallowed chamber.
But
let's even agree for the sake of argument that what they say of Rivers
State is true, and that the citizens of the state, though not being
killed, are under a siege from the police, I would like Nigerians to
cast their minds back to December 17, 2011. On that day, thousands of
Lagosians trooped out in a peaceful rally to protest against the tolling
of the main road leading to Lekki. Instead of yearning to the cries of
these innocent citizens, the Lagos State Government unleashed armed
policemen on the unarmed peaceful citizens.
According
to the Tribune of December 18, 2011, one person was killed while
several of the peaceful protesters were beaten, brutalized, arrested and
clamped into detention. Journalists were brutalized with their cameras
seized and broken. Human rights lawyer, Bamidele Aturu, described the
situation as "an orgy of maniacal violence"! Google is ever available
and my readers can avail themselves of the search engine to verify if I
have made this story up.
Is
it not hypocrisy of the highest order for the APC to have unleashed
this level of Gestapo like violence on unarmed civilians only to turn
round and direct its legislators to shut down Nigeria because of a
situation in Rivers that is nowhere near the ordeal Lagosians endured on
December 17, 2011?
Moreover,
the directive by the APC to its legislators, if obeyed, would amount to
robbing the Nigerian tax payers, because legislators are paid to
perform legislative duties and not to impede them.
In
fact, it amounts to hypocrisy for the APC to order its legislators to
take such an action and still collect their salaries and entitlements.
With reports that our legislators are the highest paid in the world, is
it morally justifiable for APC legislators to block legislative
activities for partisan reasons and still draw on their princely
salaries and emoluments?
Why
do I say this? Twice in the recent history of Lagos State (while Bola
Tinubu was governor and then again under the administration of the
incumbent) lecturers at the Lagos State University and doctors under the
Lagos State Ministry of Health have gone on strike. On both occasions,
the governors (first Tinubu, then Fashola) threatened the striking
workers with a policy of no work no pay. In fact, as recently as January
3rd, 2014, the Lagos State government issued a statement directed at
its doctors, who are proposing to go on strike, saying "the state
government would not hesitate to enforce “no-work-no- pay’’.
And
now, these same people who believe that people should not be paid if
they refuse to do the work they were employed to do now advocate that
legislators who are paid from the taxes paid by Nigerian workers should
refuse to do the work they are employed to do. Apparently, for the APC,
what is sauce for the goose is not sauce for the gander!
And
even beyond these points, the question begging an answer in my view is
this: Whose interest should a legislator pursue between his party's
interests and the interest of his constituents?
It
is clear that the APC is power hungry and has stared into the political
crystal ball and have seen clearly what awaits them in 2015 and like
students who have refused to read, they would rather provoke a crisis so
that the authorities can postpone the examinations they know they are
going to fail.
Their
failure is so obvious and imminent that in every state where they
thought they had enticed People's Democratic Party, PDP, governors to
cross carpet, those who built the APC are now seeing that they have been
used and tossed aside. All their work has gone unrewarded as the party
has handed over the structures they suffered to build to new comers for
no other reason than because the new comers control the treasury of
their states.
Nigerians
are watching, the displaced chieftains are watching, and those who are
about to be displaced by the APC are also watching knowing full well
that a slave that sees his fellow slave buried in a shallow grave knows
that he will be buried likewise when his own time comes!
It
is gradually becoming clear to Nigerians and certainly to the ousted
APC chieftains that the APC's ability to make friends is only superseded
by their ability to lose them. As they make more powerful and wealthy
friends, they dump those they perceive as being less powerful and
wealthy. In fact, it has been speculated that in their desperation to
garner membership and a huge war chest, the APC would not mind
approaching the devil to help them in their quest to "save Nigeria" or
maybe to 'slave Nigeria'!
If
what is going on in Ogun and Ekiti state is the type of salvation the
APC is offering to Nigerians, I shudder to think of what awaits those
states whose governors recently cross carpeted to their fold!
The
APC can go the undemocratic route and instruct its legislators to shut
down the government. They can go desperate as was seen when their party
chief, conscious of the defeat that stares the party in the face says
"the only alternative left to get power is to take it by force". But the
APC must know, like one of its own chieftains warned in a recent
article, that "the Nigeria of 2014 is very different to the Nigeria of
1993". In the new Nigeria of 2014 and beyond, power must flow from the
ballot box, not through violence, blackmail or desperate political
manoeuvres.
Many
things have changed in Nigeria. Gone are the days of "do or die
elections". In the Nigeria of 2011 and beyond, Nigerians enjoy free and
fair elections hailed by The Commonwealth of Nations, The European Union
and The African Union as "the most credible elections since Nigeria
returned to civil rule".
Let
us not forget that the Federal Government pays salaries and pensions to
more than a million Nigerians. These salaries and pensions are tied to
the free flow of the legislative process. If the budget is not passed,
it is not politicians that would lose out. It is the market men and
women who depend on them to buy their goods and services that will
suffer. It is the banking sector which depends on them to make deposits
that would suffer. It is their children who depend on them to pay their
school fees that would suffer. It is their aged parents in the village
who depend on them for a monthly allowance that would suffer.
The
budget is not a Peoples Democratic Party budget. It is a budget for all
Nigerians. If you have a grouse with the PDP, by all means punish them,
but please leave the Nigerian masses alone.
These
are the people that the APC want to throw into poverty because to them
power is a zero sum game where the sufferings of huge swathes of the
population is only a collateral damage as long as they get what they
want. The end justifies the means to them.
If
the APC were as concerned with what goes into their minds as they are
with what goes into their mouths, they would not have dreamt up a
directive whose effect would be to increase poverty in the land at a
time when the World Bank has just commended the Jonathan Administration
for significantly reducing poverty in Nigeria.
Who cuts their nose to spite their face? The APC apparently.
Regards,
Reno
