It was a revealing image. Hon Abdulmumin Jibrin gazed at the barrel mounted television camera and blew the rotted chambers of that dome-topped House cradling the three arms zone of our nation’s capital open to the prying eyes of viewers held spellbound by his out-of-the-world revelations.
Not that he revealed anything new, or strange, nor were the ostriches whose feathers he ruffled so gleefully before the camera any stranger to we, the people who consistently call attention to our collective hemorrhage.
Not that the rotted chambers were ever hidden from those who cared to probe the malfeasance of his comrades in arms. If the people ever found one opportunity for prying into the rotted chambers, Hon Abdulmumin Jibrin provided them the rare moment for uncovering bones hardened by time.
He didn’t express anything new, neither did he reveal anything different from what is already known, what is evidenced by the facts on the ground, nor did he point the people or his audience in the direction of a House any different from that which houses great opportunities for its occupants than it does for the people who pay for the yearly maintenance.
Isn’t it a fact that public offices hold great promises for public servants who promote their private avocations at the expense of the public good, and turn the high public offices they occupy into opportunities for self-aggrandizement?
Today in our country the common interests of citizens are supplanted by elected public servants who subject the public good and the needs of ordinary citizens to their private interests.
Public service should rightly revolve around the idea of preventing private interests from destroying the public good. This isn’t the case here where engagements with the thieving spirit – demon- is common and the normal workings of government are subverted by public servants, where those who take part in the subversion of the public good, who find their conversion from villainy on the ROAD TO DAMASCUS, become proof of the conscientious role they seek to play as whistle-blowers in the birthing of collective redemption.
More than the rote appeal to the conscientious role of the whistle-blower in a country lacking conscience, men and women of conscience, he holds himself out as a whistle-blower to be taken seriously, believed, and clapped to the ovation of the public; but, he isn’t a credible whistle-blower. And we know why he isn’t one.
In a country where accidental whistle-blowers exhibit a gregarious tolerance for thievery, unquestioning of the rotten political and economic system, beneficiaries of the rotten system like Hon Abdulmumin Jibrin become suspects.
We have seen those who kept silence when “food was ready” or those whose talking point at the dinner was simply silence. They often turn into accidental activists overnight when there is nothing on the dinner table to nibble at. How can we forget who and what they later become when they are scorned by power? Remember a certain Dino Melaye.
If we needed proof of such engagements and subversion, suspicion and conversion, Hon Abdulmumin Jibrin provided us with the proof.
Perched on a gold-trimmed armchair, hedged against the angled corner of a room, flanked by glittering opulence, he beamed with the smiling countenance – that smiling countenance only stolen money could buy- of a big boy spoilt by inheritance. One may ask: how did he acquire such wealth, come about such opulence? One isn’t aware of the fact that he chanced on the bequeaths of a kind benefactor, or on the exceptional benefaction of a love-struck heartthrob.
Former President Obasanjo offers what one considers as an answer: “Apart from shrouding the remunerations of the National Assembly in opaqueness and without transparency, they indulge in extorting money from departments, contractors and ministries in two ways. They do so during visits to their projects and programmes and in the process of budget approval they build up budgets for ministries and departments, who agree to give it back to them in contracts that they do not execute. They do similar things during their inquiries. When the guard is the thief, only God can keep the House safe and secure”.
And there are more answers to the questions, sharper and incisive, but former President Obasanjo hits the bull’s eye well with his answer.
One can only add this as a footnote: asking thieving politicians to watch over the public purse is like asking the Rottweiler to watch over the dinner.
Did Hon Abdulmumin Jibrin extort money from departments, contractors and ministries as Chairman of the Finance Committee of the 7th House of Representatives? Did he game the budget process the same way those he alleged game it?
While he swore that he didn’t, he made the case about budget-padding being the only game in town. Hear him: “during the budget period, when they discovered I was not the kind of person they could use to perpetrate their illegality, Mr Speaker and three other principal officers took away the entire Appropriation Committee Secretariat to a secret location where all sort of INSERTIONS ( uppercase for emphasis) were made into the budget. Mr Speaker also directed me to create what I advised him will be a controversial line item under Service Wide Vote to introduce about N20b project using the name of the National Assembly”.
While it is worth pointing out here that the allegations of insertions and budget-padding need to be substantiated by incontrovertible evidence, the wider issues of lack of understanding of the theory of the budgetary process, of understanding the limits of the power of appropriation also need to interrogated.
The Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, 1999 (as amended) provides latitude to our legislators to exercise their powers of appropriation, but it doesn’t grant them the right to game the budgetary process and to insert figures and projects outside those provided for by the executive in the appropriation bill, in a dubious way.
It is the constitutional duty of the executive to prepare appropriation bills, present them to the legislature for scrutiny and debate, and execute the line items contained in appropriation bills when they are eventually passed into law.
The power of the purse of the legislature doesn’t extend to introducing strange estimates to already prepared and presented budgets.
Doing otherwise portends three grave dangers. First, when legislators supplant executive estimates with their insertions, they make the implementation of budgets near cumbersome. Don’t forget that non-implementation of budgets is a ground for impeachment.
Second, they problematize the idea of separation of power and undermine the integrity of the budgetary process by setting up a process that provides the greatest happiness for the smallest number. The graver danger here is that they balance their private interests against the public good. There are consequences as well. The imperative of using the budget to maximize positive economic outcomes that are beneficial to all is defeated by legislators who act in unethical ways to satisfy their private interests.
Third, consultation between the legislature and executive on the provisions of appropriation bills is very important. And this is one aspect of the theory of the budgetary process the great thinker, Aaron Wildavsky articulates in such works as ‘The New Politics of Budgetary Process’ and ‘Budgeting and Governing’.
Unfortunately, our elected public servants don’t equip themselves with current researches in participatory public budgeting.
The only game in town is taking place right inside the hallowed chambers of our National Assembly. We don’t know when the invisible referee will call time on the gamers. While the game lasts, folks, please, do remember this: when the guards are thieves, only eternal vigilance can keep the public purse secure.