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Will Buhari Vote For Tinubu? By Lasisi Olagunju

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Muhammadu Buhari started his presidency with “I belong to everybody and I belong to nobody.” Will he end as a nobody’s man? Sometimes, and for some, it is gracious to maintain one’s lane, listen to your own vision, single, unattached. French statesman, Charles de Gaulle, who holds the copyright of “I am a man who belongs to nobody and who belongs to everybody” deeply said on another occasion that “If Joan of Arc had married, she would no longer have been Joan of Arc.” Whatever that means – Joan was 15th century France’s iron lady of war and vision. Immolated at age 19, she had no time for men and marriage and family but she is remembered forever as a saviour of France and its patron saint. Buhari, from what we’ve seen of his years, is no Charles de Gaulle and definitely not Joan of Arc to Nigeria. And after benefiting from a political marriage, can Buhari be neutral, truly non-aligned in the 2023 presidential contest? Will he? If he won’t, where is he?

I will be shocked if I am the only person who wonders where Buhari belongs between PDP’s Atiku Abubakar and APC’s Bola Tinubu, two bosom friends fighting over the president’s seat. You know Atiku’s party and Bola Tinubu’s party and the zero-sum ground they hold. The two were part of a national coalition that made Buhari’s presidency possible in 2015. There are persons who vow that for that reason, undergirded by reasons of region and religion, Atiku may in 2023 get Buhari’s vote or, at worst, get him not to lift a finger for the APC and its Èmi l’ókàn candidate. Very interestingly, Buhari clocked 80 on Saturday and Atiku, candidate of the main opposition party, not only issued a statement to celebrate the APC president, he instructively placed newspaper advertisements for him. So, what is happening?

Two months to a presidential election, Buhari is not canvassing votes for his party; he is asking Nigerians to vote for any candidate they fancy. That is strange. We saw President Barack Obama with candidate Hillary Clinton throughout the Democratic Party’s campaigns of 2016. One newspaper (New Telegraph) reported two days ago that “Tinubu’s men fret over Buhari government’s aloofness.” Reporters hear stories. That was not the first time I had heard of grumbling and rumbling in the ruling party over presidential social distancing in the APC campaigns. I know the Lagos content of the APC and their supporters are wondering why Buhari has refused to be part of their candidate’s globe-trotting campaigns. I know you would say that the president was at the flag-off of the campaigns at the Rwang Pam Township Stadium in Jos on November 15, 2022. Was his presence real – body and spirit? Someone said ‘they’ begged the president not to disgrace ‘them’ by not being physically there. If that is true, his presence, therefore, may be what the Yoruba call gbà jé n sinmi (take, let me rest).

The newspaper report is worth quoting copiously and I am doing so because it appears to tally with what I have heard in low tones in several APC crevices. I quote the report: “I must tell you that the situation that we (Tinubu’s supporters) have found ourselves is that of an abandoned orphan. It’s unfortunate that we have been left in the cold by government that was elected on the platform of our great party, the APC…We are campaigning like an opposition party just jostling for power and not like a party in power, which is very unfortunate. Though we recognise that the president has a busy schedule that would have prevented him from being at many of the rallies of the party, I don’t think he has demonstrated sufficient interest to know the situation of things with the campaign efforts.” The New Telegraph said that its source, “an influential member of the South-West Agenda for Bola Tinubu (SWAGA)” was sad that ministers and other key government officials had been distancing themselves from the campaigns: “The question is, save for the Minister of State for Labour and Employment, Mr. Festus Keyamo, who is one of the spokesmen, how many of the ministers and government officials have openly shown support and solidarity with the campaign since we commenced?” The report, however, quoted Keyamo as declaring that Buhari “is the heart and soul behind the campaign…He wants free and fair elections but he is with Asiwaju more than 100 percent.” He didn’t say anything about Buhari’s men who are not busy like the president but are perpetually absent in the party’s campaign life. Significant here is Keyamo’s friend, Rotimi Amaechi, and similar tendencies in the party. Where are they?

Buhari enjoys being aloof and staying far from the madding crowd. Ironically, it was the madness of that crowd that rescued him in 2015. Today, he is a nobody’s man. What does it mean to be a nobody’s man in this world of ‘help me, I help you?’ Danish singer and songwriter, Tina Dickow, dropped a hint in her love lines with the title ‘Nobody’s Man’: “Take what you want from me/Take what you can/And then hide it somewhere I can’t see/Out of my hands…/Do what it takes to make you feel better/Never forget that you, you’re nobody’s man…” What kind of friend or lover takes what he wants from his partner then hides it where the benefactor “can’t see it” and out of her hands? A friend who saw me struggling with this on Sunday wondered why I was weeping more than the bereaved. He told me: “Did Tinubu not say famously that he was the one who singularly made Buhari president after three disastrous defeats? Let Tinubu now do for himself what he boasted he did for the perpetually unelectable Buhari. He does not need Buhari.” I was tempted to agree with my friend. This is the time for Tinubu’s physician to heal himself and shame the charm of overrated incumbency. Is Tinubu happy not seeing Buhari beside him at his Kaduna and Minna rallies? You are not likely to hear complaints directly from the principal victim because he is a Yoruba man. Wise elders use proxy hands to hunt snakes. Besides, the Yoruba say it is not befitting for an elder to cry for help (Gbà mí gbà mí kò ye àgbàlagbà). More importantly, a chief hunter that comes home with an elephant unaided is the celebrated one. You know the worth of the king of warlords when he captures worthy enemies, muskets and amulets – the ones sewn tight in tiger’s skin and the ugly ones in alligator’s hide.

A rainbow coalition birthed the APC which sired Buhari’s magical presidency. The Jewish Talmud says, “do not throw a stone into the well whose waters you have drunk.” There is a similar saying in Yoruba about water fetchers who do not mind if the stream is polluted after they are done. In day-to-day village dealings, this is wrong; in politics, poisoning the well and the stream may be an act of political goodness. Buhari needs no preacher to tell him that his peace and relevance after a riotous eight years in power depend on who replaces him. The future he envisions for himself and for Nigeria may not align with what he sees around him. If someone dreams of transiting from being a partisan to a real statesman and has read Machiavelli, he will likely say and do what Buhari is up to – refuse to keep friends; refuse to pay back political IOUs; refuse to be mounted to power like a beast of burden; pitch this lion against that lion and set the forest ablaze. Machiavelli in Chapter XV of his ‘The Prince’ says “it is necessary for a prince wishing to hold his own to know how to do wrong, and to make use of it or not according to necessity.” He argues that “if everything is considered carefully, it will be found that something which looks like virtue, if followed, would be his ruin; whilst something else, which looks like vice, yet followed brings him security and prosperity.” A Machiavellian leadership values being practical higher than being morally good. For “if moral goodness is a hindrance to maintaining political power, then a prince must learn how not to be morally good.” And, to the lucky rich who think Buhari owes them for favours of the past and are offended by his rhetoric of enforced fairness in the coming polls, I say sorry.

Is Buhari indebted to any politician in the APC? I recommend a study of the Fulani worldview on luck and fortune and who is destined to use what the lucky acquires. Fortunes spent on making Buhari president for two terms are divinely ordained. He owes the spenders no payback. The Fulani say you are a lucky person (an arsikaadho) when, without hard work, you get whatever you desire, including wealth. For better elucidation, I quote a scholar here: “Luck in this case is a para-natural essence of life, which makes the arsikaadho lucky but not necessarily blessed, in which case the arsikaadho seldom enjoys lasting happiness. What then happens to the fortune obtained by luck? It generally benefits blessed acquaintances. This is what the Fulani mean by ‘ko arsikkadho dhabbhanta barkindho,’ which translates, ‘the lucky accumulates fortunes for the blessed to enjoy.’ “ (See Mohamed Camara. 2008:53: Benediction and Malediction in Fulani Culture. Indigenous Nations Journal, Vol. 6, No. 1). The bullion van people are the ‘lucky’ ones, the arsikaadho; our president is a Fulani, blessed with a destiny to enjoy what the lucky accumulates; he owes no one.

Buhari speaks today as a nobody’s man. Last month after meeting King Charles III in London, the president, in an interview, asked Nigerians to “vote for whoever they like from whichever political party.” A president who said this is not likely to hop from jet to jet campaigning for someone. He has repeatedly promised that he would not be anybody’s fool or tool of interference in the coming polls’ processes. He has said so everywhere he has been in the last couple of months to the sorrow of those banking on presidential sleight of hand to win. I am not surprised that the South-West APC is not at ease at all. They daily read Abuja’s lips and steps and exchange furtive glances. They sigh. Even Buhari’s recent currency change is being seen as a vital component of his war against politics – and against those who won’t succeed him. In the London interview cited above, Buhari vowed that he wouldn’t allow any candidate to intimidate voters or buy them with dirty money. He explained why he approved the introduction of new naira notes: “My aim is to make sure that Nigerians believe that we respect them as an administration…Nobody will be allowed to mobilise resources and thugs to intimidate people in any constituency. That is what I want to go down in Nigerian history for as a leader.” Wahala! Candidates who have mobilized armadas of bullion vans of raw cash for the polls have real reasons to be worried. The old currency notes expire on January 31, 2023 – twenty-five days before the presidential election.

Strictly Personal

Budgets, budgeting and budget financing, By Sheriffdeen A. Tella, Ph.D.

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The budget season is here again. It is an institutional and desirable annual ritual. Revenue collection and spending at the federal, State and local government levels must be authorised and guided by law. That is what budget is all about. A document containing the estimates of projected revenues from identified sources and the proposed expenditure for different sectors in the appropriate level of government. The last two weeks have seen the delivery of budget drafts to various Houses of Assembly and the promise that the federal government would present its draft budget to the National Assembly.

Do people still look forward to the budget presentation and the contents therein? I am not sure. Citizens have realised that these days, governments often spend money without reference to the approved budget. A governor can just wake up and direct that a police station be built in a location. With no allocation in the budget, the station will be completed in three months. The President can direct from his bathroom that 72 trailers of maize be distributed to the 36 states as palliatives. No budget provision, and no discussion by relevant committee or group.

We still operate with the military mentality. We operated too long under the military and of the five Presidents we have in this democracy, two of them were retired military Heads of State. Between them, they spent 16 years of 25 years of democratic governance. Hopefully, we are done with them physically but not mentally. Most present governors grew up largely under military regimes with the command system. That is why some see themselves as emperor and act accordingly. Their direct staff and commissioners are “Yes” men and women. There is need for disorientation.

The importance of budget in the art of governance cannot be overemphasized. It is one of the major functions of the legislature because without the consideration and authorisation of spending of funds by this arm of government, the executive has no power to start spending money. There is what we refer to as a budget cycle or stages. The budget drafting stage within the purview of the executive arm is the first stage and, followed by the authorisation stage where the legislature discusses, evaluates and tinkers with the draft for approval before presenting it to the President for his signature.

Thereafter, the budget enters the execution phase or cycle where programmes and projects are executed by the executive arm with the legislature carrying out oversight functions. Finally, we enter the auditing phase when the federal and State Auditors verify and report on the execution of the budgets. The report would normally be submitted to the Legislature. Many Auditor Generals have fallen victim at this stage for daring to query the executives on some aspects of the execution in their reports.

A new budget should contain the objectives and achievements of the preceding budget in the introduction as the foundation for the budget. More appropriately, a current budget derives its strength from a medium-term framework which also derives its strength from a national Development Plan or a State Plan. An approved National Plan does not exist currently, although the Plan launched by the Muhammadu Buhari administration is in the cooler. President Tinubu, who is acclaimed to be the architect of the Lagos State long-term Plan seems curiously, disillusioned with a national Plan.

Some States like Oyo and Kaduna, have long-term Plans that serve as the source of their annual budgets. Economists and policymakers see development plans as instruments of salvation for developing countries. Mike Obadan, the former Director General of the moribund Nigeria Centre for Economic and Management Administration, opined that a Plan in a developing country serves as an instrument to eradicate poverty, achieve high rates of economic growth and promote economic and social development.

The Nigerian development plans were on course until the adoption of the World Bank/IMF-inspired Structural Adjustment Programme in 1986 when the country and others that adopted the programme were forced to abandon such plan for short-term stabilisation policies in the name of a rolling plan. We have been rolling in the mud since that time. One is not surprised that the Tinubu administration is not looking at the Buhari Development Plan since the government is World Bank/IMF compliant. It was in the news last week that our President is an American asset and by extension, Nigeria’s policies must be defined by America which controls the Bretton Woods institutions.

A national Plan allows the citizens to monitor quantitatively, the projects and programmes being executed or to be executed by the government through the budgeting procedure. It is part of the definitive measures of transparency and accountability which most Nigerian governments do not cherish. So, you cannot pin your government down to anything.

Budgets these days hardly contain budget performance in terms of revenue, expenditure and other achievements like several schools, hospitals, small-scale enterprises, etc, that the government got involved in successfully and partially. These are the foundation for a new budget like items brought forward in accounting documents. The new budget should state the new reforms or transformations that would be taking place. Reforms like shifting from dominance of recurrent expenditure to capital expenditure; moving from the provision of basic needs programmes to industrialisation, and from reliance on foreign loans to dependence on domestic fund mobilisation for executing the budget.

That brings us to the issue of budget deficit and borrowing. When an economy is in recession, expansionary fiscal policy is recommended. That is, the government will need to spend more than it receives to pump prime the economy. If this is taken, Nigeria has always had a deficit budget, implying that we are always in economic recession. The fact is that even when we had a surplus in our balance of payment that made it possible to pay off our debts, we still had a deficit budget. We are so used to borrowing at the national level that stopping it will look like the collapse of the Nigerian state. The States have also followed the trend. Ordinarily, since States are largely dependent on the federal government for funds, they should promote balanced budget.

The States are like a schoolboy who depends on his parents for school fees and feeding allowance but goes about borrowing from classmates. Definitely, it is the parents that will surely pay the debt. The debt forgiveness mentality plays a major role in the process. Having enjoyed debt forgiveness in the past, the federal government is always in the credit market and does not caution the State governments in participating in the market. Our Presidents don’t feel ashamed when they are begging for debt forgiveness in international forum where issues on global development are being discussed. Not less than twice I have watched the countenance of some Presidents, even from Africa, while they looked at our president with disdain when issues of debt forgiveness for African countries was raised.

In most cases, the government, both at the federal and state cannot show the product of loans, except those lent by institutions like the World Bank or African Development Bank for specific projects which are monitored by the lending institutions. In other cases, the loans are stolen and transferred abroad while we are paying the loans. In some other cases, the loans are diverted to projects other than what the proposal stated. There was a case of loans obtained based on establishing an international car park in the border of the State but diverted to finance the election of a politician in the State. The politician eventually lost the election but the citizens of the State have to be taxed to pay the loan. Somebody as “Nigeria we hail thee”.

Transformation in budgeting should commence subsequently at the State and federal level. Now that local government will enjoy some financial autonomy and therefore budgeting process, they should be legally barred from contracting foreign loans. They have no business participating in the market. They should promote balanced budget where proposed expenditures must equal the expected revenues from federal and internal sources. The State government that cannot mobilise, from records, up to 40 percent of its total budget from IGR should not be supported to contract foreign loans. The States should engage in a balanced budget. The federal government budget should shift away from huge allocations to recurrent expenditure towards capital expenditure for capital formation and within the context of a welfarist state.

Sheriffdeen A. Tella, Ph.D.

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Strictly Personal

African Union must ensure Sudan civilians are protected, By Joyce Banda

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The war in Sudan presents the world – and Africa – with a test. This far, we have scored miserably. The international community has failed the people of Sudan. Collectively, we have chosen to systematically ignore and sacrifice the Sudanese people’s suffering in preference of our interests.

For 18 months, the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) and the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) have fought a pitiless conflict that has killed thousands, displaced millions, and triggered the world’s largest hunger crisis.

Crimes against humanity and war crimes have been committed by both parties to the conflict. Sexual and gender-based violence are at epidemic levels. The RSF has perpetrated a wave of ethnically motivated violence in Darfur. Starvation has been used as a weapon of war: The SAF has carried out airstrikes that deliberately target civilians and civilian infrastructure.

The plight of children is of deep concern to me. They have been killed, maimed, and forced to serve as soldiers. More than 14 million have been displaced, the world’s largest displacement of children. Millions more haven’t gone to school since the fighting broke out. Girls are at the highest risk of child marriage and gender-based violence. We are looking at a child protection crisis of frightful proportions.

In many of my international engagements, the women of Sudan have raised their concerns about the world’s non-commitment to bring about peace in Sudan.

I write with a simple message. We cannot delay any longer. The suffering cannot be allowed to continue or to become a secondary concern to the frustrating search for a political solution between the belligerents. The international community must come together and adopt urgent measures to protect Sudanese civilians.

Last month, the UN’s Independent International Fact-Finding Mission for Sudan released a report that described a horrific range of crimes committed by the RSF and SAF. The report makes for chilling reading. The UN investigators concluded that the gravity of its findings required a concerted plan to safeguard the lives of Sudanese people in the line of fire.

“Given the failure of the warring parties to spare civilians, an independent and impartial force with a mandate to safeguard civilians must be deployed without delay,” said Mohamed Chande Othman, chair of the Fact-Finding Mission and former Chief Justice of Tanzania.

We must respond to this call with urgency.

A special responsibility resides with the African Union, in particular the AU Commission, which received a request on June 21 from the AU Peace and Security Council (PSC) “to investigate and make recommendations to the PSC on practical measures to be undertaken for the protection of civilians.”

So far, we have heard nothing.

The time is now for the AU to act boldly and swiftly, even in the absence of a ceasefire, to advance robust civilian protection measures.

A physical protective presence, even one with a limited mandate, must be proposed, in line with the recommendation of the UN Fact-Finding Mission. The AU should press the parties to the conflict, particularly the Sudanese government, to invite the protective mission to enter Sudan to do its work free from interference.

The AU can recommend that the protection mission adopt targeted strategies operations, demarcated safe zones, and humanitarian corridors – to protect civilians and ensure safe, unhindered, and adequate access to humanitarian aid.

The protection mission mandate can include data gathering, monitoring, and early warning systems. It can play a role in ending the telecom blackout that has been a troubling feature of the war. The mission can support community-led efforts for self-protection, working closely with Sudan’s inspiring mutual-aid network of Emergency Response Rooms. It can engage and support localised peace efforts, contributing to community-level ceasefire and peacebuilding work.

I do not pretend that establishing a protection mission in Sudan will be easy. But the scale of Sudan’s crisis, the intransigence of the warring parties, and the clear and consistent demands from Sudanese civilians and civil society demand that we take action.

Many will be dismissive. It is true that numerous bureaucratic, institutional, and political obstacles stand in our way. But we must not be deterred.

Will we stand by as Sudan suffers mass atrocities, disease, famine, rape, mass displacement, and societal disintegration? Will we watch as the crisis in Africa’s third largest country spills outside of its borders and sets back the entire region?

Africa and the world have been given a test. I pray that we pass it.

Dr Joyce Banda is a former president of the Republic of Malawi.

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