Besides sharing hilarity with The Presidency denying that the Federal Government obtained a Six billion dollar loan during President Muhammadu Buhari’s trip to China , the cacophony of claims and counter-claims of omission or removal of the Calabar-Lagos Rail Project from the 2016 budget fires up those who accuse the administration of being insensitive to other sections of the country.
Chairman of the House of Representatives Committee on Appropriation, Hon Abdulmumin Jibrin, said the project was not included in the budget originally so the allegation that the controversy is the sum of mischief is baseless.
Overwhelming evidence that the missing project was legitimately conceived and duly communicated to the relevant Committees of the National Assembly, however, invalidates his claim. Each contributor to the debate also acknowledged that the N60b project is vital to cushion distortions injected into the country’s economy by instability in the global oil market.
Nemesis however ambushed mischief by denying conspirators the fact that Buhari went to China for assistance, including counterpart funding for the rail project. Assuming the drama was no product of mischief, how could a project the president secured counterpart funding for have been omitted from the budget as alleged?
This drama volunteers as flipside of allegation that some people are determined to undermine national cohesion and stability, including repudiating restructuring which Nigerians adopted as roadmap in 2014. If those members wanted to cut their nose to spite their face just to perpetuate mischief, it confirms that, indeed, self-destructive manipulations robbed the country of genuine growth since independence.
Even with the glaring fact that the economy direly requires radical measures to fortify it with a viable alternative revenue source like the proposed rail project, mischief allegedly plotted against plans to increase revenue that they would soon gobble up anyway. Similar mischief as that now threatening the country’s economic well-being also complicated the war against insurgency.
The allegation is that after encouraging Malians, Nigeriens and citizens of other countries to infiltrate our porous borders to facilitate the grand conspiracy of padding population figures, the mercenaries later blackmailed their sponsors by launching a panorama of atrocities that are attributed to genuine herdsmen.
Especially during dictatorship, shared traits like religion and language eased blending with the local population to reinforce the numerical superiority myth. The chickens, naturally, returned home to roost by inspiring insurgency and other criminalities which security agents feign powerlessness to checkmate.
The escalation of criminalities across the country by nomadic mercenaries posing as herdsmen and intensification of resistance to restructuring as roadmap for stability allegedly underline efforts to unilaterally reverse history and sabotage national gains.
This inelegant mix, critics argue, imposes on Buhari the responsibility to discourage misguided elements who are determined to poison goodwill for genuine herdsmen by deceiving them to imagine they can be outlaws without consequence in the 21st century because a Fulani is president. Protagonists of this view say this unfortunate presumption accounts for why security agents are indifferent to escalating criminalities by nomadic religious and cultural mercenaries.
Expectedly, such thinking undermines confidence in government like the action by the Movement Against Fulani Occupation (MAFO), in Benue State, dragging the Federal Government to the ECOWAS Court of Justice for alleged complicity in these atrocities Before over 50 people were terminated with extreme prejudice (twepped), by mercenaries in Gashaka in Taraba State, untouchable herdsmen abducted and killed the Obi of Ubulu-Uku.
Indifference by government guaranteed that the case stagnated, months after his desecrated body was discovered. It is inconceivable that a king can be abducted and killed without provoking the wrath of security agents.
When this happened in Delta and the security machinery feigned indifference, allegations of partisanship and double standard against security agents became stepped up. The allegations became strident as Nigerians await government reaction to the slaying of a Divisional Police Officer (DPO), by herdsmen in Adamawa.
Smack in the middle of this justifiable dismay over government’s sacred cow treatment for criminal herdsmen but without corresponding circumspection in killing protesting members of the Independent Peoples of Biafra (IPOB), some herdsmen were killed in Abia State.
As curiousity heightens, Nigerians hunger to see the administration’s response to the incident, given that it never bothered about criminalities by herdsmen in other parts of the country. Those who allegedly expunged the Calabar-Lagos Rail Project from the budget to appease mischief vindicated allegations of ultra resurgence of nepotism under this administration. By their action, they reinforce the argument that the aim is to deploy fixation with anti-corruption in a desperate attempt to divert attention than confront challenges with courage.
In the economic state that Nigeria is, anyone obstructing a promising source of income for government like the rail project qualifies for equal condemnation like corruption. Resorting to self-help to cancel the grim prediction by the MAFO that herdsmen plan to nurture pasture for livestock with the blood of law-abiding Nigerians signals prelude to anarchy.
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