NIGERIA’ S LEGISLATORS AND THEIR IRRESPONSIBILITY IN GOVERNANCE.

It’s time to take a swipe at the National Assembly for once and call them out to their responsibility. The national assembly holds the key to a lot of developmental initiatives that this country needs and without any doubt the success of any executive administration hinges on the National Assembly.

There are policies, legislations such as the PIB, Gender equality Bill, money laundering act, whistle blower act, industrial revolution bill, and so on which the national assembly ought to pass to get us going from where we are to where we want to be as a nation.

I have watched with trepidation how our national assembly has taken almost 100 days to deal with the budget. I have to say that it is a gross show of incompetence, a lack of appreciation of what role they have to play for Nigeria to be great again and pure irresponsibility. I say this for the following reasons:

ONE

The budget is a document that needs to be assessed and all you have to say to each item of the budget is two questions in lay man’s terms:

Is this required? And if it is required, is the cost too high or too low?

There may be all other processes and procedures, but it boils down to these two questions.

I must say I am not impressed. Initially, I was impressed that they could get to problems of padding and etcetera, but right now I have watched with trepidation how they have found it difficult to rectify all the errors and pass the budget to the presidency. It shows that for a long time, the budget was passed on a simple whim of ‘Has he satisfied us?’

It’s the 21^st century, there is a hard copy and a soft copy, and with an excel spreadsheet you’ll be able to edit whatever it is you need to edit within the shortest period of time. But who am I kidding, how many of our senators and house of rep members even know how to use a spreadsheet. Even, without a spreadsheet, they should be done with the document by now.

TWO

The national assembly passed a supplementary budget that will last till today, the 31^st of March 2016. And here we are waiting for the budget that should begin 1^st of April 2016 and there’s no budget to sign in front of the President. Alas, the President even realises there won’t be a budget to sign into law and travels to return on Sunday the 3^rd of April.

Essentially, every Kobo spent by government from the 1^st of April is illegal without a budget passed into law.  A good national assembly will know that the last budget passed will last till 31^st of March and will speed up its machinery to make sure that it sends the budget to the presidency before the 23^rd of March for the presidency to go through and have it signed into law before the 31^st of March.

THREE

The national assembly takes us for a ride as fools and because of the pressure of the press, passes a budget into law without the details and one of them comes out to the press to say, it is a normal process and not a misnomer. I weep for my country Nigeria.

The way it is the executive has 8months to implement a 12month budget and we keep complaining about the level of implementation of our budget. National Assembly! National Assembly! National Assembly! How many times did I call you? A word is enough for the wise.

For pit’s sake, Nigerians the next time you elect senators and representatives, elect the people who can deliver.

Finally, to those who will be there for the next four years or more, stop thinking governance is a joke, stop thinking governance is about your interest, stop thinking that it’s about filling your bellies, deliver to Nigerians, deliver, deliver, deliver and you will get a second term (even though some of you will just try to bribe the people).

My Second Letter to the Feminist

My Dearest Feminist,

And now it’s March 2016.

It was international women’s day yesterday and I watched as a woman on TV spoke passionately for the women but at the expense of all the men in the world.

Fortunately, I found a post by my friend on Facebook, making the case for all our women but stating the obvious, she stated:

Women are smart, resourceful, hard-working and beautiful. The exact same is true for men.

Males and females are wonderful, amazing, beautiful, unique and indispensable.
There can be no man without a woman and there can be no woman without a man.

Making a blanket statement that women are better and superior to men is as offensive as saying men are better and superior to women.

In our bid to achieve equal rights and justice for the girl child, let us not go overboard and become the very thing we so passionately despise: chauvinistic bigots. (KAE KAY-MARCH 2016)

Warmed my heart so much

.

So my dear feminist, remember my last letter. I need to state the obvious once again.

Men and women are different and to begin to compare them in some circles is just plain wrong.

I advocate that the woman be paid just as much as the man is paid, I advocate that women be recognised for every one of their efforts and contributions, I advocate that the girl child be educated just like the men are, I advocate that women become CEOs and executives and so on.

But let it be known that the woman is called the weaker vessel not because they can’t do the things men do but because you cannot measure the physical strength of a man with that of a woman, I dare-say men have more emotional stability than women. Men are logical beings, women are emotional beings, this is what makes women realist and makes men more idealist, men strive for an ideal. On the flip side, I can’t care like you can, I can’t be as tender as you are and a whole lot of other things.

In our differences lies the need for companionship, marriage and all that God offers in a relationship between the man and the woman, I strive for the ideal and you bring me back down to earth, reminding of the reality before me.

Did you not here that the person who created them, created them male and female. In His wisdom he made them for each other not against each other. He looked at the man by himself and said ‘it is not good that man should be alone’. So we need you.

So I’ll fight for equal rights, I’ll fight for equal pay, I’ll fight for girl child education, I’ll fight for your voice to be heard, I’ll fight alongside you, I’ll hold your hands in this fight.

But I won’t fight for you to be me, I won’t fight for homosexuals and homosexual parenthood. We are different, forge a path for yourself and I’ll forge a path for myself, don’t be like me. Be you, the Woman, the Wife, the mother, be the great help that you’ll always be, because you are beautiful, lovely and awesome.

Happy International Women’s day

Your ‘Male Chauvinist’