By Polycarp Onwubiko
Punch Editorial March 28, 2024 captioned:
“Tinubu’s new infrastructure plan“, in a tribalistic and nepotistic bent wants Nigerians to hail president Tinubu for adding another bogus, newly fangled parastatal named: RENEWED HOPE INFRASTRUCTURE DEVELOPMENT FUNDS, RHIDF, geared towards tackling critical infrastructures namely: East-West road, Manbilla Hydro electricity, Lagos-Calabar coastal high way, and Eastern Rail”.
Nothing can be farther than funny; Nigeria is a curious study in groping in the dark in governance. This is a president that directed the implementation of Steve Oronsaye Report on scrapping of surplus agencies, parastatals and merging of ministries ostensibly to drastically minimus the ever ballooning cost of governance.
Tribalism and nepotism being the bane of development in Nigeria, Punch Editorial degenerated to the gutter level to support its own president Tinubu’s weird parastatal RHDF by brazenly saying as follows:
“A parastatal targeted at constructing capital projects without the notorious delays associated with budgeting and bureaucracy. The president’s intent resonates with Nigerians of all hues (shameful lies ) , but it requires a great deal of transparency, skill and ingenuity for it to succeed (is that so?).
“With target of N20 trillions as seed capital (of course local and foreign borrowing like ke Pension Fund Scheme, Sovereignty Welfare Funds, etc), the RHDF aims to focus on critical infrastructures like East-West road, Manbilla Hydro electricity, Lagos-Calabar coastal high way, and Eastern Rail”.
***Comment:
Nigerians should not be surprised for a devastating volte-face in their lofty expectations for a sane and sanitized Nigeria piloted by a southern president, Tinubu. This is because Tinubu while in his election campaign made it clear that as APC presidential candidate he would continue the ‘good’ work of president Buhari.
By this curious RHDF,a death nail has been hammered into the Restructuring (aka: devolution of powers) expectations of the middle belt ethnic nationalities and the entire people of the southern part of the country. Wait a bit: are you expecting state police? Please you better go and prepare for more kidnapping for humor ransom, raping, destruction of farmers products, Christian worship centres, and mindlessly slaughtering of indigenous people for territorial expansion and occupying by terrorists masquerading as herdsmen imported from the Sahel region of West Africa preparatory for the age long devious plan for Islamization agenda.
What you will get is the socalled Constitution Amendments ostensibly to favour the northern elites who stridently kicked against Restructuring the lopsided Federation and hate with passion mult level policing system as obtained in sane and sanitized Federations the world over.
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Polycarp Onwubiko writes from Awka Anambra state.
