Padding the Budget

I seen this happen once before… maybe even more than once – and I’m remarkably irritated. Actually, I’m a bit angry – it’s just hard to know whom to direct the anger at and have it be productive.

 

I seen this happen before… once, a couple of years ago – Ok, must be closing in on 3 or 4 years by now, considering that America’s President Barack Obama is winding out his second term as the world’s leading man.

Hard to believe; never before seen – the United States, the world’s leading poster boy in almost everything, has got maybe a couple of dozen state-of-the-art websites across its numerous agencies and departments: the State Department, the CIA, NSA, FBI, Homeland Security, Defense Department, Commerce, Justice, Agriculture, Education… there must be dozens of them; and all of these have at least one website up and running for them – several of them even more than one. Functional. Not for one year or two, but for decades by now. So imagine how stunned I had to be when the Obamacare website came on and crashed out the precise same day that it was published!

Yep, you must have heard of it too – www.HealthCare.gov, health insurance exchange website operated by the United States Federal Government for the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) promulgated by President Obama for inauguration back in October of 2013.

For a little bit of background, insurance is one of the 5 holy grails of the American economy – no matter how bad things get, they are sacred cows that nobody ever touches, regardless of who you are. The other 4 are Big Tobacco, Alcohol, Guns, and Pharmacy. Yep, these guys are so paid up with all the right people in all the right places that if you ever dared shining a little light on them, someone might shoot your head off, or you could be buried in so much legality and paperwork that your grandchildren would still be chewing through it long after you’re gun. It certainly explains why despite the number of people who die every year from alcohol related complications, there’s never been any serious legislation against it; and even though crazy people walk into schools and gun down little toddlers every other month in the United States, the system still refuses to do anything about gun control.

That ought to shed a little light on the situation with Obama wanting to reform the insurance system in the United States so that big corporations people could pay more into the system while little people who were unable to get the most basic medical attention could get more coverage. But the big corporations couldn’t have that now, could they? That’s where their money comes from – 300-some million people paying peanuts into the system annually that eventually run into billions, a small portion of which is used to line the pockets of select lawmakers and senators to ensure that that system never changes. You don’t touch insurance – nobody does… except someone who is not a part of that system.

We seen how far the Republican Party went in order to make Obama look bad; simultaneously shutting down the entire government with no care for what it would do to the little people. But we been down that road before...

So yeah, I’m a little impressed that our guys back here at home have actually grown so sophisticated that they could steal and pad the national budget just to discredit the president… make him look bad. Yes, I’m a little impressed, but also very irritated. For crying out loud, precisely how far would people go in order to keep their own pockets lined at the expense of the people that they are supposed to be serving, for starters? And more interestingly, couldn't they have opted to come up with ways to help? Think about it. If you are known for helping the president - and the country - out at a rough time like this, even though you are technically part of the opposition, who do you think they'd vote for the next election around? I mean, everybody wants to vote for Fasola right now, don't they? Buhari got voted in also because of the price he's paid for the past 30-some years. And I know I'd vote for a Donald Duke any day - what that brother done with Calabar/Cross Rivers is stunning, and if he can pull that off on a national level, just how much better could the country be in 8 years!

I kind of like me the simplicity of the president’s response to the allegations of incompetence: “I have been a military governor, petroleum minister, military head of state and headed the Petroleum Trust Fund. Never had I heard the words ‘budget padding.’”

 

It baffles me too, truly. I mean, haven’t the people suffered enough? Just how bad do they need the country to be? What is their motivation? More money? More power? More influence? For crying out loud, they already run the show! Can’t they just back off for a bit – give the country an actual opportunity to grow?

I was flying into the country once from neighboring Ghana, when this little kid – couldn’t have been more than 6 years of age – muttered as we walked into the Murtala Muhammad International Airport terminal that “Mummy, this place is so ugly!” Couldn’t blame the child, and that’s the joy about them – they tell it like it is. It was a sharp contrast to Kotoka International Airport in Accra where we were coming from. Kotoka is so much smaller and simpler, but it is highly maintained and orderly. By comparison, our Lagos Airport is a total mess – and I say this with terrible pain in my heart.

I have never been beyond this continent before, but I have seen movies and I have a clue what gives in some of the airports that other countries have to offer. The Qatari International Airport in Doha, Dulles, Heathrow, La Guardia… We have our country’s officials flying in and out of these countries practically all year round. They see what these other places look like, but they don’t care enough to try and make their own country better. I mean, how does one think like that!

So we have Buhari in his anti-graft drive, having people arrested left, right, and center; doing everything he can to recover stolen funds and fix a badly damaged system so that generations that come after can actually have something a little proud to call home and be a part of; and then we have these nefarious persons whose identities are almost impossible to tell for certain trying everything in their power to cripple the system. It’s irritating… and annoying; as though we couldn’t think for ourselves.

Yep, that last part was directed at the press who are always in a hurry to print something sensational. I seen this a gazillion times before, in print media – all kinds of headlines that make it looks as though the world is coming to an end. I know they want to sell papers, but this is more than that – this is just plain irresponsible reporting from some of our most trusted dailies. It’s like – like is commonly said colloquially amongst us Nigerian folks – another thing don dey there! Like something else is driving these people, making them print anarchy for the minds of the unsuspecting public to digest. In the same vein, there is precious little in the news regarding the situation with our venerable President of the Senate, or the incarcerated former National Security Adviser…

It’s food for thought, folks. And it is time for people who actually do have a mind to begin putting that mind to good use. What say you, Nigeria?

A Doubt... and a Benefit

The Expression of a Doubt

I am no student of politics - never have been; have no intention to. There is just something about getting those votes "whatever it takes" that puts me off in a not-very-pleasant way. It's not that it is hard to put my finger on it, it is just that the choice of putting it into words is a whole different ball game. Perhaps it's the part where you get to tell the people anything that they need to hear except "the whole truth and nothing but the truth" in order to get their votes.

Promises and Politics

Yes. Perhaps that's it - never being able to tell the whole truth because people might see it wrongly. That's the first thing that gets me about politics. The other part of it is the mudslinging and constant scrutiny of every little detail of an individual's life. Don't get me wrong; I believe that "the people deserve to know." But what exactly do they "deserve" to know? And doesn't the subject in question deserve a measure of privacy?



I could go off on that tangent for ages and get nowhere. And that's the unpleasant thing about politics - nobody is wrong and nobody is right; everything is just grey areas and whatever kind of spin you can put on it. "Perception management", as some may call it; "smart PR", according to others. "Lies", according to me. It's what drives me away from politics. Everybody has a skeleton in their closet, and if you dig hard enough you will find it. It's the bane of leadership; the scourge of public life. No, not the skeletons in the closet, nor the finding it, but actually what people choose to do with those skeletons ones they are found. More often than not they throw that news in the papers and publicize it, potentially destroying the public figure in question. The alternative is no better, which typically involves taking the ill-news to it's subject and threatening them with exposure unless they step down out of the race for the public office they are after, or resign from the office they hold, or bend to do the will of the person who holds such terrible information over their heads.


Africa and Political Violence

Blackmail - that's what it is. I don't know what other word there is for what I just described even though I am sure there are several. It's blackmail.

So, people who hold public office tend to be open to blackmail one way or another... because everybody has skeletons in their closets, and someday someone will find it; and on that day it will not matter if whatever they did was motivated by malice or good intentions, or just good ol' plain error, once the deed is brought to light, it could be the doom of such a leader. As such, many people going into politics do so prepared to protect their "good name" at just about any cost - the "good name" in inverted commas because the name isn't necessarily good to begin with. So these folks fight tooth and nail and often kill one another in order to be able to hold public office...

Again I could go on, but this is not about the politicians. Oh, not at all! This is about the people who allow - no, empower - such to happen. Yes, it's all about the people. They are the ones who really apply the pressure on the person in office to make whatever choices that they do make. Isn't that obvious?

See, that's politics right there. I get into office because people believe I am capable of doing something that favors them while I'm in there so they voted for me. Now I want those votes in order to extend my stay in that office so the people must never know that I farted in my bedroom; that I had an altercation with my wife; that I once got upset and slapped a lady who kicked me in the gonads; or that once upon a time I left my husband and married another. So because I think they will treat me different if they know... Well, we know the rest of that sordid line of thought.

It's because the people are so fickle, so easy to manipulate with figments of the truth and all kinds of lies in bundles; it is because the people always forget all too easily and too often leave their thinking for the pages of the dailies to do for them. So, someone writes in the papers today that I once laid off half a dozen employees to save my company and they can spin me into a money grabbing bigot. Or someone gets wind that I had sex with two different women back when I was in the university and I can be painted as a lifelong cheat who cares nothing for the people I am leading.
I am not saying that any of these things are right - they are not. To make matters worse, these are jokes compared to things a lot of politicians do which never get into the limelight - things like having political rivals assassinated; killing innocent people to make more money (o so common in Nigeria at the very least); bribing, threatening, or blackmailing the press; destroying whole companies in order to make some serious money; money laundering to hide ill-gotten gains; and God alone knows what else. What's the big news in Nigeria right now - billions of dollars usurped by holders of public offices at the highest levels in the past administration? Totally unacceptable, that's what it is. All of it, totally unacceptable.


That's what politics is. So, no. I do not endorse what politicians do to keep their secrets secret. However I have more of a problem with the press that spins a simple story into a web of lies..., sensationalizing a story for headlines because they don't have anything else to say. I have a problem with mudslinging a public officer simply because we don't like one thing or the other about them. Most of all, I have a problem with nitpicking a man's actions while he's in office instead of giving him all the support he needs to get the job done!

Why do politicians do this, one might ask. I have born witness to some of the worst of it. In the 1990s, Bill Clinton was compelled to perjure himself when the Monica Lewinsky thing came up, almost got impeached despite being the best president the United States has had this side of the Cold War, and that's saying something when you throw in names like George Bush, George W. Bush, Ronald Reagan, and Barack Obama - the results totally speak for themselves.

Bill Clinton

Monica Lewinsky

Only recently - 2014 to be precise - the American government system was practically shut down by a Republican House because they didn't want to back a bill by the President - the merit or otherwise of the bill was never brought into question; it's value to the people never considered - they just didn't want the president to achieve anything! Then, we had the Obamacare website literally crashing on the day that it opens. How in the world does that happen to a website of the United States Government? The FBI, CIA, NASA, NSA, Justice Department, Department of State, Homeland Security... Literally everyone has websites up and running, serving the 350+ million people in the country, but all of a sudden the system is so incompetent that its website crashes on the day it is opened? Seriously, somebody did not want that initiative to fly!

Why, o why in the world do politicians do this?!

I will be the first to admit that I do not have enough information because I really know next to nothing about politics. But I do care about my people, my country. Nigeria.

Right now we have people being arrested right, left, and center across the nation for all kinds of graft related offences, and that's kind of fine; but I read this bit in the news just last night - someone asking what the government is doing with all the recovered money, and how or why the recovered money should be involved in slowing down the economy to what it has been like the past year or so. I almost blew a fuse.

Perhaps some people have not noticed it but the world is in the middle of another recession: isn't that obvious? Oil prices plunging globally to all time lows, from $150 per barrel to under $28 in less than a year; countries like the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia getting worried about keeping up their economy; Greece bankrupt; the EU on the verge of collapsing; Chinese economic growth slowing to a crippled halt and on the verge of collapsing itself...? How did all of that turn around to become Retired Major General Muhammadu Buhari's fault?

What about EVERY. OTHER. SECTOR. of the Nigerian economy that have been allowed to become defunct over the past 30 years? Mining. Agriculture. Education. Exports. Production... Even Assembly. Did the president do this? Is it possible for anyone, let alone this one man, to turn all that damage around in less than one year?

This mess stinks like the Obama situation in the United States. Clinton left the Oval Office with the greatest budget surplus the country has ever know; over 8 years George W. plunders it into the country's worst deficit ever; and then the people expected poor ol' Barack to fix the damage overnight! One question: How?

The Gift of a Benefit

See, this is the thing I have issues with in politics - shutting down a man before giving him a chance; scrutinizing his every move even before he starts doing it; expecting miracles to solve problems overnight that took half a century to develop; and quite simply second-guessing every choice made, every action taken, like pulling a seed out of the ground every five minutes to see if it has started sprouting roots! For crying out loud...!

One question: Babangida. Sonekan. Abacha. Abdulsalami. Obasanjo. Yar'Adua. Jonathan. Buhari. Did I miss anything? The past 30 years of Nigerian presidency. Has anyone ever gone this far when it comes to anti-graft initiatives? Why don't you tell me what you think, because I frankly don't know. I simply do not know enough about politics to be able to say one way or another. I do know that I am irritated by headlines in the news - both online and off - saying things like "Buhari Anti-Graft Move: Sincere, or Political Witch-hunting?" I mean, how can they say that?

I'm not saying the man has gotten everything right - why, I have my issues with him too, and a bunch of things I would have done differently. But having achieved more in his stated objectives in less than one year than some achieved in 6 years at Aso Rock, I think the man deserves a little benefit of the doubt, wouldn't you say? Just a little?

You see? That's what I hate about politics: a man with that kind of reputation should get a benefit of the doubt... At least a little.

I'm giving it to him. Are you?