Like the pelican, he shines brilliantly again. The venue was the National Assembly, where he went to present the 2019 proposed budget- a feat he had consistently carried out since three years. His predecessor only faced the assemblymen once! Dressed in resplendently white robe, he walked into the hallowed chamber with immaculate strides admiring cheers and jeers from the lawmakers.
In ramrod posture, he took the national anthem as he began his address thus,’Auzubillahi minnal shatani rajinn’ sealing and blinding any intended evil principalities. With the naysayers caged, he went on to reel out his achievements in the foregoing year. For every good thing he said, he was greeted with cacophony chants of discord. Obviously paranoid with all he has achieved within a short time and with little resources, they fummed and regurgitated in venom. To them, he should never speak, for he has done the unusual. He has halted their ruins, no more the traditional Ghana must go overture, padding disappeared from our budgetary lexicon and constituency projects ceased to be. He has stepped on the tigers’ tail and in the belly of the tiger he must reign, forgetting that the man is himself a hunter who hunts even lions.
With sustained rapidity to provoke the man, they continue in their childish taunts, one was strategically positioned by the booming microphone to chant Ole!Ole!!Ole!!!. Push came to shove and the president had to pause and address them the way truant school kids would be addressed. With the calmness of an enigma, he poured them these chilling words, ‘The world is watching you, we have grown above this. You should comport yourselves.’. That was a leader speaking in coated wisdom to men and women wearing the mask of distinguished and honourable.
While this descration of the hallowed chamber was going on, the two leaders with no potent control of their colleagues watched in fascinating dexterity. To them, the white horse was being humiliated, forgetting that it is an indictment on their leadership to invite the president of Nigeria to such an embracing embarrassment. His offence was to honour them when he could have delegated his finance minister to do the presentation, like it was the tradition during the reign of Goodluck Jonathan. For being a good man who respects constituted authority, he was rewarded with scorn, spits and boos. Only agberos do this, and the National Assembly have them in numbers.
A president came to present a nation’s budget on the floor of the legislative arm of government to representatives of the people. Instead of hearing him talk, they booed and jeered him for carrying his duty. Is the national assembly now a campaign or voting ground where lawmakers give verdict on who wins or lose election? I thought the nation’s budget is a working template of governance for both APC and PDP members who are representatives of Nigerians? Whether we like it or not, what happened at the national assembly was a low one for the 8th assembly. Whatever ounce of respect the world had for them vanished into the trash bin of indecency. It was Buhari that wasn’t maligned but the office of the President, Federal Republic of Nigeria.
As always, the whites horse came out more stainless from the assemblage of agberoes. Immaculately musing
Abdullahi O.Haruna Haruspice
