The pressure mounts by the day. People call, text, inbox...get in touch through whatever medium they find. Most of them true friends with truer intentions and genuine concern, seeking information and clarifications on many blurred and rumoured issues. The pressure gets to a neck-breaking level after the presentation of the 2016 proposed budget estimates.
Others lace their enquiry with some degree of mischief: "Abdullahi, you kept us on our toes all through the the last four years of our (PDP) administration. You scrutinized every policy and decision of our government and came up with an annual report card of our performance. Why are you suddenly so silent? Now that your governor has presented the 2016 budget estimates, we expect to read your report card as usual". Now I'm even expected to mark my own answer sheets.
During the last administration, I was the Minority Leader. Leading only 3 other members. We were only four in the whole state. But Alhamdulillah, we were able to keep them in check, as they confessed. Thank God we made such an impact on their government that they are now willing to hire me to do their job for them. They want me to continue to shoulder the responsibility destiny has squarely placed on their shoulders. Destiny has switched our positions. With that also come a switch in our responsibilities.
You see, democracy, at least in my understanding, consists of two distinct groups with two distinct responsibilities. The party in government with the responsibility of coming up with policies and decisions for the benefit of the society. The second group are the parties in opposition whose responsibility is to critically analyse, objectively criticize those policies and decisions of the party in government and eventually come up with alternative solutions to the problems of the society. And that was exactly what I tried to do when I was the Minority Leader.
As I stated above, destiny has switched our positions. It has given me your earlier responsibilities and also gave you mine. It's now my responsibility to come up with the decisions while you do the analysis and the criticism.
So, I expect to see a report card detailing the performance of our government from you. And please don't chicken out and break the tradition. The people lean a lot from it.
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