us put aside personal ambitions and focus on the progress of our nation…We will transform the economy to work for millions of our citizens. We must take 50 million people out of poverty…Look around. Don’t be wicked. Look at the standard of education, look at the classrooms and look at the roads. We can only spend the money. We will find it. But we cannot spend the people.”
The State House Conference Centre echoed with applause as those words left President Bola Tinubu’s lips at the opening of the Cabinet Retreat on November 1.
At the close of the retreat two days after, Tinubu sought a commitment from ministers, permanent secretaries, and aides who signed performance bonds that would be used for periodic assessments.
In that room, he stirred the spirit of patriotism channelled into a resolve to pursue the common good of the people. “Let us stand up and say, ‘We are Nigerians,’” he thundered as participants chorused, punching the air with clenched fists.
Meanwhile, outside the hall and far from the capital city, citizens were boiling.
Going by the saying, ‘A nation’s budget reflects its priorities,’ many Nigerians did not feel prioritised considering the reported portions of the 2023 Supplementary Appropriation Bill Tinubu signed into law last Thursday.
To be fair, a chunk of the budget’s focus was on welfare and infrastructure. For example, N400bn was proposed to repair the Eko and Third Mainland bridges, finance infrastructure within the Federal Capital Territory, and construct and maintain several roads nationwide before the next rainy season.
From September to December 2023, 1.5 million Federal Government workers would each receive N35,000/month as Wage Award. This totalled N210bn. There is also payment of four-month arrears owed university lecturers from the eight-month ASUU strike that ended in October 2022.
Another N400bn was allocated for cash transfer payments, in which case 15 million households would get N25,000/month for October, November and December. Also, N5.5bn was reserved for the students’ loan scheme ahead of January.
The Ministry of Defence, the most chubby of them all, would receive N605bn. But with the controversial component, “Presidential Yacht,” sitting comfortably on the 36th line, Nigerians were enraged!
Although the Presidency clarified that the misnamed item belonged to the Navy—not for the President’s personal use – the public outcry rang so fierce that the House of Representatives scrapped the item altogether and reallocated the N5bn to fund students’ loans.
Nonetheless, the intention to purchase N1.5bn worth of new vehicles for the Office of the First Lady, N2.9bn on Sports Utility Vehicles for the Presidential Villa and another N2.9bn to replace operational vehicles for the Presidency sparked fresh debate.
For many, the First Lady’s past comments about her family not needing Nigeria’s resources to survive became the epicentre of the argument. For others who gave vent to their feelings on X (formerly Twitter), the questions went: “Why does she need bulletproof vehicles as a First Lady? Who is after her life? Where are the vehicles left behind by the previous administration?”
No matter how much is allocated to the welfare of Nigerians at such a trying time as this, citizens want to see leaders embrace frugality and make sacrifices. There appears to be something touching about leaders taking pay cut to retain their staff and keep a business afloat.
In describing items, Nigerians want budget documents to go beyond one-liners. William Shakespeare’s “Brevity is the soul of wit” does not apply here. Rather, misapplied brevity in budgets could be the soul of chaos.
As the President’s Senior Special Assistant on Media and Publicity, Mr Temitope Ajayi, opined, “I must readily admit that the one reason our budgeting system has been a subject of public attack is the very simplistic way some of the line items are described by civil servants who prepare the budget.
“Sometime in 2016, an Enterprise Resource Planning project of the Ministry of Solid Minerals worth over N300m was captured in that year’s budget as ‘website.’ Naturally, it generated a massive controversy as people rightly asked about the type of website that would be built with N300m.
“The budget office should be in a position to also explain to the public why such expenditure should be accommodated now, considering the economic situation of the country.”
On the vehicles, Mr Ajayi said, “The N6bn budget provision is not to buy vehicles for the President and Vice President alone. President Tinubu and Vice President Shettima are not using any new vehicles in their fleet. They are using inherited vehicles.
“There are hundreds of civil servants and political aides working at the State House who need operational vehicles. I am a senior aide of the President. I am using my personal car and at my own expense since I resumed work more than five months ago.
“Like me, virtually all the appointees of the President are using personal vehicles at their own expense for official duties. Most of the vehicles in the pool for various departments are run down…The Presidency is a huge bureaucracy with hundreds of staff. Any budget for the State House is to run the system, not for an epicurean fantasy of a sitting President and Vice President.”
As one X user humorously said, “The President meant it when he said ‘we can only spend the money. We will find it.’ But we cannot spend the people.”
Last Thursday, President Tinubu launched the Electronic Civil Registration and Vital Statistics System alongside the National Geospatial Data Repository and the National Coordination Committee on CRVS.
Though silent on the new dates for the next population and housing census, he promised his support to the National Population Commission to conduct the exercise whenever scheduled.
He then presented a real-time generated birth certificate to a toddler he carried on his left hand. While the little girl had the rare honour of receiving her birth certificate from the President, she appeared unimpressed. After all, she wouldn’t know the significance of the moment.
Instead, she looked puzzled by the sea of unfamiliar faces around her. She probably wondered why she was handed to a stranger. This stranger was holding a paper and smiling, surrounded by people with flashlights.
When the photos went online, Nigerians commented humorously on the baby’s expression. One tweet read, “That baby looks terrified. She’s like, ‘Mum promised to take me to see the Chief of Toys, not the Commander in Chief!’”
Another joked, “Even the baby knows politics is scary. She must be saying ‘Mum, I said I want to meet Mickey from Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, not Tinubu from State House!” A third user quipped, “The baby’s thinking, ‘You mean this is the guy in charge of all the playgrounds?’”
As she grows up, childhood amnesia might blur this memory for her. Still, we hope her mother will keep the photograph as a token of remembrance.
