Aristotle The correspondence theory (384–322 bce): “To say of what is that it is, or of what is not that it is not, is true.”

My medulla and cerebellum are bursting at their seams while I looked for the right language to express myself given the enormity of fraudulent padding of the Budget 2016.

Firstly, my hippocampus was driving me towards a short-time memory but I have decided to grow more neurons to negate my episodic ephemerality by asking questions about the ontology of the truth value of statements made by various government officialdom.

The truth must be told that one is apprehensive about the direction or less of it from the unfolding cacophony of missteps generated by the government since inception that I am wondering aloud about the truth of change or whether is a mirage of a new dawn.

When government officials came out spreading falsehood, passing bucks, rather than taking responsibility for their derelictions and unprofessionalism in handling issues. (Pure amateurism).

These reactions from officialdom were merely reflections of our secretive cosmological nature which is not helping us in anyway.

Truth what is: Conceptually is difficult ontologically speaking. But, when officialdom and Civil Servants charge with drafting government document like Budget 2016 result to padding, copy and paste; then corruption a dishonourable behaviour has become deeply entrenched in the system that the messages of change alone would not be enough, sometimes draconianism might be necessary so that the mirage of a new dawn can be averted.

Here I would like to digress a bit into philosophical conceptualization of truth.

Let us look at it this way. If I write that I was in England coupled with my descriptions of places in England to justify my claims, the fact that my descriptions correspond with the concrete reality presented in my piece about those places I mentioned do not represent the truth of the matter i.e that I was indeed in England since it is possible to read about such places in books or that I might have seen such places on television, here lies my difficulty with the arguments or justifications given by officialdom.

Let us look at it in another way, these concrete realities or structures mentioned in my descriptions of places in England can be found anywhere in e.g Australia, Italy, Spain, Argentina, but facts are not. Therefore, no certitude that my descriptions are actually in England but I made people to believe it is so.

The same logical difficulties shrouded the explications given to Nigerians right from the moment the news of the Budget 2016 dirty meandering started up till the time it metamorphosed into a roforofo fight.

To say Rats, Civil Servants, Budget Mafias and Devils padded Budget 2016 is like naming specific landmarks within Ministries as scapegoats. Thus, it did not remove the hidden facts that politicians might be involved in this make-belief, therefore ”facts” presented might not necessarily correspond with reality.

To overcome our torturous adventure we need to ask the question: what kind of change do we envisage from this administration?

Most people would agree with me that up till now what the citizenry want are not yet well defined or articulated given the conflicting body languages and counterproductive practical actions exhibited by most people who claim to be supporters of the administration rightly or wrongly.

During electioneering, we called for social-political and economic change because of the economic issues, corruption, social turmoil and civil rights dillema we found our nation Nigeria in, coupled with the frustration that the government is not helping us out.

This frustration then came to a head and we sent Jonathanians out of our social-political landscape. Now we tend to shy away from given objective critical analysis of inadvertent omission and commission coming from the present government.

We have to do more critical introspection to avoid the mirage of a new dawn.

The honeymoon must be over by now, time to look in the mirror, check our cupboards for any skeletons that might be forgotten and let real governance begin and assume a supersonic dimension.

That was why I welcomed @mbuhari ordered probe of Budget 2016, so that questionable Inclusions can be removed forthwith.

God, Olodumare, Ogun, Obatala, Sango, Allah save us from corruption.

Let truth have central place in our lives.

OTUNBA ADE ILEMOBADE is a philosopher

Twitter: @pearl2prince