Twitter Blast

I had a blast this morning on twitter engaging many Buhari bashers and haters on the budget proposal. One fellow who obviously takes delight in having her tweets retweeted generated an interesting one where she listed some figures from the budget of the office of the secretary to the government of the federation. 

This is what the tweet stated:

Office of the SGF: Sitting allowance

2014 N65M

2015 N60M

2016 N792M

2014 Secretary to the government of the federation HQ Miscellaneous budget

The tweet has surely generated the effect she wanted and her many disciples joined in to bash the president.

2015 Secretary to the government of the federation HQ Miscellaneous budget

She combined information from 3 budget proposals from 2014 to 2016 but she failed to disclose to the gullible ones the whole picture. The portion of the budget she utilized is under the miscellaneous group of expenses and is indicated there as "honorarium and sitting allowance." I must confess that the importance of all these terminologies inherent within the budget are not entirely understood by me. 

I hope that I will not be expected to give detailed summary of such information if I become president tomorrow..lol.

I have here posted screengrabs of the portions where the lethal tweet was generated from so that those who read can analyse for themselves.

Some other folks had a go at me because I mentioned that the 2016 budget proposal could not have escaped influence from the last administration. Some thought I was blaming the faults in the 2016 budget on Jonathan but I think they did not comprehend sufficiently or accurately so they jumped to his defence. Thank God I stated administration and not Jonathasn because the administration was more than one man.

I may have suggested in a previous post that Jonathan's government submitted budgets late; that definitely is wrong information and I retract that if indeed I posted such. Budgets over the years have been sent to the assembly in December or earlier however such may not have been scrutinized well enough like this current one. 

What characterized some of the past budgets was secrecy and hurried readings by the House of Assembly therefore ensuring that all sorts passed under the radar and gave room for various degree of heists. Many Nigerians have shown great interest in this budget which can only be good for our nation in the long run.

Back to the administration and Jonathan. I do not understand why many people expected the 2016 bill to have been markedly different from previous years when the same template was used and when most of those involved in drafting it are still the same cast from last year. I will concede that the ministers were appointed late and a good number of the carry-over permanent secretaries and directors held on to their spots until a moment just before the ministers came on board. 

The president has tried to explain the rot in the system his government inherited but some hear this and all that reverbs in their oscicles are excuses. The Minister of Budget and Planning must have had it very stressful to meet up with the December date for submission; he no doubt would have things clearer and better figured out when the preparation for the next budget gets into gear. The budget office must have continued to operate after Jonathan left office and what they submitted in December must have seen them leveraging on their experience.

2016 Secretary to the government of the federation HQ Miscellaneous budget

The fellow I engaged this morning must imagine in her heart that she means well for Nigeria by discrediting the president and his associates. The budget proposal is flawed and that is clear to everyone but one thing which will most likely ensue is that it will not be business as usual in our ministries and institutions. My boss attended a meeting last week and they were instructed to source for funds on their own especially from corporate bodies to run their activities because there would be no largesse from government. I am sure everyone's eye will turn red and the movement of money will be monitored effectively henceforth.

For effective critiquing, it is important to identify both the merits and demerits in order to avoid misleading others and promoting strife. I am glad that even PDP assembly members are probably identifying scams and inflated items in the bill more than their APC counterparts. We should hope that they do the needful and cut the excesses of the budget significantly. If someone points at "Honorarium and sitting allowance" going up then the same fellow should see that the budgetary allocation for "welfare package" got drastically reduced. The goal should be for us to have a budget proposal which will be fair and beneficial to all and sundry; we still have to think about where most of the funding would come from. Those who came up with the budget of their respective offices and parastatals should appear to defend same.

One fellow tried to give credit to Babaginda for getting rid of Buhari in August 1985. He said that Buhari's stiffled the economy and Nigerians were suffering and found it difficult to have food to eat. He also said that Nigerians were liberated from queuing for essential commodities. I asked him what Nigerians benefitted from Babaginda who liberated the economy and set us free from queuing; he ended with asking me to go and read. Please help me with any book on Nigeria's history, I need to update my knowledge.