For a man who became President by surfing on the wave of democratic discontent lunged at his opponent, it was clear from the start to any perspicacious observer that his administration would be weighed down by the burden of proof: to show the crowd of fawning admirers, supporters and believers that he was in charge, that their truth in him was not misplaced, and that he was indeed winning the war against bad governance.
One way to do this was to ramp up mundane government activity and milk it of its highest propaganda value.
I have been an adult citizen for a while but I cannot recall any other government that ecstatically wallows in pornography of propaganda like this present one. Everywhere one turns in Nigeria these days, it seems there is a loud raucous noise of government officials emoting over the President’s successes in the past months, a pesky din aimed at drowning dissension, reason and well-meaning criticisms.
In the past few weeks, in a bid to share testimonies of government magic, we have been treated to exaggerated claims of government efficacy, larded with what the late Ola Rotimi would have referred to as “terminological inexactitudes.”
One example is the claim that the government has saved a whopping N2.2tn in three months, a feat owing to the Treasury Single Account initiative. Let me acknowledge that all governments in the world routinely lie to their citizens but the nature of the lie, and the depth of thought that enshrouds it, shows the level of respect they have for the citizens. I will not dismiss the N2.2tn story as an outright lie but consider the remote possibility that the truth exists somewhere but only as a thin film of truth that is being overstretched to the point of illogicality.
How does a country that can barely pay salaries save so much in such a short time and yet nothing still changes in her fortunes? Did they mean they save some existing money from being spent or that sum is the amount that could have been wasted if they had not been so diligent? How does this government begin to even convince us that it saved the nation such exorbitant amount when her 2016 budget is replete with errors, duplications and frauds so massive that reading through the items analysed by various media made one tremble in shame at the outright lack of attentiveness that was invested into its preparations? How can you be so grossly incompetent in one aspect and then claim you are opposite in another?
For a President who embodied the image of military discipline and asceticism, this budget deconstructs and demystifies him. From the way the budget was presented and withdrawn amidst lies and denials, a lot has been going wrong suggesting poor administrative capability. Buhari owes Nigerians an explanation and an apology for the inferior effort that went into this budget preparation. Rather than outsource the blame, he should take responsibility for it. In a sane society, whole heads of department would be tendering their resignation by now. One is tempted to ask how Nigeria got to this level but then, has our national existence not been characterised by such slipshoddiness?
Rather than continue to peddle propaganda and spread false cheer about the progress we have made, I think it is time we admitted that our systems are warped, unwieldy and unsustainable. Like the budget itself, Nigeria was designed to sustain the mechanisms through which corruption operates rather than advance the nation. We do not need the Minister of Information and Culture, Lai Muhammed..
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