NASS And Presidency To Spend Over A Billion in 2014

According to the 2014 budget proposal presented to the National Assembly, the National Assembly and the Presidency alone have been allocated the sum of N183 billion (over a Billion Dollars) for recurrent expenditure for the year.

The Presidency plans to spend at least N2.3 billion on local and international travels and transportation next year.

The proposal is contained in the 2014 appropriation bill submitted by President Goodluck Jonathan through the Minister of Finance, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, to the National Assembly last week.

A breakdown of the figure showed that the State House would require the sum of N1.2b for what it called Local Travels. International travels and transportation will gulp N1.15b.

For the whole year, the Presidency intends to spend N200 million for the provision of foodstuffs/catering supplies while it also plans to expend another N162,556,500 on meals and refreshments.

For honorarium and sitting allowances, the Presidency has budgeted a princely sum of N320 million for that purpose just as it has set aside the sum of N33.8 million for the office of the Vice-President to take care of his foodstuffs and catering supplies as well as meals and refreshments in the year.

Under the arrangement, N23.8 million will go for foodstuffs and catering supplies while the balance of N10 million will be spent on meals and refreshments in the office of the Vice-President.

The total amount budgeted for the Presidency is said to be around N33b.

In the same vein, the Minister of Finance and Co-ordinating Minister for the Economy, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, is expected to spend the sum of over half a billion on honorarium and another N51 million will be spent on meals and refreshments within the fiscal period.

A careful review of the budget proposals however showed that the Presidency shied away from making any provision for the controversial Security and Exchange Commission, SEC, whose head, Arunma Oteh, has been embroiled in a ceaseless war with the National Assembly.

The lawmakers had vowed not to approve any budget for the commission until Oteh was removed but President Jonathan ignored them and their resolution.

In the same vein, the Federal Government made the same yearly provision of N150 billion for the National Assembly but did not give any breakdown of the sum.

It is not clear if the NASS would be in a hurry to pass the budget given the furore that attended the presentation of the document.

Controversy had mounted to the extent that President Jonathan had to back out of the presentation and later sent the Finance Minister to represent him

Where Was Nigeria at Mandela’s Funeral?

There has been a lot of talk on Nigeria’s cyberspace about the attention (or lack of) Nigeria received at the ceremonies that followed Nelson Mandela’s demise.

Nigerians have not failed to notice that our president, Goodluck Jonathan, who was present at the memorial service was not given any form of acknowledgement at the event where President Barack Obama of the US was given the podium to give a eulogy.

Nigerians were quick to point out that while the US and the UK were supporting apartheid Nigeria was at the forefront of the fight to end the evil political system.

The complaint goes on and on.

It appears that we are the only ones who do not realise the fact that we have been consigned to the dustbin of history, thanks to our leaders.

After South Africa embraced multi-party democracy, Mandela sworn in as the first democratically elected president they made giant strides not only in the continent but also in the world.

Mandela in particular made sure that he lived above board and set a fine example for leaders all over the world to follow.

Mandela has become the yardstick with which the world measures political transparency.

Most people are quick to mention the fact that he refused to run for a second term in office. 

Since Mandela’s release from prison on the other hand, Nigeria has moved from military dictatorship to civilian profligacy; complete disrespect for the Rule of Law under military dictatorship has been replaced with unbridled corruption under civilian rule and government by electoral fraud has simply replaced unconstitutional military dictatorship.

Yet we complain that we were not recognised at Mandela’s funeral. The old man would have been disappointed at the present ANC leadership had Nigeria’s president been given the podium to speak at the memorial ceremony.

While South Africans were still celebrating the life of one of the greatest statesmen in the last two hundred years an ex-president and the incumbent one are engaged in a power tussle with Nigerians taking sides with one or the other.

Yet we complain that we were not recognised at Mandela’s funeral. The important dignitaries would probably have laughed at the organisers had the podium been given to our president.

Respect is not demanded for but earned. If we want to be respected at the world stage we have to earn it and not throw tantrums like a child every time we get what we deserve.        

Unarguable, Nairaland is the most visited Nigerian owned site and a lot of commendation should go to the founder of the site for his vision.

Quite a number of Nigerians depend on Nairaland not only for news stories but the reaction of Nigerians to those stories.

As an open platform it is very democratic and the problem with that is control.

In other to control the kind of information that can appear on the site the moderators have decided to insert a software that will automatically change certain words into more decent sounding ones.

Certain words are not allowed on the site: For instance, “penis” becomes “joystick” and “Porn” becomes “indecency”.

I found it quite hilarious when I saw a post on “Bosom Cancer”! Seriously? Even the word, “breast” cannot be used on the site.

It gets even more ridiculous, “Retard” becomes “slowpoke”. Whoever coined the word, “slowpoke”?

What these moderators have to realise is that these words are proper English words and removing them from a story or a post simply changes the essence of that story.

There are other ways to properly monitor a site.

The interesting thing is that this type of editing is definitely software operated and should you want to beat the software put an dot (.) in front of each word, like this, “p.e.n.i.s.” and you get your word published but you just may incur the wrath of the moderators.

Like most leading institutions in Nigeria, Nairaland is being managed by ignorant, lazy, self-serving individuals who think they have been put in charge of a service because they are cleverer than the people using that service.

Who’s Paying Attention To Ann Coulter Anyway ?

Ann Coulter is a lawyer turned journalist who feels good about herself by putting other people down.

She attempts to drag other people down to the only place she is quite familiar with: the gutter.

She broke into global consciousness when she called Obama a “retard” after one of the Presidential debates the President had with Mitt Romney.

One would except someone who calls herself a lawyer to at least have some respect for a colleague who is also an associate professor of constitutional Law. Come to think of it, she sees other people with her own lenses and that is the way she sees lawyers. She probably believes you have to be a retard like herself to qualify to become a lawyer.

Ann Coulter picks on Hispanics without verifying the facts.

She said Hispanics would automatically vote Democrats forgetting that Marco Rubio and Senator Cruz are both Hispanics who also happen to be Republican Party Senators.

After almost every notion she has about Hispanics turned out to be false so she decided to turn on Nigerians.

Apparently, she must have been picking on Hispanics because she thought they were the only non-whites in the world.

I’m she’s convinced the likes of Kanye West and Beyonce were dark skinned Hispanics who migrated to the US from the remotest parts of the Amazon.

She probably thought America, Canada and Europe were the only countries in the world. It must have been tough convincing her that Europe wasn’t a country. (What? With the whole of the EU having a President and stuff?)

Whoever told Ann about Africa hasn’t educated her but has done us Africans a great disservice and possibly given Hispanics a respite.

In my opinion, Ann should be ignored. We Nigerians had no business republishing the hurtful things she said about Nigerians.

I wonder what she would have to say when she discovers that there are at least fifty other countries besides Nigeria in Africa. 

Jonathan’s Israel Jamboree

As if the controversy surrounding the inclusion of embattled minister of Aviation, Stella Oduah, wasn’t enough, the recent trip to Israel embarked upon by the President of Nigeria Goodluck Jonathan has been nothing but a PR disaster for him.

It was initially revealed that he was being accompanied to Israel by 19 Christian governors and the sheer profligacy of that made Nigerians react.

This report was quickly denied by the Presidential spokesman, Rueben Abati, who set the records straight and revealed the names of a few government dignitaries who will be part of the president’s delegation to Israel. This made Nigerians focus attention on another aspect of the trip: the inclusion of Stella Oduah, who has been embroiled in a car purchase saga.

While they were on the trip, investigative journalism revealed that the President was accompanied on the trip by 11 governors and 8 deputy governors, not 19 governors as “erroneously” reported earlier.

I’m trying my best not to laugh here. What is the difference between “19 governors” and “11 governors and 8 deputy governors”?

And that is just the number of governors. Not counting the ministers and members of the House of Reps and Senators that would have been part of that delegation.

Each governor, House of Reps member, Senator and minister would have his or her own delegation.

In total it was reported that President Jonathan Goodluck too over 800 personnel with him to Israel.

Pictures have also emerged of the President cutting a giant cake while in the Holy land: the proverbial national cake to be shared only by the 800 government officials with him.

Sometimes one wonders: which is more profligate, a military or civilian administration?     

After Qualification, What Next

The Super Eagles of Nigeria face the Ethiopian national team in the second leg encounter of the final World Cup qualification match on the 16^th of November.

Having won the first leg encounter played in Ethiopia two weekends ago most people (actually, everybody except the most optimistic of Ethiopians) expect Nigeria to win the match and proceed to the World Cup talking place in Brazil next year.

If not because of the agony I suffered during the last World Cup Nigeria failed to qualify for I would have said qualification is only a postponement of our misery.

I really want Nigeria to qualify. The point I’m trying to make is that it is almost certain that Nigeria would not go beyond the group stage of the competition.

The last time Nigeria went beyond the group stage was in 1998 only to suffer a humiliating 4-1 defeat to Denmark. Having qualified for the 2^nd round after beating highly rated Spain and Bulgaria during the group stage most people had written Denmark off. As usual, Nigeria failed to deliver and it’s been a downward decline from there.

As a matter of fact, the last World Cup match Nigeria won was the second group match against Bulgaria in 1998.

The record has not been impressive for other African teams either. Statistics show that out of over a hundred World Cup matches played by African teams they have only won 37 - Less than half.

Administrative problems, lack of commitment from players and almost insurmountable political and economic problems are usually responsible for these poor performances.

I am looking forward to the World Cup but I’m not holding my breath that the present class of Super Eagles will surpass the record set by their predecessors and advance to the quarter-final stage of the competition.  

The Rich Also Cry In Nigeria

The recent Associated Airline crash in Nigeria is a very sad case of “The Rich Also Cry”.

In Nigeria, an aviation minister once opined that air travel was not for the poor. He didn’t even have to say it. 

Although saying it gave Nigerians a peep into the mind of the ruling class, they really don’t care about the rest of the population.

Air travel hasn’t become cheaper in Nigeria. Poor people still do not travel by air. Some of them cannot even afford to travel at all let alone travel by air.

It is only still the rich that can travel by air or board a private jet for that matter as was the case of the occupants of the ill fated associated airline jet.

On board was the very expensive casket carrying the remains of a former governor, his son, son-in-law, a commissioner whose father also used to be the “de-facto” number 3 citizen of the country, a  multi-millionaire funeral director and his scion.

With the exception of the first two mentioned all these rich and influential Nigerians died in the crash that occurred minutes after the plane took off.

The crash was such that could only have occurred in a country where a terrorist strike occurs with unbelievable predictability and the security forces are no closer to bringing the situation under control than they were when the first strike occurred.

A country where armed robbers warn residents in advance of a robbery attack and the attack would still take place as planned.

Where the authorities allow an accident black spot remains untouched for years, claiming several lives.

The plane crash on Thursday wasn’t an act of God, it was negligence. It was preventable. It happened because the people who should conducts safety checks have been bribed to look the other way.

When or if the cause of the accident is revealed, unless there is a cover-up, it will be discovered that it was preventable. That a safety precaution was compromised.

They will probably blame it on Human error, that the pilot fell asleep a minute after take off.

The collapse of public infrastructure in Nigeria is so bad now that it is not enough to have your money and pay for everything, generate your own electricity, drill your own water, attend a private university and so on.

At some point in time you will have to rely on a government service and then you will not be  immune from the decay that is the Nigerian society and the drastic consequences.