Nigeria's politics without sense
February 8 2016 By Abiodun Giwa/opinion

Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo of Nigeria has stepped into the acting position as acting president of Nigeria, two days after news reports said that President Muhammed Buhari is on five days vacation in London. But news reports say that Osinbajo has not been seen or working in Buhari's office.
Buhari may be returning to Nigeria on Wednesday, and the possibility of Osinbajo not entering the president's office for any work cannot be ruled out, with only three days remaining out of Buhari's five days vacation.
Nonetheless, Osinbajo's office that is operating from wherever it is located has a message for Nigerians: One million extremely poor Nigerians will benefit from the government's program to help the poor. And in search of credibility, Osinbajo's office has embarked on name dropping by mentioning the names of some prominent and credible Americans, as people who have promised to help determine beneficiaries of the Nigerian government poverty elimination program.
I am unsure whether or not my humble self will benefit from the program or whether my wife or any of my children will benefit from the program. And I dont know if anyone from my larger family or my village will benefit from the program, which will benefit just only one million people out of nearly 140 million Nigerians, who have been roasted in poverty. I sense a political fraud or an attempt to give money to political marabouts in the ruling party. I can say without mincing words that Nigeria remains as it has always been - rudderless and its political leaders playing politics with the lives of poor Nigerians.
Buhari has an opportunity to make a speech to rally Nigerians to support a government with limited expenditure and cost cutting budget, but instead it has fostered on Nigerians a budget, according to the Punch newspapers, with questionable programs, which have been smuggled in, to favor the presidency and all the ministries, with the minister of finance and the secretary to Federal Government wanton. Instead of bringing solace to poor Nigerians, the minister for power, works and housing, Babatunde Fashola, has reportedly asked poor Nigerians to accept the pain of an unusual high increase in the cost of power supply.
How can a government that has come into office with a promise to assuage the suffering of poor Nigerians be asking for a room to afflict the same Nigerians with pains? If there is any reason to seek Nigerians' sense of patriotism, it is not the place of individual ministers to force it on Nigerians, but the responsibility of President Buhari to go to Nigerians with explanation about the state of the nation and services that require the input of Nigerians' selflessness, to make Nigeria great again and to the expectation of all Nigerians.
But Buhari cannot do this in a vacuum, when you have rolled a budget with whole lots of questions, which anyone in his or her senses cannot explain that it is cost cutting and that it has not been fashioned for politicians to have money to steal to give to their boys and girls.It is one reason that politicians in Nigeria steal from the government to have money to give to their supporters, unaware of refusing to acknowledge that what they do is fraudulent.
Nigerians have for a long time been in the shoes of Lemuel Gulliver of Jonathan Swift's Gulliver's Travel, whose vessel was seized by those he employed, had the unenviable fate of having been pushed out of his vessel and found himself in a strange land. This is the type of fraud that has enveloped Nigeria from independence, known to curious Nigerians and the world, who know how corrupt the Nigerian system is, and are asking poor Nigerians to be divested from.
But the current set of politicians don't seem to get the message, because majority of them have been weaned with proceeds of corruption. Nigerians are asking for a program that will positively affect all the poor people and not just one million of them, and unless the present leadership is still in the garb of the past politicking without sense.
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Buhari may be returning to Nigeria on Wednesday, and the possibility of Osinbajo not entering the president's office for any work cannot be ruled out, with only three days remaining out of Buhari's five days vacation.
Nonetheless, Osinbajo's office that is operating from wherever it is located has a message for Nigerians: One million extremely poor Nigerians will benefit from the government's program to help the poor. And in search of credibility, Osinbajo's office has embarked on name dropping by mentioning the names of some prominent and credible Americans, as people who have promised to help determine beneficiaries of the Nigerian government poverty elimination program.
I am unsure whether or not my humble self will benefit from the program or whether my wife or any of my children will benefit from the program. And I dont know if anyone from my larger family or my village will benefit from the program, which will benefit just only one million people out of nearly 140 million Nigerians, who have been roasted in poverty. I sense a political fraud or an attempt to give money to political marabouts in the ruling party. I can say without mincing words that Nigeria remains as it has always been - rudderless and its political leaders playing politics with the lives of poor Nigerians.
Buhari has an opportunity to make a speech to rally Nigerians to support a government with limited expenditure and cost cutting budget, but instead it has fostered on Nigerians a budget, according to the Punch newspapers, with questionable programs, which have been smuggled in, to favor the presidency and all the ministries, with the minister of finance and the secretary to Federal Government wanton. Instead of bringing solace to poor Nigerians, the minister for power, works and housing, Babatunde Fashola, has reportedly asked poor Nigerians to accept the pain of an unusual high increase in the cost of power supply.
How can a government that has come into office with a promise to assuage the suffering of poor Nigerians be asking for a room to afflict the same Nigerians with pains? If there is any reason to seek Nigerians' sense of patriotism, it is not the place of individual ministers to force it on Nigerians, but the responsibility of President Buhari to go to Nigerians with explanation about the state of the nation and services that require the input of Nigerians' selflessness, to make Nigeria great again and to the expectation of all Nigerians.
But Buhari cannot do this in a vacuum, when you have rolled a budget with whole lots of questions, which anyone in his or her senses cannot explain that it is cost cutting and that it has not been fashioned for politicians to have money to steal to give to their boys and girls.It is one reason that politicians in Nigeria steal from the government to have money to give to their supporters, unaware of refusing to acknowledge that what they do is fraudulent.
Nigerians have for a long time been in the shoes of Lemuel Gulliver of Jonathan Swift's Gulliver's Travel, whose vessel was seized by those he employed, had the unenviable fate of having been pushed out of his vessel and found himself in a strange land. This is the type of fraud that has enveloped Nigeria from independence, known to curious Nigerians and the world, who know how corrupt the Nigerian system is, and are asking poor Nigerians to be divested from.
But the current set of politicians don't seem to get the message, because majority of them have been weaned with proceeds of corruption. Nigerians are asking for a program that will positively affect all the poor people and not just one million of them, and unless the present leadership is still in the garb of the past politicking without sense.
NEWS AND FEATURES
News & Features Around The World