Nigeria polity in this 2014 has
been very busy with events and happenings ranging from cases of corruption,
forgery and massive party defection to flying of letters in all sides.
Recently, the Finance Minister and Coordinating Minister Dr. Ngozi Okonjo
Iwuala presented to National Assembly 2014 budget which is in the tune of N4.6
trillion. This is the first time a sitting president delegate such sensitive
task to a minister in the history of Nigeria democracy. Though the president is
not under constitutional duty to present the budget himself to the National
Assembly, we know that this historic delegation of duty must not be unconnected
to events that has been unfolding in the polity as it relate defection of
members of PDP to APC.
However the status of who that
present the budget to National Assembly is not of much interest to Nigerians
but the content of the budget. Finance Minister and Coordinating Minister Dr.
Ngozi Okonjo Iwuala in her presentation of the budget titled it ‘2014 Budget
for Job Creation and Inclusive Growth’; leaving us to wonder how budget worth
N4.6 trillion with 72% of it as recurrent expenditure and just 27% for capital
projects can create jobs for about 40 million unemployed youths in the country.
Is it not time these people in
government stop taking us as illiterates? This clearly shows that government is
only ranting about being serious in the project of job creation than real
actions. If not, why will they set aside only 27% of the budget for capital
expenditure? Meaning that the cost of running government is still of more
important to them than the plight of millions of unemployed graduates.
In her presentation, she revealed
that government programmes on reducing unemployment is actually working with
only ‘Youth Enterprise with Innovation in Nigeria’ (YouWIN) programme so far
has created over 27000 jobs across the 6 geo-political zones of the country.
In a country with over 40 million
youths that represent about 80% of the working class unemployed, I don’t know
how a programme that created unconfirmed 27000 jobs should be judged as
successful.
Thinking of the quality of the so
called jobs that have been created, what is the vision of a country that
employed unemployed graduates as ‘Keke Napep’ (tricycle) riders? Is this what
we want for our future leaders? Must every government that comes keep deceiving
Nigerians? These are some of the questions that are begging for answer.
However, based on the drama that
is happening on the polity, it appears that only the minister can explain the
rationale behind the 27% capital expenditure as a budget for job creation and
inclusive growth. Maybe if the man on the street benefit from Keke Napep, he
may be tempted to say he has benefited from the all inclusive budget? God save
us.
