Religious Subsidy and Budget Padding In a Nation of Frivolities -By Zainab Suleiman Okino

The Nigerian political elite has a way of diverting people’s attention from serious developmental defects to mundane matters that sometimes border on the personal interest of a few people, but which are given patriotic colouration. Some of these overlooked issues affect our reputation as a nation but are taken for granted by those in the position of authority, making Nigeria the butt of jokes all over the world.

Penultimate week, I was on a trip to Dubai enroute to Birmingham, United Kingdom. It was supposed to be a six-hour journey from Nigeria to the UK but I ended up spending almost 20 hours. The choice of Emirates Airline to connect through to Birmingham was informed by the outrageous amount I could not afford to pay for a direct trip, so I chose the long, unwieldy route. Unfortunately, a seven-hour plus journey to Dubai became nine hours because the aircraft had to go to Accra, Ghana to get aviation fuel.

It is an irony that the world’s sixth producer of oil could not make aviation fuel available for visiting airlines. It was scandalous in the least and a huge embarrassment to the Nigerian passengers in the aircraft that their oil-rich country in an era of change failed again to measure up to a global standard. I later learnt from co-passengers that the same aviation fuel problem led to the cancellation of the Lagos to Dubai flight, with passengers directed to Abuja for the combined flight.

Closely strung with aviation fuel scarcity is the skyrocketing cost of kerosene. If you ask me, the government should have continued to subsidise kerosene. Here is one product that is closest to the ordinary voting public who cannot afford gas. Kerosene currently sells between N200 and N220 per litre as against NNPC’s fixed price of N150. For years now the government has been preaching against tree felling and the need to preserve the environment. The absence of funds to buy cooking gas (where food is even available) has led the masses of this country to resort to cooking with firewood.

While the President Muhammadu Buhari led-government cannot to subsidise kerosene to put the basic need of man (food) on the table for the family, the same government has made another costly mistake of making forex available at a fixed rate to intending pilgrims by way of ‘subsidy’. The naira is almost N400 to a dollar, but intending pilgrims will get it at the fixed rate of N197. In a circular said to have emanated from the CBN, the FG would spend N11.92bn to subsidise 65,197 pilgrims at the fixed rate. Yet the government is said to have stopped the sponsorship of pilgrimages in another classic case of policy somersault. Apart from sending a bad signal, pilgrimage is the least worry of a hungry man and largely a private affair. It is true what they say that ‘religion is the opium of the masses’ and you can never win any argument concerning religion in this country.

Politicians use religion to manipulate the people sometimes but definitely not all the time. On the subsidy case, people are beginning to ask questions. One such trite question went viral at the weekend on the social media. “Why is the government spending N11.92bn to subsidise religious trips when there are over 2.1m Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) in 12 Northern states and FCT, many of whom are dying of starvation in the various IDP camps?”

The naira is in a free fall, inflation is rising, taxes are being raised without commensurate improvement in people’s lives; kidnapping is on the increase, robbery has not abated, wanton and indiscriminate killings are on the rise, and Fulani herdsmen are on rampage, yet the populace is only inundated with mundane and insignificant issues like the Fayose/Aisha Buhari altercation, what she wore to the US, the cost of her hand bag, etc.

Some disputes are pedestrian, yet we dissipate energies and resources on them. More than a year after the coming into being of this government, we are still arguing over how the leadership emerged. Again, does it matter if the leadership would provide strategic direction in governance? After Speaker Yakubu Dogara’s visit to President Buhari over the budget padding controversy, he was accosted by journalists; the question was whether he would resign or not. His response was casual.
“Resign for what”? For him as an experienced lawmaker, padding or insertion is within the constitutional powers of the House of Reps, and as such all the hues and cries are mere storms in a tea cup. Gullible Nigerians took over the personal problem between Speaker Dogara and Rep Abdulmumin, and tore themselves into pieces, while sleeping on their. We should look beyond the budget padding, because it is now a legal document and so a done deal. In any case, at the appropriate time, especially when 2019 is at the corner, all these warring groups would coalesce for a common purpose.

Although there is virtually no difference between APC and PDP, Nigerians can take each other to the cleaners in defence of one against the other, but for the politicians, it is a free movement between the two. With all the insults hauled at each other by the supporters of Buhari and Jonathan, when the duo met last week, it was all smiles, exchange of banters and camaraderie on display.

Nigerians should stop fighting proxy wars; instead they should demand for good governance, and why such a promising government is falling apart like a pack of cards. They should ask why there is so much mediocrity in a nation of millions of smart people. Above all Nigerians should ask Buhari, his party and the men on the corridors of power why they have dashed their hopes so early in the day.

zainabsule@yahoo.com, www.zainabokino.blogspot.com; 08098209791: text only.