Article published in The Nation Newspaper
25/11/2009
There is a great deafness in governance demonstrated to Fellow Nigerians in the David Mark virement saga, the deregulation fiasco and the budget reading disaster all an insult to our collective intelligence.
Nigeria suffers ‘THE BIG FOUR NIGERIAN INCOMPETENCES’ costing us 50-60% of personal and corporate budgets: they are ‘Refineries, Electricity, Railways and Police. We have deregulated before ‘for better’ which always turns out ‘for worse’, so this is re-deregulation. Re-Deregulation of fuel prices must not take place until Nigeria’s incompetently rundown refineries have been working for six months providing us with local fuel at local prices. You do not sell your children Nigerian bananas at $1 for one because a Nigerian banana in London or New York costs $1. Re-Deregulation must not take place until all Nigeria’s generators are silenced for one year continuously by constant power from Nigeria’s incompetenty run PHCN providing 20,000Mw of the needed 100,000Mw. Re-Degeneration must not take place until Nigeria can move its masses by mass transport, high speed railway- not carbon emission okada and taxi. Re-Deregulation must not take place until the police are sufficiently empowered to stop their own checkpoint crimes and stop ‘tax colluding’ with LGA thugs illegally ‘tax collecting’.
The malignant failure of the national assembly to hold a joint session for the 2010 presidential budget reading demonstrates their ignorance and arrogance, consuming ?50% + of the budget, while we suffer. Do they, like Nero, not fiddle while Rome burns? For this INSULT, Fellow Nigerians should sweep one them off their pedestal at the next election and welcome them back to reality. Is it not our money they use to ‘shakara’ to each other? ‘To whom much is allogated’, much is expected. Over 30 million Fellow Nigerians have no job or roof while the Un-distinguished and Dis-Honourable haggle over where to read the budget – red or green. Mr man and Mrs woman–it is not your fault. Come back ‘under the bridge’ where the real people meet to discuss their own budgets over akara, suya and bushmeat –not Sheraton hors ‘d’ouvres. Here we are colour blind. Oranges are not apples? No senator would resign to contest a representative’s seat. Representatives aspire to become senators. Since Socrates and Rome the Senate has been the top job in leadership. In the USA, unfortunately our expensive role model, representives defer to the senators – no contest.
But Nigeria’s must get K leg and ‘rebrand’ Abacha’s ‘Home grown democracy’ structure or was it a Babangida? Such ‘Who made you master over me’ battles are common between professionals in sectors like health and education. Nurses run hospitals, optometrists claim ‘Dr’ and PhD Agric runs ‘Doctor’s Herbal Clinic’ for diseases from AIDS to Azospermia. Please tell your red and green men that this Azospermia is a form of NO SPERM COUNT’, with infertility and impotence caused by sitting in hot babanriga and suits on hot leather and cloth cushion seats, ‘Red AND Green’, colour does not matter, for long periods. The political testicles boil over, kill the sperm in the ‘Horrors’ chamber. So, Red or green, this budget speech may be your last in power.
The senate should repair its ears and ‘Let your AYES BE AYES and your NAYS BE NAYS’ and get the ‘feared’ elecronic voting machines working for true democracy to ‘stand up and be counted’. The electronic voting machines are treated as the refineries to allow corrupt political practicies to thrive when they do not work.
The whole country listened in ‘shock and awe’ as David Mark, Senate President alias ‘phones are not for the poor’, ‘MARKed’ his chequered democratic career, by ‘partiality’ deafness. Is his condition innocent medical deafness or malicious political deafness? He should admit his ear problems to protect Nigeria from the demoracy dangers from ‘mis-MARKing’ the voting tones in Senate. We witnessed on TV how as ‘impartial’ referee failed, choosing ‘Ayes’ over the noisier ‘Nays’. We have had ‘Hand of God’, perhaps this is ‘Ear of God’? It is ‘Headache of Nigeria’. There should be a replay.
No doubt the senate will pass a law banning the media from electronically covering voice voting in the ‘harrowing’ chamber. Does the red and green assembly think that our people are mumu or deaf mutes and their political business a joke of ‘Guess the Ayes and Nays’? How else could a person veto with impunity the NOISY MAJORITY and rape Nigeria’s struggling democracy with the ‘Ayes have it’ when the ‘AYES DO NOT HAVE IT’? Was this done MERELY because David Mark apparently has a political ‘deaf’ ear on virement – re-direction of funds from some needed projects to other projects?
Should David Mark resign and see an Ear, [k]nose and Throat surgeon about his dangerously deaf ear? It is costing Nigeria its very limited democracy. We are a laughing stock internationally, proving that our vote, voice or ballotbox, is meaningless. Is his political deafness a joke, an innocent mistake or a deliberate misinterpretation of the voice vote and the ‘vox populii’, minority over majority, punishable by expulsion for anti-democratic activites no different from stealing votes, the subject of election tribunals? And green and red, please pass the Freedom of Information Bill. The ‘Ayes of the Nation’ really do ‘Have it’ on the FOI Bill! CountdowNigeria@50 – 309 days. Lots to do.