The visit of Dr. Goodluck Jonathan, President and Commander-In-Chief Armed Forces of Nigeria to the Vatican on Saturday 22nd March 2014 was a great success.
Pope Francis I was the perfect host and was particularly warm to the First Lady of Nigeria, Dame Patience Jonathan.
The official reception went very smoothly and as is customary, the Holy Father granted a private audience to President Jonathan.
Thereafter, Dr. Rueben Abati, the Special Adviser of Media and Publicity to the President of Nigeria Dr. Goodluck Ebele Jonathan promptly issued a press statement which was carried on CNN.
“According to the statement by Reuben Abati, the Special Adviser to the President on Media and Publicity, the Pope, President Jonathan said, also assured him that he would continue to pray for God Almighty to bless the country and its people.
“My coming to see the Pope was to discuss issues, especially that of inter-faith dialogue which the Vatican has been promoting.
Also the Pope has been advocating that the world should do more to eradicate poverty and make sure that the ordinary people of this world are in a position to live more decent lives. The Pope is very dedicated to poverty alleviation and I also interfaced with him on how we can collaborate more with the Vatican on what we are already doing in this regard back home.”
It was not until Monday 24th March 2014, that the Vatican released a report in respect of the Pontiff’s activities for the previous week.
Sample, on Friday 21st March 2014, the Pope issued the following statement and spoke directly to the Italian mafia – repent or ‘end up in hell’:
“I feel that I cannot conclude without saying a word to the protagonists who are absent today – the men and women Mafiosi” he said, quietly but forcefully.
“Please change your lives. Convert yourselves. Stop doing evil.”
However, regarding the visit of the Nigerian President, the official statement was very terse. All it said was:
“The Holy Father invited the President of Nigeria to join him in prayers. The message of the Pontiff to the President was the same one he delivers to all visiting Presidents:“Support all those who are suffering.”
Since then, social medial has gone haywire. The first salvo was fired by a Nigerian lady:
“Regarding the invitation extended by President Jonathan to the Pope to visit Nigeria, presumably this is on account of the Vatican’s horror over the killing of Christian followers (particularly Catholics) and burning of churches as well as the sadness felt worldwide about the killings of innocent victims of senseless one-sided war by Boko Haram.
Man to man is so unjust.”
Another bullet was fired by a retired Nigerian Cardinal:
At this time we cannot but remember the Holy Bible genesis (6: 5-6) – “And GOD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.
And it repented the LORD that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart.”
When the Lord saw how wicked and evil the thoughts of men were, He was sorry that he had ever made them and put them on the earth.”
A professor of history at the University of Nsukka waded in:
“We are at the stage in our history where established truth of 2000 years is upon us and it is very sad.”
On Twitter, a student of the University of Lagos was in despair:
“Will the Pope’s coming stop Boko Haram? I don’t think so.”
A former Nigerian politician who is now in exile in Afghanistan twitted:
“Oh for a solution to end this blood-stained garment of our nation. Will the National Conference debate stop it or do we have to wait for the Pope?”
However that is not the end of the matter. “Premium Times” the on-line newspaper has sent the following debit alert to the Vatican:
Headline: “NIGERIAN FEDERAL LAWMAKERS SPEND N1.2 TRILLION AS POVERTY MOUNTS IN THE COUNTRY”
“The government has spent N150 billion yearly since 2011 to run the National Assembly. That will continue till 2016 – Nigerian federal lawmakers will retain a controversial yearly budget of N150 billion for at least two more years according to the government’s spending outlay, in yet another indication that the government is less bothered about curtailing a lavish habit, that has angered many Nigerians, who have called for cuts.
The vote, which has sparked outcry since its first approval in 2011, will remain in place as the cost of running the Nigerian National Assembly, for 2015 and 2016, according to the government’s Medium Term Expenditure Framework, despite a declining economic fortune that has already forced a cut in the total national budget from N4.9 trillion to N4.6 trillion in 2014.
The Nigerian Assembly is regarded as one of the world’s most expensive when measured against the standard of living of an average Nigerian, and the government’s total revenue and spending. The N150 billion annual spending was three percent of the entire federal budget in 2013, while the United States, for instance spent only 0.17 percent of its total budget to run its Congress for the same year.
Lawmakers have seized on the claim of a “meagre three percent” to argue how the allocation is nothing extraordinary, but have failed to defend the tens of millions of naira it translates to per senator or member of the House of Representatives, when more than 100 million Nigerians live on less than a dollar per day.
“The N150 billion budgeted to the National Assembly ….is only 3% of this year’s budget and not as big as it has been negatively publicized,” Senate spokesperson, Enyinnaya Abaribe, said last September during a protest march to the National Assembly by an anti-corruption coalition which demanded details of how the money was spent.
The Medium Term Expenditure document, which forms the groundwork for government’s budgets annually, says despite a reduction in national budget this year, the allocation for the lawmakers will remain the same for 2014, 2015 and 2016 – making it N1.2 trillion in six years.
J.K Randle
