In the last few weeks, the country has been awoken to humorous tales by some public officials in certain quarters, of animals either swallowing or running away with monies in response to allegations of embezzlement levelled against them. This development has raised the need for increased vigilance by every concerned Nigerian and indeed the general public whenever funds belonging to a government organisation or any group (at all) are mentioned in public circles in order to prevent ‘animals’ from further holding sway under any guise over financial matters in the country.

Happening at a time as this, it is thus a source of concern that the 2018 Appropriation Bill is yet to see the light of day, thus making suspicions rife that something untoward may have happened to the bill.

On 7 November 2017, when President Muhammadu Buhari presented before a joint session of the National Assembly the 2018 budget proposal of N8.612 trillion, the hopes of many Nigerians dwindled on an accelerated passage of the document going by the words of the Senate President where he hinted that “As I close, Mr. President, I would like to advise and caution that there is no better time in this Administration than now for a rigorous drive for good working relationship between the Executive and the Legislature. The early passage of the 2018 budget will depend on this good working relationship.”

Not only is it worrisome that every budget proposal prepared in the life of this administration has brought cause for public concern (in relation to the issues of budget padding in 2016 and the missing copies of the bill in 2017), it is most  unfortunate that these developments are happening in an administration that came into power with the expectations that its approach to governance would be a great departure from the norms of the past. Sadly, this has again put to question the competence of the handlers of the budgeting process and one can almost arrive at a safe conclusion on sheer dilemma on the part of the Muhammadu Buhari-led administration and his party as to what really they sought to do with power in the first place.

Since early December when the bill was considered for a second reading, it has remained at that level. It is the third month of the year and in a couple of weeks, it would be the end of the first quarter with little evidence that the 2018 budget will be passed soon. Although there has been an obvious case of grandstanding between the Legislators and the Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs), the Senate had hinged the delay in passing the proposal to include; ill-preparedness of the latter to attend scheduled meetings and provide relevant information needed by the lawmakers to carry out their responsibility of scrutinising the proposals, the insistence of the federal government that the 2018 Budget must be passed in January when less than 50 percent of 2017 Budget had been implemented, that the 2017 Budget had no correlation with the 2018 Budget, unrealistic revenue projections on the part of the technocrats who prepared the 2018 Budget and that the estimates as presented had been “fully padded, full of inaccuracies, errors, inconsistencies and abracadabra” part of which led to a threat by the Senate on Wednesday, February 28, to pass the 2018 budget without submissions from recalcitrant MDAs.

It has also been argued in some quarters that the current imbroglio is a consequence of late submission by the executive (which has almost become the norm in the country at the Federal level) quite close to a time when the National Assembly was proceeding on its Christmas and New Year break. The executive through the Vice President and most recently, the Budget Office of the Federation however claims that none of the reasons listed above are reasons for the delay as it had played its part by submitting early, that the grey areas had been sorted out and that they await the passage of the bill by the National Assembly.

While other appropriation bills may have suffered similar fate in the past, the handwriting on the wall is obvious to the blind that going by the current love-lost relationship between both arms of government, it shows clearly that politics is gradually interfering with governance especially as electioneering campaigns expected to commence in the second quarter of the year approaches, and this certainly does not augur well for the country.

Whatever the case may be, we expect that both organs of government would do the needful by putting politics aside in the interest of the country in order to drive rapid economic recovery, steer the economy to the path of growth and ultimately ensure that national progress and good governance is not sacrificed on the altar of politics, class interests or allow another animal invasion of the proposal.

Temidayo Taiwo-Sidiq

Temidayo Taiwo-Sidiq is a Journalist, Political Analyst and Satirist with major interest in Nigerian Politics, Governance and Sports.