COLUMN
Sometimes you get the impression you are alone in observing some strange occurrences in our nation. You do until you hear others, just a few others, if any, make the same observation. The governor of Kaduna State, Malam Nasir El-Rufai, falls into the category as he knocked members of the political class like himself on the head the other day. He said the political elite carries on as though our nation faces no challenges with shortfalls in its revenue, as well as the weakened capacity of the government to embark on developmental projects.
This is a matter that should concern every Nigerian, but most people who should know aren’t even talking about it and it makes one wonder what is happening among, and to our political elite. Here is a nation where expending resources is what governments do. Creating the condition where the economy thrives and there is more revenue for the government in the form of taxes is not given attention. What is available in government coffers is expended as though there is all the resources without limits. Nonetheless, we witness politicians at all levels say that they have no resources left for meaningful development purposes after paying salaries of their states’ bloated bureaucracies. They issue threats to the FG that it should part with more of the resources in its hands. They call for fiscal federalism. Yet there are difficult decisions they should take in their backyards in order to have more revenue for development purposes which they are not taking.
This is in line with the well-known pattern whereby everyone looks at, and blame Abuja for the tiniest mishap even in any of the states. Majority of gullible Nigerians have even forgotten to remember that they have state governors close to home who should solve problems. Instead, for every occurrence for which they should hold their state governors accountable they point accusing fingers at Abuja. Who persuades Nigerians to think this way isn’t a mystery. We know politicians who emerge from the states are no mean contributors. We hear them when they address their people at rallies and at town hall meetings – Governors, Senators, Reps – once they are in their states. There the FG is a safe target to accuse, abuse, and badmouth. No one calls attention to themselves, and they conveniently forget to ask difficult questions of their state governors whose support they need in order to get re-elected.
But we know that this category of political elites – state governors, senators, Reps – are as guilty as anyone else with regard to the cause of the uncomfortable situation in which most Nigerians find themselves. Take state governors, for instance; they have a serious need to reform the system under them in order to save cost but hardly does any of them have the liver to undertake the necessary but difficult decisions needed. These state governors sit over bloated public service that is not serving public interest. But the state governors watch, doing nothing about it, allowing this ship to loiter, heading nowhere. Rather, they are happy to be praised as friends of civil servants, majority of who collect salary but add nothing to the progress of the nation. These state governors revel in all the strange praises that labour leaders shower them with even as their states experience little or no progress on relevant indices. Their state of inertia is cemented, made more obvious for all to see when one of their own, the governor of Kaduna State, took the bull by the horn. He chose to deal with a serious problem, cutting off a cancer tumor that should be cut if the rest of the body must not be infected. But what did he get from his fellow state governors at the time labour leaders, as usual, resisted needed reforms? No support.
There are the senators and Reps too who would always go to their communities and tell their people that FG and some other tribes cause all the problems that Nigeria has. Yet these politicians gather in the dome in Abuja and put more powers in the hands of the FG. The FG says it doesn’t have enough funds for existing agencies and parastatals. But the senators and Reps create more of such agencies and institutions for the FG to take care of. There is the issue of different government agencies that duplicate the same responsibility, if they actually have any. Nonetheless, senators and Reps don’t have any solution to any small challenge except to pass bills creating more agencies and institutions to take care of every little toothache. They create more tertiary institutions for the FG to take care of as well. Meanwhile, there are the existing government institutions themselves that continue to create institutions within institution; they include the army, the navy, air force, EFCC, NCDC, all of which are creating universities, training schools etc. under them. FG continues to say it does not have enough funds to take good care of the existing institutions and agencies but it is given more of them by the same senators and Reps who always return to their communities to tell their people how inept the FG is.
Of the entire set up, state governors are the ones whose actions and inactions at this time one finds confounding. The lack of desire on the part of many of them to embark on surgical operations needed to reduce the cost of governance leaves one wondering. It makes one ask: What are these guys doing in government? What are they doing with the political powers they go to great extent to acquire? What do they think being in political office is? Sitting there without a vision of what they want to achieve? If any state governor has any vision at all, they would realise that the current situation where the heavy cost of governances leaves little else for development isn’t sustainable. They would know that they need to cut cost and reduce burden wherever little value is added to governance. They would know that that not to do so is an invitation to bigger problems, many of which we already see around us.
In many of the states there is little or no development going on – development in infrastructure and human capital. The effects of the latter are there for all to see. With no skills and lack of employment from which our youth suffer, some of them easily take to illegal activities which wouldn’t have been the case if the political elite provides them with opportunities. But how can that happen when those who hold power do not work towards it. They look at the challenges as though doing nothing will still lead to a better economy, better revenue for government, better development, and a better society. But this is not how things work. What we witness at the moment is that many state governors have thrown up their hands and are doing nothing more than point accusing fingers in the direction of Abuja from time to time. They do nothing, and they do not support anyone among their colleagues who does something as the governor of Kaduna State has done by rightsizing the state’s bloated and largely redundant workforce. But he does not stop there. He has also reduced the number of political appointees, a number that is rather small compared to thousands that some of his colleagues surround themselves with. But these are the same politicians who do not lift a finger to undertake needed reforms in their states.
It is good though that we still have a few good statesmen around. A politician who is not afraid to take difficult decisions that other shy away from. The Kaduna State governor recently makes his view known to the effect that many politicians see the revenue crisis that the nation faces but they carry on as though it does not matter. More baffling is the fact that they do this at a time when the effects of lack of development of our human capital stare all of us in the face. Where should the blame be placed? It is at the door of the political elite that have no consensus on what to do with political power, as well as in which direction they want to take the nation. As already noted, it is good we still have a certain Kaduna State governor who reminds all of us what we ought to be doing in times like this. It is politicians like this who present a view of what we need to do but which we are not doing. Nonetheless, unless there is a turn in a different direction, where the current lackadaisical approach on the part of the political elite will lead us is something we all have to wait to see.
