BUT again as I said, Malam El-Rufai knows this as well as the fact that when he says there is no ‘social justice’ in the large amounts spent on our legislators, he forgot to add that while there is little the President can do by law to curb this, seeing as there is separation of powers in our constitution, President Jonathan nevertheless used his influence to get the National Assembly to reduce its budget by 30 per cent this year before he agreed to append his signature to the budget.

But pray, if paying so much salaries to people is bad (and I agree that it is, especially when there are multitudes who need the money on social services as Malam rightly points out), then why did someone allow huge sums in dollars to be paid to a youth corper even if the money was sourced from first, USAID and later, the World Bank? You ought not to criticise somebody or an agency over something of which you are equally guilty.

The issue is worthy of criticism, don’t get me wrong, but someone who has not engaged in similar acts ought to be the one belling the cat!

And does Malam El-Rufai really believe that “the policeman that should protect you on the road block, stops you and demands for bribes and has no qualms shooting dead any motorist that refuses to give him N20”. Now is this fair to our police officers? Is this true? There are hundreds of thousands of police men in Nigeria. Is Malam El-Rufai telling us that every police man collects bribes and is willing to kill Nigerians if they do not receive bribes?

I am close to one or two serving and former policemen, including Malam Nuhu Ribadu who is a pride to Nigeria and a shining example of gallantry and the art of being an officer and a gentleman and Malam Ribadu did tell me that there are multitudes like him in the Nigeria Police Force. Imagine the effect on their morale when they read Malam El-Rufai’s scathing and hasty generalizations on all of them.

What type of Nigeria does Malam El-Rufai, a man to whom Nigeria has given so much, project to the outside world when he says that our soldiers “get so bored that they occasionally go on a rampage, using policemen for target practice”? Is that all he sees in the Nigerian Army?

Malam El-Rufai also wants us to put blame on the current administration for the state of our recurrent expenditure but managed to suppress key facts about this issue such as the fact that this administration is honour and constitutionally-bound to pay living wages to Nigerian workers as a result of the New Minimum Wage Bill passed into law by the National Assembly as well as pay up a backlog of salaries and pensions at PHCN, NITEL and sundry other government ministries and agencies before such agencies can be privatized.

Nigerians can now see what I meant in my last response to Malam El-Rufai entitled, “Get Better not Bitter”. Malam El-Rufai since his return from exile in the year 2010 has become so bittier that he has lost his objectivity and I can prove it.

Nigerians may recall that Malam El-Rufai on May 11, 2010, was the first major political figure to call on President Jonathan to contest for the 2011 presidential election when he paid a solidarity visit to Mr. President at the Presidential Villa and praised him openly, saying inter alia: “This President does not interfere with the work of the judiciary”.

Nigerians may also recall that Malam El-Rufai was equally one of the first major political figures to launch a scathing attack on Major Gen Muhammadu Buhari, rtd, of whom he described on October 4, 2010 as a man whose record as military Head of State has rendered him “perpetually unelectable”. This was after Malam El-Rufai accused Major Gen Buhari of sundry acts of gross indiscipline, including but not limited to the 53 suit cases affair and the extra-judicial execution of certain young men.

But today Malam El-Rufai is a staunch supporter of Buhari whom he described as “unelectable” and an even stauncher critic of President Jonathan whom he described as electable. This is all within the space of one year.

So the question is what happened in the intervening period? You guessed the answer right-bitterness as a result of unfulfilled expectations. I rest my case!

Mr. Omokri wrote from Washington D.C.