***’You can’t tell people to tighten their belts when you are living large’
***Wants 2025 budget to reach NASS for scrutiny by September
Honorable Member representing Aba North/Aba South, Alexander Mascot Ikwechegh9 has advised the Federal Government to direct the funds for clamping down on protesters over the EndBadGovernance planned protest to empower them to learn one skill or the other so they can be self reliant.
The Nigerian Government has been employing all known tactics, subtle and physical force including propaganda to ensure the EndBadGovernance protest billed for 1St August does not hold.
Speaking against the backdrop that the Government is mobilizing forces to clamp down on the protesters, Hon Ikwechegh reminded the President that protests are part and parcel of democracy
“I advise the government, the monies you would channel towards clamping down on demonstrators, why not appropriate them for the unemployed youths to learn one skill or the other and channel them into places where they can earn a living.
“Why not prepare these young men and women to learn Technology that will help us identify the people that are coming to steal our crude oil?”
He said there are good ICT people that can use ICT to unravel the mystery behind crude theft
Speaking also on the issue of banditary that has made it impossible for farmers in the North to access their farms he asked the Government to use the money to recruit a bunch of people for forest protection, farm prprotection by setting up something like a Farm Protection Agency.
“That money that you would have given to police and military to fight civilians ue that money, set it aside, pay those boys, to create some type of technology that will help to put what you call sensors in different farms to identify people that are actually coming in to chase farmers away.
“Just find a way to channel their energy towards something productive instead of waiting and looking for protesters to clampdown on.”
“The truth is this, there’s so much hunger in the land. I don’t think Nigeria has had it this bad except for maybe just a couple of years post-civil war period. People can barely buy food to eat.
“It may be slightly difficult for the political class, especially people that have been successful for a long time to truly understand the plight of the people as of today.
“There are certain things that go on and when the poorest of the poor gets to hear them, it breaks their heart and that is why people are very interested about this protest.
“You can’t be telling people to tighten their belt when governors, president, ministers are still busy driving bulletproof Lexus 600 SUVs.
“You see one governor riding on 30 cars. You see one minister riding on 15 cars. You see the president riding on 50 cars and then you expect them to tighten their belt.
“If government is truly interested in having people’s belts tightened, government should live by example. They should set that example and the president can say, okay, I’m moving around with four cars, five cars, bulletproof vehicles. He’s the president.
I mean, it’s something that he deserves to do. But moving around with 50 cars, I mean, this is just a few, of course. And then we’re caught down on a lot of different things.
Do we actually need the number of people that are being paid in government? Let me explain this. From a technocratic or entrepreneurial standpoint, when an entity, a business entity begins to fail, what it does is it cuts on costs. What is the federal government doing to cut costs of governance? There is a pervasiveness of prodigality, total avoidance of frugality in the day-to-day running of government.
“What is the government doing to cut governance, cost of governance? That has to be done. While preparing the budget, do you bring consultants to take time to scrutinize the content of what is inserted in the budget?
“When it gets to us here, you give us one month to scrutinize this budget. How do we scrutinize the budget within one month? And then everybody’s rushing.
“By right, in September, as soon as we are resuming session, the budget should be on our table. The president should present the 2025 budget so that we can take between September and December to scrutinize the budget and then approve it. If there are things that we feel shouldn’t be there in the budget, then we will quickly do it.
“The legislative arm of government should remain independent. The judicial arm of government should remain independent. The executive arm of government should remain independent.
“These are little, little things that we ought to do for the country to move forward. A popular senator once said, if you tell the truth, you die. If you tell a lie, you die.
It’s better I tell the truth and die so that I know that I spoke the truth. Now, Nigeria cannot possibly be poor. Nigeria is a powerful country.
I don’t know if there are elements from outside Nigeria that is selling this very nefarious, malevolent, and ominous narrative. Because Nigeria is a rich country. It’s not a poor country.
On the issue of crude oil theft, he asked rhetorically, “But who are the people that man our waters? Who are the ones that are allowing those vessels to sail into our shores and lift our oil and move back to wherever it is that they came from unaccounted for? “Who are the people that are managing our mining industry? The gold in Zamfara, as I hear, can literally power this country. Why are we not harnessing what we have? Oil theft is a term that we have heard over time. It has literally become a platitude that people throw around all the time.”
“Why should there be hunger if we harness our oil, harness our natural resources?”