By Bazunu Msbaudeen

Fellow Nigerians! Since the inception of the issue of national budget padding brouhaha, I have come to understand that, most Nigerians, especially Nairalanders do not understand what this alleged national shame means. For me and for any sane and honest Nigerian, this issue connotes a very good development in Nigeria’s history. I hear many people saying this never happened during the 16 years reign of the PDP, this is also a reason to see this as a positive change in the Nigerian politics.
Firstly, I don’t want anyone to see me as an apologist of neither the PDP nor or the APC, I am writing from an objective perspective. Many people believe the alleged padding shows that the current government is corrupt and also intend to loot through the budget hence, the popular tag, #budgetgate. The questions I now want us to ask ourselves are that, is this the first government officials are looting the treasury of this country through the budget? The answer to this question is No. How then have they achieved this "budget gate" in the past, and why is it now causing uproar? These two other questions are very important to the understanding of this phenomenon.
We all know that the civil servants hold a very vital part of the country's administrations. They are the back bone of any government of the day because they are permanent workers and experts in our various government institutions; they help any government of the day execute its assignments. That is why even political office holders who do not know anything concerning a particular ministry, would still head and manage that ministry successfully. Going by this explanation, it's therefore obvious that the civil servants are the main executors of government assignments.
Now down to Nigerian political sphere, the civil servants have been the main problem of this country, this is because their activities stand for what corruption itself entails. I want to categorically state that there is no way the budget gate would ever be possible without the involvement of the civil servants. This is because the National budget is an overall/ compiled budget off all the budgets of our various ministries and parastatals, with the ministry of budget and national planning being the compiler of these budgets. Hence they are the ones that will study the budget and compile it before being sent to the National assembly for scrutiny and deliberation. I want inform those of us who think the budget is just a size of a pamphlet to understand that, the budget is a voluminous document of over 2000 pages and that is why it's tasks are assigned to a whole ministry .Hence, contrary to what many of us think that the president should have studied the budget himself and should know all its details. This is not the case because it is not his job, and his tight schedule would not allow, even if he wants to. The only thing he could do is to see the summary of the budget attached behind the budget, which is expected to equate to all what is in the main document.
Now the first stage of corruption of the budget is that the budget officers of these various ministries inflate/pad the budget before sending it to the ministry of budget and national planning, when it gets there, this ministry is suppose to detect the padding, but they would connive with the civil servants to send the budget to the legislatures, this is the second level of budget corruption. As it might be easily thought that the national assembly should detect it because there is a standing committee that will be in charge of budget, but this will not happen because the legislators will also join the connivance, and that is how the "budget gate" will be achieved after it has been passed into law. This is how the game has always been played, without the knowledge of the general public.
Going to the third question that why is it now causing uproar and seem like a bizarre development. As I noted earlier that, the “budget gate” would not be possible if the civil servants don't get the support of the politicians, and vice versa. And the main reason why there has been disagreement on the budget so far is that, it was padded by the same civil servants whom the president referred to as the budget cabal, who have turned budget padding to a usual thing, and they have been doing this for years. But this time, they failed to get the "supports of ogas at the top, but they still needed to find a way of doing this again, and that is why we have seen the case of the budgets of some ministries being disowned by their ministers, claiming the budgets they sent to the ministry of budget and national planning is different from what is being sent to the national assembly. And that is why all fingers are now pointing to the budget office, and the ministry of budget and national planning headed by Udoma Udo Udoma. That is also the reason some Nigerians are now yearning for the probe of this ministry, in order to identify the perpetrators of the budget padding.
We should also understand that no hierarchy, even an office secretary can be underestimated in this alleged padding because they type these documents, and that’s also a vital part of this. The way forward for me too remains that the national assembled should halt the passage of the budget pending the time the whole ministries correct the budget. And the budget office and the ministry of budget should be probed and I believe this phenomenon will mark the end of annual budget padding in Nigeria. I also want to urge Nigerians to be careful in taking sides in the war against corruption, so as not to be used against our wills. It is a known fact that corruption is the biggest problem of Nigeria, and must be dealt with before other things can work or fall in place. What saddens me now is that our political, tribal, religious biases are now being used as a mechanism to fight us back, since corruption would always fight back /struggle to stay and consume our dear country. I believe fight against corruption in this country is noteworthy, and we should not relent until corruption is paralyzed in Nigeria. Thank God we now have a president who seems to have the political will of fighting corruption, and that’s why issues like this despite being present in the pass, are now unveiling. We are all part of the chain; therefore, we should do our quota diligently. This is our country and we should try to move her forward. God bless Nigeria, God bless Africa, and god bless the world.

I AM ALLERGIC TO LONG STORIES?

I want inform those of us who think the budget is just a size of a pamphlet to understand that, the budget is a voluminous document of over 2000 pages and that is why it's tasks are assigned to a whole ministry .Hence, contrary to what many of us think that the president should have studied the budget himself and should know all its details. This is not the case because it is not his job, and his tight schedule would not allow, even if he wants to. The only thing he could do is to see the summary of the budget attached behind the budget, which is expected to equate to all what is in the main document.

I just explain this to someone this morning. One thing I like Buhari for is that he took responsibility according to the Presidency press statement (not that of FG ministry of budget). Also presidency allow the budget details to be made public for scrutiny if not we will not we will not have any knowledge of budget details except the detail summaries. If not for Mama Patience will we not know how much was budgeted for Jonathan feeding. Also will need to give kudos to the NASS for do their job to some extent this time around and the social medias for blowing the trumpet.

Another thing I'm happy about was the Presidency promise to investigate and bring to book the perpetrators - I hope this promise is fulfilled. Above all, Nigerians should note that PDP is still in full charge of the administration and management of Nigeria ranging from NASS to Ministries/parastatals to Civil servants. We should recalled that most high ranked senior civil servants and permanent secretaries are installed by PDP government.

Summary. Zombies are blaming civil servant for the Budget gate.
Lol.
I don tire for these pipo o.
Clueless homosapiens.