By Favour Afolabi
There is a script at work here and I wrote about It prior to the new year:
1. Budget is Presented to NASS with Buhari, and APC overlords seeing the opportunity to repay all those that funded it’s campaign – a Bazaar Budget in which Car Tyres cost Millions – this was supposed to be a feeding frenzy – so APC picks a few narratives like “the biggest budget for education” to bamboozle people from reading the individual items – believing it still has the goodwill of those that voted it in earlier in the year who won’t bother to read the details – this was supposed to be passed with little debate from the Senate – that was the planned deal.
2. Then Yawa gasses – @budgit boys leaks the 1,800 pages in PDF to the Internet – the plan don scatter – It becomes an embarrassment to Buhari as typified by #BudgetOfYams controversy all over the nation – with ridiculous figures that will give so many people heart attacks – he quickly summons a Media Chat to douse the tension – and forbids the journalists not to mention the subject (and they didn’t – prove me wrong if you have contrary info)
3. The Presidency quickly moves to blackmail the Senate to return the Budget with only some of the Principal Officers being aware of this led by Saraki – and they comply, the info leaks to the public; and Saraki tweets “we’ll discuss the budget when we return in Janury” – the holiday comes and the tension dies down
4. Saraki, who knows “Buhari wants to jail him” needs to do anything to please him; so he sends back the document while Senate is on Holidays expecting the document will be back before they resume
5. That doesn’t happen leading to the expectation that the budget would be debated yesterday
6. Well, the plan is simple – The document will be returned as a modified copy en route Saraki, still via the backdoor – the numbers would have been tampered with – and it would be said “the Budget is now found; the information communicated earlier is false”
7. But, there is greater danger ahead and larger controversies persist – the doc is 1,800 pages long – how you get to change most of the numbers in the individual items and still be able to tally with MDAS subtotals is where the real WAEC will be still having to come to a total of N6trn that has been publicly announced!
8. This explains why the Senate refused all thru after the presentation to release the document to the public despite calls from so many people that they should do so; and the reason the Presidency didn’t do so as well.
9. Despite the #BudgetOfYams trending for days, the Presidency or Senate REFUSED to deny or respond to any of the crazy budget line items – showing their joint complicity in a grand plan to deceive Nigerians
10. Kudos must go to @budgit guys that published the 1,800 pages document – not even any of the Newspapers or TV Houses were able to do this; no wonder APC Leaders were pushing for a ban on Social Media Freedoms
In conclusion, Nigerians should prepare for more “Guinness Book of Records embarrassments” as this one, that’s all you get from a government that even finds it difficult to hold weekly FEC meetings to do the real business of governance but invests 20 hours every day trying to destroy PDP to create a #OnePartyState!
Favour Afolabi tweets from and can be contacted via @favourafolabi
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