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Vanguard, THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 24, 2022 —17
Buhari women, poverty and budget padding
TWO stories broke in the last one week
that tend to amplify the fact that President
Muhammadu Buhari’s goal of running
Nigeria completely aground continues apace
even as his administration, on the home stretch,
and its vuvuzelas, continue to play the ostrich.
First, the National Bureau of Statistics, NBS,
disclosed on November 17, that 133 million
Nigerians are multi-dimensionally poor. That
represents about 63 per cent of the estimated
population of about 218 million people.
Ordinarily, this information shouldn’t
surprise anyone considering that Nigeria had
adorned the infamous 'World Poverty Capital'
badge since 2018. World Bank data had shown
since 2016 that four in every ten Nigerians live
below the poverty line of $1.9 per day. Two
years later, the country was declared world’s
poverty capital by the Brookings Institution,
knocking off India from the inglorious perch.
The Brookings’ report said: “At the end of May
2018, our trajectories suggest that Nigeria had
about 87 million people in extreme poverty,
compared with India’s 73 million. What is
more, extreme poverty in Nigeria is growing
by six people every minute, while poverty in
India continues to fall.”
The numbers climbed up to 93.9 million
people in 2021 with Mr. Bismarck Rewane,
Managing Director, Financial Derivatives
Company, FDC, Limited, and a member of
Buhari’s Economic Advisory Council, EAC,
quoting a World Bank data, which stated that
seven million Nigerians fell into extreme
poverty in 2020. That was grim. The
government always pooh-poohs such reports,
accusing international organisations of bad
faith, while flaunting the so-called wonders of
the Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster
Management and Social Development.
That’s why the NBS report matters. It is a
government agency statutorily mandated to
v e r i f y ,
approve,
administer
and publish
b a s i c
national
statistical
data. No one
can accuse it
of bad faith.
T h e
Multidimensional
Poverty Index,
It is absurd that an
expenditure by a
ministry was defined
as non-budgetary,
but with this
government,
impunity is the name
of the game
MPI, offers a multivariate form of poverty
assessment, which identifies deprivations
across health, education, living standards, etc.
According to the NBS Statistician-General,
Semiu Adeniran, a sample size of over 56,610
people in 109 senatorial districts in the 36 states
of Nigeria, was used in the survey – the first
time the agency will conduct a standard
multidimensional poverty survey in Nigeria.
The United Nations Resident Humanitarian
Coordinator in Nigeria, Matthias Schmale,
who revealed the findings from the report, said
63 per cent of Nigerians are multidimensionally
poor. The Buhari government
had always claimed that the Ministry of
Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management
and Social Development was doing wonders
in alleviating poverty when Nigerians know
that to the contrary, the ministry has become a
cesspit of corruption.
Little wonder no eyebrows were raised when
a few days after the NBS report, the second
news broke that the minister, Mrs. Sadiya
Umar Farouq, disowned the N206 billion
inserted into the ministry’s 2023 budget
allegedly by the Ministry of Finance, Budget
and National Planning.
On Monday, Farouq told the Senate
Committee on Special Duties that the fund,
meant to implement projects for the North East
Development Commission, NEDC, was
inserted in the budget after a similar request
in 2022 was not released. A member of the
committee, Senator Elisha Abbo, told the
minister to give details of the projects to be
executed with the N206 billion.
“In 2023, you intend to borrow N206 billion
for some projects. What are the projects to be
implemented and are they captured in the
Medium-Term Expenditure Framework? If
they are, what are the specific project locations
and activities?” the lawmaker from Adamawa
State asked, not knowing that he had,
unwittingly, opened a Pandora’s Box. Farouq,
who didn’t show any sign of surprise, either,
simply shrugged her shoulders and washed
her hands off the smelly scandal. “Yes, we made
mention of the projects for 2022, part of it was
for the North East Development Commission,
NEDC. The money was not released and now
we have seen it recurring by almost 10 folds,”
she told the bewildered lawmakers.
“We are also going to clarify from the
Ministry of Finance to know why this increase
in spite of the fact that the previous year, the
money was not even released for the projects.
So, we will get the details, then send it to you.”
On the upscaling of the National Social Safety
Net project, she said: “I cannot really give full
details of how this amount is going to be utilised
because it is something that was negotiated
between the Ministry of Finance and World
Bank.” Isn’t it scandalous that a minister is
claiming ignorance of her ministry’s budget
proposals and to what use the money will be
deployed if approved?
The Senate Committee resolved to summon
the Minister of Finance, Mrs. Zainab Ahmed,
to explain what she intended to do with the
N206 billion she unilaterally inserted, if
Farouq is to be believed, into the ministry’s
budget. But that is where the problem lies –
absolute trust deficit. Nothing said or done by
the Buhari government can pass the test of
credibility. It is all subterfuge and deceit. It
will not be a surprise if Zainab Ahmed throws
her hand in the air tomorrow, claiming
ignorance of the “ten-fold” budget padding.
And I dare say that when that happens, nothing
will happen. There will be no consequence.
The ‘Buhari women’ are sacred cows –
untouchable and above the law. Like the young
man in Igbo folklore who kicks the door open
when sent on a stealing expedition by his father,
the Buhari women act with impunity, knowing
full well that they have their principal’s back.
During the 2021 budget defence, lawmakers
in the House of Representatives raised
eyebrows over the Humanitarian Affairs
Ministry’s extra-budgetary spending and the
incomplete budget documents submitted by
Farouq. Of course, it is absurd that an
expenditure by a ministry was defined as nonbudgetary,
but with Buhari, impunity is the
name of the game. The minister got away with
the explanation that the “non-budgetary
expenditure” was a special intervention fund
by the President under the so-called
Conditional Cash Transfer programme.
The sad thing is that these funds being spent
recklessly, without any iota of accountability –
literally stolen – are monies that are borrowed
on behalf of all Nigerians. Here is a man who
promised that the overall economic target of
his government was to lift 100 million
Nigerians out of poverty in 10 years. In his
2021 Democracy Day speech, he claimed
without any evidence that his government had
lifted 10.5 million Nigerians out of poverty
between June 2019 and June 2021.“In the last
two years we lifted 10.5 million people out of
poverty – farmers, small-scale traders, artisans,
market women and the like. I am very
convinced that this 100 million target can be
met and this informed the development of a
National Poverty Reduction with Growth
Strategy. The specific details of this accelerated
strategy will be unveiled shortly,” he said on
June 12, 2021.
Now, a government agency is putting a lie to
his harebrained claims. Rather than lifting 100
million people out of poverty, we now know
that under Buhari’s watch, 133 million people
have been sucked into the septic tank of poverty.
At the end of the day, the much-maligned, selfexiled
Diezani Alison-Madueke, former
Minister of Petroleum Resources, who is
currently being paraded as the poster-girl of
corruption, warts and all, will be canonized
when held in the mirror of probity with the
Buhari women. Time will tell.
Writers, see your readers as customers
SOME business owners
thrive on content
creation to attract prospects to
their business. A large bulk of
content creation hinges on
writing for prospective clients.
This week’s article focuses on
how business owners or their
representatives can write in a
way that appeals to their
readers because they are their
customers. There ought to be a
conversational manner
deployed to keep the flow of
writing interactive and fun to
read. To succeed in doing this,
think about what you would appreciate if you
were the one savouring the content. The need
to have fellow feeling and compassion as you
write for your audience cannot be
overemphasized. For one thing, putting
yourself in the shoes of your readers forces you
to think about several things you ought to do
as you write. For example, think about the
recipients of your business document. Your
ability to categorise your readers helps you to
know how to write for them – you can consider
their language ability, level of education,
media preference, age, etc. This greatly helps
you in tailoring custom made content that
suits their purpose and interest. Because your
primary goal lies in effectively communicating
and selling your brand, you want to do so in a
way that would appeal to their hearts and move
them to action, and one thing to do to achieve
this is to keep things short and simple.
Keeping things short and simple entails that
in writing you do not bore your readers with
verbose and irrelevant details. There are some
kinds of writing that you should by all means
avoid. Kindly do not use two negatives in one
sentence because not everyone understands
that double negatives in one sentence means
that the sentence is positive. What I mean is
that in a sentence such as ‘I do not think that
you dislike her’, I actually mean that ‘I think
that you like her’! How about ‘They project
that it is unlikely that the dollar won’t continue
to rise against the Naira’? This, in other words,
means it is likely the dollar will continue to
rise against the dollar. Did you find that a bit
confusing too? And have you heard people use
double negatives
when they really By all means then,
mean the aim to avoid the use
negative? So
why use the of negatives as
double negatives much as you
which could be
confusing to possibly can in your
your readers? writing
Consider also
the next example: ‘It was not without some
struggles that he achieved his victory.’ Wouldn’t
it have been much easier for the reader to
understand the point if the writer had this as ‘It
was with some struggles that he achieved his
victory’? By all means then, aim to avoid the
use of negatives as much as you possibly can
in your writing. Yet another strategy for writing
and appealing faster to your audience is the
use of simple expressions. With simplicity
saturating your writing, you always impress
your readers. Verbose and redundant
expressions do not appeal to most people.
Imagine sending out a business letter and your
receiver – your client – has to check their
dictionary (or Google) for the meaning of
words! That’d be a disaster for your business!
Granted, there is technical jargon that suits
the purpose of certain professions. That
notwithstanding, feel free to switch things up
and explain what the jargon means if you fear
that your reader may not understand its use.
Undoubtedly, some people believe that to
impress others they need to use highfalutin –
pompous or pretentious – expressions. This is
in a bid to earn the respect of others, but most
times the opposite is the case. Who wouldn’t
prefer to be written to in a manner that makes
them understand even difficult and rather
complex concepts? I’m sure you would!
Imagine receiving a court judgment riddled
with lots of jargon and old-fashioned
expressions! How does that help the client at
all? Many people nowadays prefer writers who
keep it simple, understandable, and easy to
act upon.
One last strategy I share with you here is
that of constructing your writing mostly in the
active voice. In the English language, we have
the active and the passive voice in writing. My
intention here is not to bore you with technical
jargon! But I do want you to appreciate what
both uses can do for your writing and how the
use of the active voice will facilitate your
reaching your readers’ heart quicker. For one
thing, use of the active voice means that the
subject of the sentence performs the action of
the verb. Its use is precise and unambiguous
to the reader – they can easily tell who is doing
what in the sentence. To illustrate: ‘The CEO
of Build-Well Integrated Services, Mr
Uchechukwu Oji, commended his staff
members for their diligence and dedication
to the company.’ From the sentence you can
identify the subject as ‘The CEO of Build-Well
Integrated Services’ – to identify the subject of
your sentence, simply ask the question ‘who/
what verb(s) or verb(ed); in this case, we ask,
‘Who commended his staff members for their
diligence and dedication to the company?’ The
answer we get is the subject of the sentence/
verb.It is thus clear, isn’t it, that the one who
performed the action of commending is the
CEO. And just from reading the sentence –
because it is written in the active voice – the
point is easily taken.
On the contrary, use of the passive voice
means that the subject of the sentence is acted
upon or receives the action of the verb. The
construction often takes a ‘by the …’ form where
the agent that performs the action is placed. I
often say to my students that people who in
writing like to hide agency – that is the one(s)
performing the action – use the passive voice.
The drawback is that your reader does not
connect much with you when you passivise
your sentence. They may judge you as trying
to withhold information from them! Let’s see
an example of a passive sentence: ‘The
secretary was laid off by the Human Resources
manager.’ In this sentence, the focus is on the
secretary being laid off. The secretary is the
subject of the sentence because it answers the
question, ‘Who was laid off by the Human
Resources manager?’ Do you, however, notice
that this sentence structure pays less attention
to who did the laying off?
Yes, the focus is on the receiver of the action.
Additionally, some passive sentences
completely remove the agent that perform the
action: ‘Three hundred billion Naira was
stolen from the Accountant General’s office.’
Now, we do not know who did the stealing. A
reader may be absolutely confused and not
know what to make out of such information.
In other cases, however, some deliberately use
the passive voice to hide information that isn’t
necessary for public consumption: ‘An apology
has been sent to the public’ as opposed to ‘The
president has apologised to the public.’ In
order to avoid a blame-game or to avoid
exposing the wrongdoing of an elite, the
passive voice is deployed. This may lead
people to worry less about the doer and focus
more on the action.
•Dr. Oji is a Senior Lecturer of English
at the Institute of Humanities, Pan-
Atlantic University, Lagos