The Trillion Naira President Who Doesn’t Give A Damn

President Goodluck Jonathan is madly in love with the word “trillion”, and he doesn’t give a damn about what we think. He is the first Nigerian president to achieve the trillion naira mark in subsidy payments that were taken to the level of a business by the stark knaving President Olusegun Obasanjo. Before Jonathan became president, the subsidy payments had always stood between N200 billion and N300 billion per year. But, within one year, Jonathan had spent a princely N2.6 trillion. But it is also understandable. Fuel consumption usually increases dramatically geometrically in an election year. And 2011 was a particularly fuel-consuming election year, if you know what I mean.
But, you know, when people attain the trillion naira mark, they want to maintain that level of achievement. That must be why, by June this year, Jonathan had already spent N450 billion on payment of arrears for subsidies and had not even started paying the more than N880 billion budgeted for subsidy this year, which, trust me, Jonathan would exhaust by December 31, this year. That means the minimum Jonathan will expend on subsidy payment this year, again, is N1.3 trillion. That is, even though subsidy has been removed from diesel and kerosene. So while the man who shared bribes to National Assembly members to procure a third term for himself spent an average of N300 billion annually on subsidy payments, including the subsidy on kerosene, our own Jonathan continues to spend trillions annually even with the total removal of subsidy on kerosene and diesel and the substantial removal of petrol subsidy in January this year. So, you see why the president doesn’t give a damn?
Another Jonathan trillion naira achievement is in the new level of crude oil theft. Before our own Jonathan came to power, the hoodlums that used to steal Nigeria’s crude oil had only modest achievements, but, since the coming of Jonathan, they have not had it so good. Their business has picked up. There was a decided spike in the incidences of stolen oil with the ascension of Jonathan. But that is understandable: he doesn’t give a damn. With the coming of Jonathan, oil thieves have been able to improve their business to about 400,000 barrels per day. With that kind of quantity stolen daily, that would be over N2 trillion in a year stolen from that sector alone.
Then, it emerged last week that, within one year after Jonathan became president, Nigeria’s debt had risen by N1.21 trillion. Maybe these are the trillion naira skills that Pastor Tunde Bakare saw and he concluded that Jonathan’s destiny was to bankrupt Nigeria. But Bakare misses the point. The president doesn’t just give a damn.
Then, there is the iniquity of stealing billions of naira meant for pensioners. So far, the president appears to be aware of that because he has not said anything about it. Or, maybe he doesn’t give a damn about this one also. So far, almost everyone has been beating about the bush on the matter and has not touched the substance. Which is that, one, the bulk of the money was also stolen during the election year and, two, a former head of service who was not a career civil servant before becoming the head of service and who is still neck-deep in Jonathan’s government is the main person the Jonathan government should be questioning. But, of course, the president doesn’t give a damn. That won’t happen. At least not under Jonathan.
Now that we know our president doesn’t give a damn, we should not bother him about the problems of the country anymore. He doesn’t give a damn about what we think about him. That much is clear. He doesn’t give a damn about Boko Haram and other security-related issues. That one is our problem. He would not visit Maiduguri because the airport is not good, even though two flights operate from there daily. He doesn’t give a damn about what happens to all our schools and our hospitals. He doesn’t give a damn about corruption, but there is one case of corruption I think he should give a damn: it was recently reported that even money meant for servicing the presidential air fleet is occasionally “diverted”. He needs to very seriously give a damn about that one.
There are many, many Nigerians who are very angry that the president of the Federal Republic of Nigeria would use such language as, “I don’t give a damn”. The president also doesn’t give a damn about that one. In fact, if you are too upset, you can go hug a transformer. He still wouldn’t give a damn. I don’t know why people are upset anyway. We are in fact lucky that the president didn’t say “I don’t give a s..t!” Or, worse still, “I don’t give a f..k!” How many people still don’t know that Jonathan can say anything? Don’t try the president please.
 
Postscript 
NYSC Postings
Why should anyone be surprised that some NYSC members have rejected postings to certain states. If President Jonathan himself is afraid of going to some states as commander-in-chief, should we not be surprised if the NYSC kids had done otherwise? If the president had shown leadership and gone to Borno, Yobe and some other affected areas not only to assure the people in those areas that his government was still in charge but also the world that he was firmly in charge of the entire territory of Nigeria and had not ceded some parts to terrorists, these young men and women would have been more confident to go to such places to work and live. See what a failure of leadership can cause?
EARSHOT
We Have Lost Our Soul
Just when you thought we had sunk to the lowest, something you would never think was possible happens. The attack, yesterday, of Senator Gyang Dantong and Hon. Gyang Danfulani, the majority leader of the Plateau State House of Assembly, that led to the deaths of the lawmakers and several other innocent people during the mass burial of the scores who had similarly been murdered in cold blood only a few hours earlier and the reprisal attacks that followed should frighten all of us. This is happening in Barkin Ladi local government area, one of the LGAs in which President Goodluck Jonathan had supposedly declared a state of emergency. Nigerians need to be frightened about the direction their country is going. There is a total failure of leadership at both the federal and state levels. President Jonathan must halt this drift immediately.