We don’t need #SuggestionBox, critics tell Saraki

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The Senate President, Dr. Bukola Saraki, is in the news again for another ‘battle’. The ‘fight’, this time, has nothing to do with his disagreement with the leadership of his political party, All Progressives Congress, or any other political group.

The battle the number three citizen in the country is currently facing has to do with some social media critics who are quarrelling with the suggestion boxes he inaugurated in Abuja.

Saraki on Tuesday, during a glamorous ceremony held at the National Assembly, unveiled suggestion boxes, describing the event as a “watershed moment.”

In a statement posted on his social media pages and website, he said, “Today, the eighth Senate marks another watershed moment in our vision to take lawmaking back to the people with the symbolic launching of the Senate President’s Suggestion Box.

“Many may ask what we seek to achieve with this launch and wonder the correlation between the suggestion box and making laws. For the eighth Assembly, this event ticks all the boxes in terms of our vision, which is to ensure that laws we make impact on our peoples’ lives.

“Again, we promised the Nigerian people that this eighth Senate would be different, that we would do things differently. Some thought we were playing rhetoric but our footprints are everywhere, clearly showing that we mean what we are saying.”

The upper chamber had unveiled several photographs containing three boxes with a green-white ribbon tied on each.

But the social media enthusiasts, including those who stood by Saraki recently, are not celebrating the “watershed moment” with the lawmakers.

Rather, its leadership has become an object of ridicule as social media influencers consider the initiative as obsolete and the ceremony as extremely trivial.

According to the critics, the project is too trivial to have warranted a ribbon-cutting event the Senate organised for it.

In fact, by Wednesday afternoon, social media were awash with cynical comments on why the Senate should waste its official time on frivolities.

Amid the controversy, some tweeters said the decision was an indication that members of the Senate were behind time, remarking that technology had overtaken the idea of a suggestion box.

Tweeting on @Ayourb, The Godfather said the Senators could only cut ribbons to unveil a suggestion box because they received excess salaries for doing nothing.

“The Senate cut ribbons to launch a suggestion box? This only happens when you are overpaid for doing nothing,” he tweeted.

Also tweeting, Kemi Olunloyo, a daughter of an ex-governor of Oyo State, Omololu Olunloyo, stressed that the suggestion box initiative betrayed the Senate’s lack of security awareness.

“What if Boko Haram members enter the National Assembly and put grenade in the boxes? Have we not learnt from the Canadian parliament?” she questioned.

A United Kingdom-based comedian, Wale Gates, wondered how the Senate’s crave for inputs from the masses would address unemployment, insecurity and poor infrastructure.

Gates also doubted if the lawmakers would ever look at papers dropped in the boxes.

Meanwhile, some Nigerians, on Wednesday, sent a strong message to President Mohammadu Buhari, urging him to intervene in the dwindling economy.

They were reacting to #OpenLetterToMrPresident that made its ways to social media in the mourning topping Twitter trend table.

Author of the letter called for the resignation of the Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, Godwin Emefiele, whose policies, he alleged, had plunged the economy.

A part of the letter signed by a group identified as Concerned Nigerians reads, “There are several vessels at the Lagos port loaded with rice awaiting the CBN FORM M which is mandatory for large-scale foreign exchange transactions. These vessels will generate Customs revenues in excess of N6bn, but the CBN has refused to approve the FORM M.

“The result of this is that these vessels will proceed to the Republic of Benin to discharge the consignments. The consignments will then find their way back into Nigeria because of high demand for parboiled rice.”

Source: Punch