By Joesf Omoritionmwan
At first, the title of this piece was to be “Follow-up Action: 2014 in Review”, in obvious acknowledgement of the fact that we are terribly defective in follow-up actions. An issue would arise, and no matter how threatening it is, we would entertain ourselves pleasantly with it and allow it to be swept under the carpet.

As a review, this is coming rather early. Again, this is deliberate as a way of avoiding the type of delay for which we have always accused others, particularly in the budgetary process.

Barely seven short weeks to the end of this Fiscal Year, there are no signs yet of any appropriations activities in virtually all parts of the country. The Federal Government must wait till the dying days of the year before throwing the Estimates into the National Assembly, of course, in fulfillment of all righteousness. The approval process will drag on till around July next year so that the approved instrument will have a short operational life span of just five months! This could be another clever money-saving device for the elections – five months’ allocation for governance and seven months’ for politics!

JONATHAN PICKS HIS NOMINATION FORMs: Peoples Democratic Party, Pdp National Organising Secretary, Amb. Abubakar Mustapha (m) presenting expression of interest and nomination forms to President Goodluck Jonathan at the party’s secretariat in Abuja, yesterday. On the left is PDP National Chairman, Alhaji Adamu Mu’azu. Photo: NAN.

This is where the Edo State Government stands out as a clear leader in obedience to the nation’s Constitution. With the 2015 appropriations already approved, spending on that budget will start on the very first day of the New Year. Even defaulters in the budgetary process have attacked that budget in several fronts, including the fact that it was passed post haste. Let them tell that to the Marines!

If a House of Assembly that is constantly alive to its oversight responsibilities has been in session in an entire year, with all its Committees working in tandem with the Executive and the relevant Ministries , why would anyone need 20 years to consider a simple financial document?

Human memory is quite short. Once upon a time, a state governor appeared before the Assembly to present his budget speech. While he reeled out those jaw-breaking figures, a bullion van was stationed at the legislators’ parking lot, with the appropriate message, appropriately delivered. That budget was approved before the Governor was done with his presentation.

This column has forever been asking legislators to enact relevant legislations for a Budget Cycle, which will, among other things, compel stakeholders to submit and approve budgets within specific dates.

One central prognostication that ran across this Column in the passing year is the tendency for politicians and political parties to resort to the obnoxious practice of imposing candidates for the 2015 general elections. From the field reports we have so far, 2014 promises to be the year of GRAND IMPOSITION. The name has changed from imposition to automatic ticket.

Automatic ticket is the worst form of imposition. It is a ticket to the past; a return to atavism; and a sentence to mediocrity, or sometimes, outright imbecility. At whatever level it is perceived, it only succeeds in driving a death knell on the political parties and it is the shortest way of kissing democracy goodbye.

The agents are many and their methods are crude. You are better off ignoring them because you can’t beat them. Overnight, they turn those who disagree with them to enemies. They resort to smear tactics, mud slinging, insinuations and innuendos of all sorts. By the time they roll out the big bucks, as they are already doing, they purchase everything in sight, including enlarging their rigging apparatus and all that. This means that essentially, they will win the battle at the primaries, if any. But will they win the war? Truly, they may win the battle and lose the war! Time will tell.

At the very top, a situation where Party ‘A’ printed only a single nomination form for the multitude of aspirants who originally showed interest is not the best. What really is the difference between that and the theatricals now playing out in Zimbabwe? And a situation where a party’s incumbent Governors, Senators and possibly, members of the House of Representatives get automatic return tickets certainly portends danger for that party and the nation at large.

In all this, the only way to avert an impending disaster is to do what we preach – provide a level playing ground; let aspirants go out there and slug it out, devoid of any interference! Imposition, by whatever name, is evil and must be avoided like plague.

Lest we forget, we entered into the New Year with the State of the Nation Address Bill on President Goodluck Jonathan’s table, having been passed by both chambers of the National Assembly. At that time, Jonathan refused to give his assent to the Bill. We had seen the State of the National Address as an opportunity for the President to x-ray the political, economic and social health of the Nation.

What has happened to that Bill? Why has the National Assembly not been able to over-ride the President’s veto?

Letters, letters and more letters. That was how this column described the deluge of letters addressed to President Jonathan early this year. In his 18-page epistle, former President Olusegun Obasanjo fired the opening shots. This was promptly followed by the sharp, if only inconsistent, shots from then CBN Governor, Sanusi Lamido Sanusi.

We agreed at that time that when Sanusi told the President about the sum of $49.8 billion missing from the public till, he might have, in the African tradition, attempted to cast the proverbial stone on the roof, with a view to locating the actual position of the house owner.

Truly, the Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister of the Economy, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, has since accepted that “only $10.8 billion was unaccounted for”!

One year down the line, has the $10.8 billion (more than N1 trillion) been accounted for? And what makes it impossible to ever audit the NNPC account? That is the essence of this review that we are starting today.