A regime of inconclusives

I want to officially dissociate myself from those who want to change the meaning of INEC to Inconclusive National Electoral Commission. It is true that a new lingo has been added to the electoral lexicon since the exit of Attahiru Jega. But it’s too early to ask our liars for an affidavit authorizing the change […]

I want to officially dissociate myself from those who want to change the meaning of INEC to Inconclusive National Electoral Commission. It is true that a new lingo has been added to the electoral lexicon since the exit of Attahiru Jega. But it’s too early to ask our liars for an affidavit authorizing the change of name. I hate to admit it, but Professor Jega is used to setting Olympian records after each national assignment. His friends argue that his feat as ASUU president has not been beaten since the 90s.
It is less than a year since he left INEC after hitting a home run with the 2015 Presidential polls with court pronouncements threatening his legacy. Jega’s successor appears to be setting his own record with a new electoral lingo – inconclusive elections. This is the problem with Olympian heights, except you are Ussain Bolt; Olympian records are very difficult to keep. So let us hope that the entire inconclusive elections saga ends without the notoriety associated with Rivers polls anywhere they are conducted.
I don’t want anybody linking Sai Baba with inconclusive things although a few unsettled matters are tainting the colour of change. Let us debate the inconclusive 2016 Appropriation Bill now gathering dust on a table at Camp Buhari. In his bid to beat the record of presenting the budget proposal to meet the Gregorian calendar, Sai Baba returned from one of his foreign trips one night and presented a draft budget the next morning while his plane was firing for the next junket. Not a recipe for passing a change budget but according to hailers; this underscores the President’s devotion to his new assignment, a duty he undertakes with the seriousness of a frequent flyer warehousing his air miles. Sai Baba knows the problems of Naija and that Naija has no solutions to them. For instance, the change solution to fuel scarcity is more importation of finished products and sustenance of cabalistic subsidy while the solution to power shortage is rate hike. None of this is homegrown if you ask Christine Lagarde. The uncharitable would say that this is what happens when a people seeks independence before they are ready. One day, we shall wake up to ask Mama Charlie for John Major as our new Fredrick Lugard. Those who insist that Sai Baba and his team did not critically prepare the budget to change sixteen years of the locust ignore this possibility.
Anyhow, days after laying the proposal on the table, the sinnate leadership declared that the budget had been stolen. You would think that Solomon Arase’s CID would don their forensic goggles and swing into action, but the good guy was too busy setting up his daughter’s future on the exclusive employment list to be bothered. So, the proposal surreptitiously returned. Unfortunately as the budget defense, ministers exclaimed that the figures they see were markedly different from what they submitted. That serious matter remained – inconclusive until we were informed that the budget had passed!
From Camp Buhari, Sai Baba, his VP and budget minister burrowed through the stack from the sinnate and concluded that what they received was different from what they submitted. In other nations this would have been one embarrassment too many – but this is Naija and we switch the blame. As usual, national tragedies are interspersed with comic relief and the visit to China has provided one. Described by hailers as a dragon endorsement of power shift, wailers insist that even in the years of the locust, Naija effectively engaged China.
Back to the budget brouhaha Sai Baba has done all that is expected of him. He sacked a whole DG in the budget office and shuffled the top echelon of the bureaucracy, those that KO Mbadiwe would have described as men and women of jumbo jets and high speed trains, atomic energy and nuclear bomb. What more could anyone who is not a wailer hope for? Next time President Jones shows up at Camp Buhari, Sai Baba has Guangzhou bragging rights.
Not that any of these small details matter, except the fall guy Bukola Saraki resigns! Of course, the inconclusive issue of selective employment in high places beginning from the CBN running through the NNPC and now plateauing at FIRS pale in significance to anticipatory asset declarations and the pension double jeopardy. So shhhh! Please don’t disturb – nepotism is battling corruption.
It is trite politics to think that heavens would fall if and when the president returns to Camp Buhari and the rejected appropriation bill is sent back to the editors who doctored it beyond recognition. The desired outcome could be accomplished reversing the same process by which it was presented – withdrawn, amended, sneaked back and endorsed to the taste of the sender. Cub reporters could teach these bickering bigots that a story is only a draft until the editor has appended his seal of approval. Let’s hope that our legislative editors wouldn’t have to veto the cub politician on this budget. That is a possibility. For now, even this tedious budgetary process has found its queue – it is inconclusive!