Call Me
Countries' Counter
My Cities' Counter
Much Ado about Nothing
If you think that the Nigerian National Assembly is a veritable theatre for the absurd, you wouldn’t be too far from the truth when the actions that transpire in those halls are brought into glaring view. Barring the fact that members of this Assembly spend a huge chunk of their time divvying up salacious sums of money rather than deliberating on the real issues of the day, you may have to whistle in surprise when you hear that recently a plenary session of the Senate spent their (oh so important) time debating on something actually “meaningful”—whether the spraying of Naira notes during events should be considered lawful or not.
“Oti oo, abeg, no tell me say dem want outlaw owambe. Abegi oo… wetin dem want make people spray for events? No be say effribody fit carry checkbook for pocket naw. See me see wahala oo!” sounds like an outburst you would hear on the senate floor as these senators engaged themselves in crucial deliberations on thorny issues that have bedeviled the most populous black nation on earth.
So now you ask “Is there anything wrong with discussing whether it is legal to spray some naira notes”
Well for starters….
I think that a country which until quite recently had a president scheming on some way to maneuver himself back into power at the expiration of his constitutionally-mandated 2 terms; or a country where there is little or no preparation for elections in 2007 despite the over-imaginative pronouncement of Mr Iwu the country’s head for the Independent National Electoral Commission; where, despite the cries of a segment of her population (Bakassi), Obasanjo’s government has with a little prodding and cheers now earmarked Bakassi for ‘sale’ to the Cameroonians as recompense for some Civil war agreements—such a country cannot possibly do worse. After all, it was in that same senate that people found time to debate bills on whether the pathetic, stealing but living scoundrels who have all but rendered Nigeria comatose during their stints as Nigerian Heads of State should be paid remuneration, pension, or social security. Let us not talk about the death traps we have for roads—one of the senators met his untimely death on one of these roads. I will say nothing about the hospitals, public transport, potable water, or even constant electrical power.
This has to be a very subdued and incompetent National Assembly judging by their trite preoccupation in the hallowed halls of congress! I can only congratulate them for having the presence of mind and the decency to let calm heads prevail on the issue. Like someone remarked in the news article …“ we have our culture and this does not go well with our culture” Besides, I really can’t seem to find out how spraying “worthless” sums of naira in Nigerian events would hurt anyone. Neither can I see how doing that will jeopardize any structural reforms at the Central Bank with regards to the local currency. I wager that if you try to reason about it too, you will be hard-pressed to come up with a general circumstance in which the spraying of Naira notes will of its own constitute a source of great discouragement to would-be foreign investors.
Come on, those guys truly deserve an empty vacation, so that when they come back, they would be armed to the teeth with pressing concerns. This could perhaps be the catalyst to throw up important bills for debate. For now, if you want to sew a bedcover from the naira you have amassed, do that, lay your egotistical head on your bed, and get your tormented senator body a long, sound refreshing sleep!
