Must We Pad Everything?

 

 

 

 

 

Must We Pad Everything?

Politics and politicking have ways of turning almost all good ideas into ash. The youth empowerment programme of the Muhammadu Buhari administration targeted at mitigating the unwholesome effects of unemployment among that segment of the populace may yet be one of those well-intentioned policy thrusts that, if care is not taken, will be ruined by undue political interference not by the government itself but by hangers-on around the corridors of power.
Youth unemployment was a key issue in the 2015 electioneering campaign and then candidate Muhammadu Buhari had promised that his administration would implement social welfare programmes for the vulnerable in the society if elected. As part of his commitment to make good that promise to empower young Nigerians through social investment, he initiated the N-Power programme designed to help young Nigerians acquire and develop life-long skills. The four main focus areas are in primary and secondary education, agriculture, public health and community education (civic and adult education).
For a start, N-Power rolled out a 500,000 job scheme in those target areas with the office of the Vice President as the clearing house. That office cannot do everything on its own, even if it wants to, and that is where the hangers-on come in to take an undue advantage of an otherwise noble cause.

There are beginning to emerge from the exercise to choose the 500,000 candidates complaints that the process of selecting that figure is less than transparent as padding (that word again) is suspected to have infiltrated the records. The controversy is already raging though not yet on a scandalous level. However, there are reports of fictitious names in odd places. The allegation is rife that politicians (who else?) are transplanting their candidates to areas they believe will be easier to manipulate.
The worry really, according to these reports, is not just that Okechukwu, Abimbola and Etuk have suddenly become indigenes of Chibok. It is that those names may not be real and are put there by someone with the intention of using them to corner the N30, 000 stipend the federal government earmarked for participants in the programme. Some players in the simmering scam have dismissed the reports as speculative. We sincerely hope so because judging by past experiences, nothing is beyond the political class in their quest to maximise the benefits of being in government and in power.
We recall that at the inception of this administration, the rot created by ghost workers and ghost projects was all too pervasive. The country was alarmed at the rate at which our so called leaders applied a deliberate negative mind set to corruptly drain resources that would have been channelled to public good. Soon after, there was the scandal of budget padding at levels that benumbed the senses. Let us, for now, leave out the disgrace that is the management of the Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) camps that has not only embarrassed whatever decency is left in us as Nigerians but has left the international community wondering if we are, indeed, human.
The outcry of Nigerians, dimmed by the altercations among the partners in the padding crime in the National Assembly as to the extent of their involvement, is still very much in the public domain and someone is trying to side step it to further complicate the harrowing experiences of the unemployed youth. What we cannot understand is why the powers that be are insisting that the exercise was transparent with the reports of proven phoney deals. Again, it boils down to politics and the tendency to reduce such malfeasance as a family affair. And the sore continues to fester.
In our opinion, it takes us to the capacity of the average member of the political class for mischief. We have seen their counterparts in the civil society organisations and other non-governmental organisations collude with a section of the civil service to exploit the pains and anguish of their compatriots for pecuniary gains. Is that appropriate? Ill-will, borne out of unrestrained materialism, in our view, ought to have its limit.

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