Nigeria, July 5 -- I first became conscious of the phrase "budget padding" under Buhari. Before then, it sounded like street slang. By 2016, it had become a household name, whispered in newsrooms, shouted on radio, and typed in angry caps across timelines. I still don't know if economists coined it or if Nigeria invented it to describe the quiet art of illegal insertions into the budget, but I do know this: once you hear it, you never unhear it.



While evil cannot be used to legitimize another evil, the current attempt to frame the administration of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu as the worst since the amalgamation of Nigeria in 1914, especially amid the controversy around the "ghost agency" and fresh budget fraud allegations, feels like...