The shape of bitter, dirty politics to come
At the presentation of 2019 budget proposal to a joint session of the National Assembly on Wednesday, President Muhammadu Buhari discarded his presidential dispositions and joined the rowdy bunch of lawmakers in a bid to score political points. Sunday Vanguard observed the proceedings .
Almost, always, a typical Nigerian politician gives the impression that he or she is either a comedian or a hypocrite but certainly not a person with some leadership acumen, dexterity or patriotic zeal. This is arguably correct. And it goes with a misdemeanor of some sycophantic gestures.
For a politician in a comedic garb, the outdoor theatric and rhythmic flows never end. For the hypocrite, there is always a deluge of cacophonous lies and truth on a continuous stance. But whichever way it goes, there must be something for the optics to keep the people bamboozled and hoodwinked.
This was just the scenario that played out during the presentation of 2019 budget proposal by President Muhammadu Buhari before a joint session of the Senate and the House of Representatives of the National Assembly on Wednesday, December 19, 2018.
It was not a budget estimate presentation ceremony going by the standard of previous occasions. This was simply a gathering of political hawks with some vestiges of personal and sectional interests.
Any conscious Nigerian and keen observer would have noticed that the presentation completely lacked the usual solemnity and decorum. Instead, it got plunged into a display of political partisanship by a rancorous, rowdy bunch of federal lawmakers. They were mischievously unruly. They cheered and jeered at President Buhari who however defied all the darts and claps to read his speech.
As they danced and clapped, it turned out to be no more than infantile convulsions. I became sorry for my country and myself at the same time. I just wondered what legacies the lawmakers were creating and in whose interest.
Yes, it was their privilege to laugh, smile and to even pooh-pooh on the floor of the chamber and get away with it but for whatever it was worth, the scene provoked a thought of yet another low point in our national life.
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President Buhari however got my thumbs up when he subtly rebuked the lawmakers, reminding them of the national embarrassment that trailed their public misdemeanor. His remark that the attention of the world was on them at that material time elicited applause in me. But I was later dazed by his own sudden loss of personal calmness and presidential dispositions. At the end of his speech, the President who had gone to promote the growth of national economy on the floor of another arm of government obviously switched into a campaign mood and in a clinched fist hailing and acknowledging cheers from the lawmakers whom he had earlier asked to be civil in their conduct.
The sore point was when he conspicuously projected 8 fingers on both hands, indicating an 8-year tenure. Then, he became the cheerleader and let his supporters loose with chants “Four more years”. Was that necessary? Was he hailing the budget figures or the growth of the economy? Was that required of a President who needed an absolute tranquility instead of the boos and cheers that greeted his speech delivery? To a discerning mind, the President was in the House just to campaign. And I wondered what would have become of the House had the Senate President, Bukola Saraki and the Speaker of the House, Yakubu Dogara who are of the opposition Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, taken to the same route. That would have been an ugly sight to behold.
Sen. Akpabio/Gbajabiamila’s infantile displays
The jeers and cheers were just too many. While the rowdy and noisy bunch of lawmakers exhibited the low life by countering each other in some partisan way, my eyes kept scanning around the chamber. Senator Godswill Akpabio, the recent bride of the ruling All Progressives Congress, APC, and the House Leader, Hon. Femi Gbajabiamila, from Lagos State, represented an embarrassing spectacle to behold. I have since known that the duo loved media attention and could perform any sycophantic role in a most commendable way even for the nuisance value. And so, I watched with keen interest.
Perhaps, in a bid to outshout their PDP counterparts who had since lost sense of respect and parliamentary decorum chanting an unprovoked song of “kingdom cometh by struggle”, Akpabio, a former governor of Akwa Ibom state, intermittently stood, clapping and hailing President Buhari at the mention of every figure and project executed by his government. The most ridiculous of all the apparently infantile displays was when the President, midway into his speech, excused himself to drink water to clear his throat, the lawmakers clapped to high heavens. You can never imagine that crass idiocy and sycophancy. I bet you that even the President was embarrassed by that. “Clapping for me for drinking water? Haba”! He must have thought.
Gbajabiamila, the young, vibrant lawmaker and lackey of Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, former governor of Lagos and APC leader, was extremely excited. Perhaps, it was his best legislative day. In fact, may that day never come when he would be absent for a great task of speaking for APC caucus. Gbajabiamila was at his best, throwing parliamentary jabs and shouting “sai baba”. He was very real with it to the extent that many people were persuaded to believe he stalled Dogara’s chance for a vote of thanks. His attitude lent credence to the speculations that development was simply the outcome of the closed door meeting between the Secretary to the Government of the Federation, SGF, Boss Mustapha and APC House caucus on the eve of the budget presentation. This is the type of dirty politics Nigeria is now being subjected to – on both sides, might I add.
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As I watched in total awe the hues and the cries directed at Mr. President, I couldn’t interface the development with the excitement that greeted “I belong to nobody and I belong to everybody”, May 29, 2015, inauguration ceremony statement of President Buhari. I couldn’t also come to terms with the fact that Mr. President who is so much loved could be booed at. It looked and sounded incredible. For emphasis sake, President Buhari is that self-confessed democrat who transformed from dictatorship; from his stoic and ramrod person, sought to be voted president for three times until “God and technology”, and the people made him President at the fourth shot. He is that man who made history in the Nigerian political hemisphere by defeating an incumbent president of a strong ruling party. Mr President is the man who commands so much respect and who is held in total awe by the people.
He’s Mr. Integrity and the face of anti-corruption. He’s the man I have spent most of my time in the journalism career reporting his patriotic conducts. Has he ever been booed hitherto by anyone, for any reason whatsoever? None that I can remember. For him to be jeered at at all by the same House who has in the last three years accorded him all the honour and respect during budget presentations showed that something is wrong somewhere. May be, just maybe, politics has demystified him. But he is not an Oluesgun Obasanjo, Nelson Mandela or a Barack Obama who, having seen a tense House, would have immediately employed diplomacy and taken to either jokes or a display of oratory prowess or speak extemporaneously, employing anecdotes to calm the frayed nerves of lawmakers before presenting the budget. That was what he didn’t do differently as a leader conscious of his environment. But then, he succeeded in making his presentation but amid national shame.