In far away China, a new year has just been celebrated. It is the year of the Red Fire Monkey. According to the Chinese five elements horoscope; the monkey contains metal and water. Metal is connected to gold while water is related  to wisdom and danger. The predication is that, this year the Chinese will deal with more financial events because of the elements contained in the Red Fire Monkey year. These are also judged through the characteristics of the monkey who is seen as smart, naughty, wily and vigilant. However, its metal symbol, unlike that of the monkey, is an associate of the wind. These translates that events, mostly financial in the year of the monkey, will change quickly. This calls for caution to all would be investors into the Chinese economy. Businesses, career and even relationships, as those born in the year of the monkey cannot be trusted because of their chameleonic lifestyles.
On the contrary, in the year of the rats, though people derogatorily consider them as not adorable, so many good things happen. The year of the rats ranks first on the Chinese zodiac signs. Rat has the characteristics of an animal with spirit, wit, and alertness. Although its a delicacy among the Tiv people in central Nigeria. Rats are known for flexibility and vitality. They are seen as quick-witted, resourceful and versatile. Having  strong intuition and quick response to adapt themselves into a new environment. It’s further revealed that with their imaginations and sharp observation, rats can take advantage of various opportunities very well. A strong curiosity that makes them try their hands at anything and they can deal with it skillfully.
It is the reason I have chosen this year, 2016 as the Nigerian year of the rats. But it is a different species of rats. Rats that apply their skills deceitfully and criminally in the presence of cats to pad up the budget of change. It is about soiling the new chapter of change with demonized faeces that seems to be sedating the glowing profile of the present administration. It infests it with maggots which unfortunately only chichidodos that hate faeces have the best knowledge of sanitizing. Until the Health Minister Isaac Adewole came up with the invisible rats slogan during his budget defense at the National Assembly, nobody knew that rodents could still be on the prowl when well equipped, highly trained, surveillance and dreaded cats are on duty in their natural habitats.
What is it about 2016 appropriation bill?
There is a lot about the budget; that is what you hear each time you dare to defend the bill and the All Progressive Congress administration in public places including beer parlors, saloons, sports betting shops and even while in commuter vehicles. There are plenty of unanswered questions and enquiries awaiting responses. Quite a number of people are in denial over the budget after applauding and adjudging it as the best thing that ever happened to Nigeria and Nigerians.  Many other Nigerians are at the mercy of analysts who know it all based on what they are fed with on the radio, television and newspapers, depending on the  biases of the mediums they defer to. However no matter how much we try to defend the budget it confronts us from all fronts with the seeming ineptitude and the ineffectual characteristics of this administration’s highly trusted civil service personnel and their temporal supervisors labeled today as noise makers. The arguments are centered on the so-called change mantra. Change, they say is a step up which should be for the better and not a retrogressive slide into the past.
The reason we cannot be acknowledging that change is here when the first national assignment of its apostles is fraught with irregularities, errors, suspicious and wasteful proposals. Deviating from the principle with which the administration campaigned for votes just to start toeing the paths journeyed by previous administrations of the People’s Democratic Party.
Before now, economic analysts, strategists and opinion poll held the government in contempt and scorn for its high degree of arrogance in predicating the 2016 budget on an oil benchmark of $38 despite lower oil price environment. The rats which are giving the health minister a real hard time with the outbreak of Lassa fever reared their heads again in his budget. Changing almost all that he inputted into it without due consultations with him.
It would also be applauded if the rats who padded the budget are identified as soon as possible for the purpose of transparency and prosecuted in the same vein with its anti-corruption fight to fortify the regime against any such unwarranted embarrassment and avoidable distractions of the types that are already under probe.
‘As a man of such a way’ like my people always say, it’s better to be meticulous in everything we do than to come out crying foul over collective mistakes on collective responsibility. This is the height of hypocrisy.

Twitter @MOkpogode. [myad]