Doors from Heaven

The Nigerian Communications
Commission (NCC) will be spending
N75 million this year to replace old
toilet doors, locks, repainting of fading
walls and provision of directional sign
posts to the Commission’s waiting
room and canteen. And then some
enemies who will never see anything
good in the Nigerian government – or
any of its agencies or parastatals –
have already begun crying wolf. One of
such enemies of good things is
Oyetunde Ojo, the Chairman of the
House Committee on Communication.
He was surprised that such an obscene
amount was budgeted by a
government agency for the
replacement of just toilet doors and
their locks and keys. His maze was
even compounded by the fact that the
budget was proposed after an
allocation of N28 million was made for
the same purpose in the budget of last
year. Plus, in the 2011 budget, the
Commission had proposed N60 million
for automation and changing of all
access doors of its head office building
in Abuja.
Poor Oyetunji Ojo, he needs some
tutorial on how to appreciate budgets.
And that I’ll give the honourable
lawmaker here and now.
For a Commission as strategic as NCC,
toilets are critical to their operations,
and in such high-profile toilets,
entrance and exit cannot be left to
chance. This is where doors, and the
need to replace them, come in. In a bid
to give the nation their best, those who
work in NCC need to constantly visit the
toilet, either to poo or wee. For some
people, inspiration comes from the
toilet. And while on the toilet seat, NCC
officials brainstorm on how to reduce
the high cost of call tariffs and network
congestion. To achieve these noble
objectives, the NCC management went
on a voyage to that realm where doors
won’t be prone to rust.
And where else can they get such
doors than Heaven, the sphere of
perfection? The existing ones that are
due for replacement – after just one
year – must have been bought from
the United States, UK or any of the
other countries which, in our clime, is
ranked next to heaven. We couldn’t
have dared use doors made of Nigerian
woods. If those made abroad could not
last beyond one year, then those made
of Nigerian woods can’t last beyond two
months. A good administrator thinks in
terms of conserving resources. Part of
this is to spend once, buy assets which
will last for the organization, and go
home relaxed.
You see why we need to quaff
expensive champagnes for Dr Eugene
Juwah – the Executive Vice Chairman
and Chief Executive Officer of NCC –
and his management team? They
thought about getting the best, and
they will be getting the perfect doors
from heaven.
Contrary to the hoopla in the media,
N75 million for doors made in heaven
isn’t exorbitant. Actually, the House of
Representatives has a moral and fiscal
obligation to jerk up that provision. A
door in heaven is made of gold, and an
ounce of gold, in heavenly currency,
isn’t at par with an unsubsidized litre of
Nigeria’s petrol. So, why the hoopla?
Has the House of Representatives
Committee on Communication
considered the cost of flying to heaven?
Have they also considered the
distance? Have they considered the
number of NCC officials who’ll be
involved in the journey for the
procurement of these doors?
When they arrive heaven, they’ll need
to move around, from St Joseph’s
Boulevard to St John’s Gate, and from
St Peter’s Estate to Mother Mary’s
Avenue. And to move about in heaven,
NCC officials won’t need their Jeeps or
Limousines. Those aren’t in use in
heaven. They’ll need golden wings with
which to fly around. And these golden
wings will be designed according to
their sizes, built to fit and hung on their
backs at exorbitant prices. It is for their
own sense of sacrifice that they even
didn’t include these costs in the
budget. They’ll be taking the trouble to
source for these funds from their
pockets. What have they done wrong?
Why on earth are Nigerians ungrateful?
And there is the cost of ferrying the
angels who’ll fix the doors back to
Nigeria. The enemies of NCC
mischievously avoided a mention of
this. Apart from transporting them to
Nigeria and back to heaven, we have
the angels’ service charge to pay. And
if you know how much it costs
multinationals to maintain their
expatriates from the United States,
India, China, Germany, Italy and
elsewhere in the world, then you’ll
appreciate how much it’ll cost NCC to
hire the services of angels from heaven
to earth. That is money; real money! Is
this too difficult to understand?
And Oyetunde Ojo continued in his bad
belle, raising an alarm unnecessarily
over the budget proposal of N25 million
as legal fees for a lawyer purportedly
drafting a bill, which he said was
already before the House and
sponsored by a member. The
Honourable Chairman doesn’t
understand that the bill has to be
redrafted to include how the heaven-
made doors will be used, and the
penalties that should face whoever gets
them damaged again. And only a
lawyer in heaven can handle that. It
must be in the heavenly chambers of
St Gani Fawehinmi who wouldn’t – for
any reason whatsoever – draft that bill
without collecting heavy amount of
money.
The NCC fraud proposal – christened
budget – underscores what I have
always said about the organized scam
called Nigeria. The most important job
those who run our affairs do in their
high offices is sitting down to plot how
to defraud us. And in spite of the
quality time they dedicate to their
fraudulent plots, you still don’t find any
jot of sophistication in their designs.
They conjure up figures and submit for
our approval. They dismiss all of us,
again without bothering themselves to
think it twice, as some bunch of retards
who think the moon is made of cheese.
Otherwise why would the same NCC
make a budgetary provision of N30
million for the replacement of old
furniture in spite of an allocation of N25
million for the same purpose last year;
or N10 million budget for replacement
of air conditioners despite an allocation
of N10 million in 2011 for same item?
But it isn’t just about the NCC. They
learnt how to prepare their proposal of
fraud from the presidency, the certified
headquarters of everything that is
opaque in budget preparation. It is
there that N1 billion was set aside for
just food in just one year.
Nigerians have long got accustomed to
absurdities and even more absurdities.
Wasn’t it in this country that a
government official opened a Facebook
account – which is free everywhere in
the world – with N1.2 million? But what
is that amount compared to the value
of 24 million liters of fuel –per day –
which Nigerians never used throughout
last year, but for which hundreds of our
billions were pocketed by the
privileged? In Nigeria, criminality in
government is not new. It is the rule.
Equally is the official patronage from
those who should sanitize the system.
Nobody should bother NCC with our
legendary show of ingratitude, please.
Not when we know our new set of toilet
doors will be imported from heaven –
the residence of God, the most
powerful, most merciful, and the
perfect one.
Nedunaija@gmail.com
Follow us on Twitter: @ekekeee