Rheum from budget-padders

Our House of Reps will never be our House of Reps again. We all know why. That place where our parliamentarians, where our legislators, paddle budgets which they have legislated in favour of cannot be the same again. Until the present place where they legislate as “legislative thieves” is no more they will continue to breathe, continue to inhale, rheumy air – for the place is now very contaminated by rheumy air, if you allow me to say so.

Of course, since the highly rhetorical Abdulmumin Jibrin whistle-blew what he whistle-blew about the shady business of our House of Budget-padders, they have been padding out stories upon stories connected with what we can call the pack of lies relating to budget-padding by budget-padders Nigeria style. Phew!

Before I package this piece further without pads, allow me to paddle into your yielding reading hearts some pertinent text messages from some followers of In and Out.

Text one: I am taken aback that In and Out who is very cerebral, thought-provoking with in-depth knowledge of both local and international affairs still doesn’t know that PMB doesn’t fight his friends. Dogara has settled with him and that’s all. Let it be known to In and Out that PMB has no mindset to do Nigeria good but to enjoy, sit on expensive chairs, travel and shake hands with the  high worldwide, with “pharasical” disposition.

Text two: Dear Mr. Tony, first and foremost, I wish to heartily commend you on your numerous articles on national issues. I am a regular reader of Nigerian Tribune for the past 40 years. Most of your articles, if not all, had brought positive changes to the subjects concerned. I wish to respectfully request you to please focus your attention on National Housing Fund. I retired from Nigerian Army on August 15 with some of my mates. The Army Authority had computed our contributions to the fund and forwarded same to NHF for refund. Till date NHF has not refunded us the money. Please help us by writing about this.

Text three: Where are the stipends for unemployed graduates, lunch for kid students, engagement of 500,000 teachers, naming of so called looters… Haba!

Text four: The great writer of candour, your writing… is superb. Na man you be.

Text five: Buhari and his cohorts have collectively given us a failed state. What else remains? Arguably nothing to be proud of. Everything is dead!

These patriotic texts tell us one thing: the discharges from our House of Reps of budget-padders underline the impurity and immorality not only of the padders but also of Buharism that is seemingly condoning them. In fact, it is not by accident that what is in our parliament of padders is what is; but unless our president does what he must do to cleanse the damp and unhealthy place he will end up where he does not wish to end up. If he must succeed in keeping his promises to the people he must be ready to fight with those he must fight with in (or outside) our parliament of dischargers of rheum and rheum and rheum. His silence will not in any way make us forget what is happening in the moral-less place that we can liken to a world without justice. And who wants a justice-less world even if it is like paradise? But a justice-less world can never ever be paradise or be like paradise.

We must amplify our focus without exaggerating our perspective and objective. All the principal officers Mr. Jibrin has fingered and mentioned in the budget-padding scandal have ganged up against him. Rather than submit themselves to discipline they and their cohorts have collectively stuck together to call him to order by inventing different rhetoric to debase and mar him in readiness for their historic annihilation of him. They have recently, for instance, told us that the whistle-blower needs psychiatric treatment for lie-peddling against principal officers of the rheumy house. They have not given us any figure to counter the figures of embezzlement Mr. Jibrin has mentioned as “evidence” against them.

The whistle-blower’s rhetoric pads out sentiments of acceptable and believable eloquence when he tells us pointedly that he himself benefited significantly from the ailment of contaminated budget-padding. To buttress his submission, he gave us a figure of millions that entered his legislative budget-padding pocket and account.

I am enjoying everything emanating from the lips of the budget-padders, but whatever happens in the end the status-quo must not remain: it must change. Our president must play a concrete role in this regard by way of concretizing his words and actions in this historic moment. Our president must establish a new history for our parliament, a new history of meaningful change devoid of rheum from budget-padders. Buharism must redeem its pledge and promises to the people. We are famished by the famishment of a change that is not a change.