Following criticism of the federal government’s plan to spend N16.4 billion on the celebrations of Nigeria’s golden independent jubilee, President Goodluck Jonathan yesterday slashed the anniversary budget to N9.5 billion.

The adjustments are included in the latest amended supplementary budget, which the president presented to the National Assembly for consideration and passage.

In a letter to the National Assembly conveying his intentions, the president listed the areas which the cuts affected, and said it was a “slight amendment.”

Contrary to widely circulated reports that the president,earlier presented a budget of N10 billion for approval by the National Assembly for its Nigeria @ 50 celebrations, the figures from the former supplementary budget shows that the actual figure that was budgeted for the event was N16.37 billion.

Notwithstanding the heavy criticism the misconstrued N10 billion budgets for the golden jubilee got, the new budget is just N500 million less; totalling just a little above N9.5 billion.

What changed?

The recurrent expenditure subhead, which was formerly supposed to gulp N9.3 billion for different one-off expenses distributed across the office of the secretary to the federation, ministry of foreign affairs, information and communications ministry, and the women affairs ministry, was cut down to N6.804 billion.

One major area affected by the cut was the office of the secretary to the government of the federation, whose earlier budget of N6.396 billion was slashed to N3.324 billion.

The publication of compendium on the executives, legislature, and the judiciary, and the organisation of international friendly football match, which was initially meant to guzzle N800 million, was dropped entirely.

However, designing and hosting of the Nigeria @ 50 website for 2 years will still cost N6 million, anniversary logo - N30 million, and anniversary parade, including march past, fleet review, aerial display - N950 million.

Other subheads under the office of the secretary to the government of the federation that were dropped include: memory tone at Tafawa Balewa Square - N40 million, support to Nigerian Village in South Africa during the 2010 World Cup - N100 million, and cultural, historical, and military exhibitions - N310 million.

The plans by the ministry of foreign affairs to use N600 million to organise celebrations for Nigerian missions abroad were retained, while the information and communication ministry’s plan to use N1.2 billion to insert special reports on Nigeria in local and international media was cut down to N1 million.

The women affairs ministry retained its budget of N105 million for seminars for women and children, and 50th anniversary party for 1000 children. The children’s party will cost N20 million - N20 000 for each child. Meanwhile, the National Assembly got N100 million as support for the third ordinary session of the pan-African parliament.

The standalone N1 billion put down for the provision of uniforms for uniformed services like Army, Air Force, Police, Customs, Immigration, Prisons, in the former budget was dropped too.

The capital budget subhead, which was formerly supposed to guzzle up to N7.069 billion, was slashed to N2.682 billion.

Construction of a Golden Jubilee plaza at N2.65 billion was dropped totally, while the carpets at the International Conference Centre will still be replaced with N100 million. The ministry of aviation will still use N2.25 billion for the celebration; N1 billion for the renovation of the Abuja airport, N1 billion for the provision of additional parking, and N250 million equipment for safe aircraft parking at five airports.

The national stadium and velodrome, which was initially supposed to cost N197 million, now has a budget of N120 million.

Nothing to celebrate

Even the incorrect perception that only N10 billion was budgeted for the celebration was heavily criticised by both civil society organisations and politicians - including senators of the ruling Peoples’ Democratic Party (PDP).

“This is just appropriating money for some people to siphon,” Andrew Babalola (PDP, Oyo State) had argued before the Senate last week. Osita Izunaso (PDP, Imo State) also argued that since Nigeria gained independence, the country has not achieved any meaningful progress that will justify such ostentatious celebrations.

“Nigeria at 50, to me, has not achieved anything worthy of celebration,” he said.

Although the difference between the former budget for the celebration with the latest is about N7 billion, the difference between the new budget and the erstwhile perception is half a billion naira, which analysts say will make it difficult for the lawmakers to understand and assent.

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