By Ray Ekpu
Quite a number of
knowledgeable people have commented favourably on the 2018 budget recently
presented by President Muhammadu Buhari to the National Assembly. In particular
they are enthused by the size of the budget, N8.612 trillion, which is 30% over
and above the 2017 budget. But the thrill lies more in the fact that N2.43
trillion will be devoted to capital expenditure. This is about 30.8% of the
budget, a strong indication that the government is showing an equally strong
commitment to the development of critical infrastructure.
But this thrill is diminished by two factors
(a) all our budgets always have a very low actual implementation regime. They
end up as mere paper projects (b) the thrill is also diminished by the threat
of the Niger Delta Avengers (NDA) to do considerable damage to our oil
infrastructure because of the Federal Government’s failure to live up to the
promises it made to the Niger Delta people. The Avengers who have the same acronym
as the Nigerian Defence
Academy, an institution for the
training of Nigeria’s
armed forces personnel, had observed a ceasefire for the past one year based on
the optimism that was fueled by Buhari’s meeting with Niger Delta leaders on
November 1 last year. The group called Pan Niger Delta Forum (PANDEF) led by
such eminent Niger Deltans as Chief Edwin Clark, King Alfred Diete-Spiff and
Obong Victor Attah had submitted a 16-point shopping list to Buhari for
implementation.
