The root cause of the myriad of problems facing Nigeria is bad leadership. With a few exceptions, the political leaders are too self-centred to work for the common good. Corruption including impunity has become a way of life in the absence of effective punishment systems. We are just deceiving ourselves in Nigeria-a country where big thieves are above the law. Indeed, this geo-polity is a filthy, stinking landscape almost comparable to a poorly managed refuse mound.
Our governors need to show greater compassion for the hungry, agonising Nigerians. Unfettered egotism and greed of most governors are a stumbling block to development across the board. These leaders should not be deluded into thinking they are super humans. They should not forget the transience of power and by extension, human life.
In saner climes and cultures, leaders are servants of the people. Up to now, the Nigerian governors (with a few exceptions) do not believe that they are answerable or accountable to the led. Not surprisingly, they are unable to construct new pathways of understanding and appropriation. This is a return to feudalism. The legislative and judicial arms are almost a rubber stamp, in the face of an emperor masquerading as governor in a jaundiced democracy called Nigeria.
It is time to amend the constitution of the country with a view to checking the excesses of our state governors-terrible parasites on the society. With or without restructuring of the country, state governments can still reduce insecurity and material poverty to the barest minimum. Prudence and unalloyed patriotism are of the essence. How have these leaders been managing security votes for their states? What happened to the monies the federal government gave the governors some years ago to bail their states out of financial difficulties?
It is common knowledge, that the federal government made the highest disbursements through the Federal Allocation Funds Committee to Delta, Akwa Ibom, Rivers, Bayelsa, and Lagos states in 2020. Delta State got N187 billion while each of the remaining received over N100 billion. These allocations were based on such indices as population and number of local government areas in each state. Despite all these monies, the ordinary people are getting poorer and hungrier, as the governors continue to mouth empty slogans and rhetoric.
The Nigerian political leaders have a reputation for de-coupling from the led. No knowledge and/or capacity to craft appropriate, workable poverty-reduction strategies which would have reduced social crises and agonies in the land to the barest minimum. Most of the states do not have large-scale agro-based businesses, run on the platform of public and private philosophies. This is most disturbing, given the hugeness of arable land and relevant experts like agricultural engineers, agricultural economists, food technologists, and agricultural virologists in the country. Mini agricultural revolutions in these states would have drastically reduced unemployment rates and material poverty especially among the youth. It is worrying that some Chinese nationals among other foreigners are gradually taking over Nigeria’s business space, while the political leaders continue to run around like a group of headless chickens.
According to the Nigerian Bureau of Statistics (NBS), more than 100 million citizens are now desperately poor and hopeless, in the face of a per capita expenditure of approximately N137,400 annually. This translates to about N376.5 daily per person. It is too easily forgotten, that insecurity cannot be tamed in the face of abject material poverty. Thus, for example, 16 states have material poverty rates of more than 50 percent. Ebonyi State is one of them with a rate of almost 80 percent. This is followed by Sokoto and Taraba states, each having close to 88 percent poverty rate.
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Most of the governors stay longer in Abuja than the state capitals due largely to their inordinate ambition to get a second term or go to senate after completing the governorship assignments, often poorly done. In other words, they are always in Abuja (the corridors of power) for arithmetic of presidential ambition, even when their states are burning up. How can somebody who lacks the capacity to selflessly serve his people at the state level, become a serious leader at the centre? There is a dearth of political maturity. This is not the political leadership of our dreams!
Again, Nigerians cannot forget in a hurry, how a savings platform christened, Nigeria’s Sovereign Wealth Fund was successfully rejected by the state governors some years ago. Saving for the rainy day is a universal economic measure. However, both the state and federal governments could not trust each other. Today, Nigerians are the victims. The states are distrustful of the central authority due (according to the former) to the poor management of previous funds by the latter. Therefore, the governors wanted some legal backing to ensure judicious spending. But how did these governors manage the monies in the long run? One does not need to be an authority in economics to know that the Sovereign Wealth Fund (if properly managed) would have prevented Nigeria from the deprivation trap of reckless external borrowing. Today, we even borrow to balance state and national budget deficits. Therefore, both parties (state and federal governments) are moral equals!
Most of the rural and urban roads are in a state of dilapidation arising from years of neglect. Agricultural productions among other things suffer. The local government system has been crippled, thus making grassroots development a mirage. Despite all these challenges, most (if not all) our governors are busy creating (surreptitiously or otherwise) additional avoidable crises. Thus, for example, obaship, obiship, and emirship crises have become a devil to wrestle with. Although this ugliness was common during the first republic, one would not expect a continuation of this primitive behavioural trait in the 21st century, in the interest of sustainable peace and progress.
Unnecessary interference including abuse of power is going to worsen the unprecedented insecurity in the country. Local leaders know the political geographies of their constituents more than a lot of people. Certainly, the governors cannot do much without these local leaders. Treating community leaders with respect is a wise approach to governance, despite the fact that governors have a constitutional role to play in modern-day chieftaincy affairs. It is worrying, that the Ekiti State House of Assembly has in the last three weeks or thereabouts, been in the news for negative reasons. The election of the new Speaker to replace the former one that died recently could not be done without rancour. There were allegations by the embattled “former” Speaker- Aribisogan that one of the past governors was the mastermind behind the crisis. Time will tell the true story. However, no state can move forward without peace, ontologically tied to the apron strings of fairness, justice, and equity. Impunity especially in a so-called constitutional democracy is an aberration. Most state governors have a reputation for playing politics of bitterness which further impoverishes the masses. Therefore, humility and unalloyed patriotism must occupy centre stage in the up-coming political dispensation. In actuality, the Nigerian masses are tired of the current baboon-like politics with all its devastating consequences.
- Prof Ogundele is of Dept. of Archaeology and Anthropology, University of Ibadan.