Just as the new minister of power has set out to look for the root cause of decades of epileptic power supply in the country, so do the president and his team need to look for the root cause of the country’s under-development, in spite of half a century of over $500 billion revenue to the country from petroleum.
• Initiate action to amend our Constitution with a view to devolving powers, duties and responsibilities to states and local governments in order to entrench true Federalism and the Federal spirit;
• Prevent abuse of executive, legislative and public offices through greater accountability, transparency and strict enforcement of anti-corruption laws whilst strengthening the EFCC and ICPC;
• Amend the Constitution to remove immunity from prosecution for elected officers in criminal cases;
• Restructure government for a leaner, more efficient and adequately compensated public service;
• Balance across regions by the creation of 6 new Regional Economic Development Agencies (REDAs) to act as champions of sub-regional competitiveness;
• Put in place a N300 billion regional growth fund (average of N50bn in each geo-political region) to be managed by the REDAs, encourage private sector enterprise and support to help places currently reliant on the public sector;
• Initiate policies to ensure that Nigerians are free to live and work in any part of the country by removing state of origin, tribe, ethnic and religious affiliations and replace those with state of residence. –FROM Buhari/APC MANIFESTO
By way of summary, last week’s piece emphasised the negative impact of a false feeling of affluence from steady flow of revenue from petroleum on the structure, content, and style of governance in the country in the last 50 years. More specifically, we argued that the belief of military rulers that “money is not Nigeria’s problem but how to spend it” influenced military dictators between the civil war and the exit of military dictatorship in 1999 to create 36 mini-states and 774 local governments that turned the country into multiple sites of compulsive consumption and very little production. It also spawned a culture of profligacy in compensation of political office holders in a country where over 70% of the population live below poverty line, while also giving birth to innumerable agencies to do what other layers of government are constitutionally designed to do. We also added that citizens were alienated from government by being largely released from paying taxes, just as they were excluded by military dictators and their civilian successors from the process of creating the current constitution that is to drive governance under President Buhari, also a one-time military dictator.
Today’s focus is to elaborate on the thesis of last week: the need to take advantage of huge decline in revenue from petroleum to redesign the structure, content, and style of governance, including response by the government and citizens to the need to finally use the spirit and ideology of change promised by President Buhari and the All Progressives Congress to re-invent the country with the goal of enlarging the space of freedom; strengthening the architecture of security; enforcing transparency in governance; re-designing the architecture of governance; and transforming states into centers of productivity rather of parasitism on revenue from petroleum or other non-renewable mineral resources-solid or liquid.
In contrast to the regional model inherited from the British colonial master at independence, military dictators became too unrealistic about the abundance of petroleum, to the extent that they felt emboldened to re-conceptualise Nigeria. Instead of continuing the tradition of a system of three or four regions that compete in terms of economic activities and cooperate by ensuring the survival of the country as a political or territorial unit, military dictators misread the significance of petroleum by viewing it as the sole driver and sustainer of unity. Abundance of petroleum spawned a culture of profligacy; killed economic production in the states under military rule and after; encouraged military rulers to create mini-states as administrative units to guzzle the revenue from oil; and also created a political class addicted to exorbitant personal emoluments, despite having immense opportunities to rob the state. Sixteen years after the exit of military rulers, retired General Buhari and the APC realised that the country needed to be mended through changing the modus operandi of running the country.
Despite the existence of 36 states with sizable bureaucracy, oversize pay packets for political office holders, and easy access to unwholesome hands of political leaders in the country’s treasury, the social statistics remain depressing. 62 million Nigerians are illiterate; 70% of Nigerians live below poverty line; Nigeria has between 3,000 and 4,000 megawatts of electricity for 170 million citizens; Nigerian manufacturers have to run to Ghana and even Benin Republic to do light manufacturing; more women die at childbirth in the country than any other country in the sub-region; infant mortality in the country remains one of the highest in the world; over 160 million Nigerians are transported daily by mini buses and motor cycles; etc.
It was therefore not surprising that General Buhari and his party chose the path of change when they crafted the manifesto for the 2015 presidential and state elections. It is still not surprising that after winning the presidency, President Buhari and his party are singing, as enthusiastically as ever, about the imperative of change. Since the election, many pundits have blamed the failure of the country in the last five decades on poor quality of leadership or on the existence of ethnic and religious diversity. Others pontificate on the web about the reluctance of Nigerians to evolve into new post-colonial personas that choose cultural amnesia by demonising their cultural past. Such pundits blame the inability of citizens to undo the diversity that served them well in the years before independence and that has the potential of making them create one of the world’s most developed countries with cultural diversity.
Many public commentators have complained about lack of a grand vision conveyed in a grand narrative of Buhari presidency’s pre-figuring of the Nigeria he wants to leave behind at the end of his tenure. However, the manifesto with which he negotiated for votes is full of episodic narratives that can add up to a grand vision, if the objectives of such episodic stories are met sincerely and realistically. It is reassuring to note in the manifesto (part of which the bullets overleaf represent) that the president and his party did not just choose the path of escaping from the country’s cultural diversity into cultural homogeneity through individuals’ efforts to re-invent themselves culturally. In a list of what to do that include food self-sufficiency through agriculture and revenue generation through solid minerals, passing N5,000 from the national purse to 25 million poor citizens; free education, free meal in school, improvement of power and other infrastructure; fighting Boko Haram terrorism and political and bureaucratic corruption; the president clearly promised in the first line of his manifesto the need for a new design of the polity bequeathed by military dictators. He has pledged to use his presidency to: initiate action to amend our Constitution with a view to devolving powers, duties and responsibilities to states and local governments in order to entrench true Federalism and the Federal spirit. He and his party also seem to have recognised the need to return to regional economic planning and development: Balance across regions by the creation of 6 new Regional Economic Development Agencies (REDAs) to act as champions of sub-regional competitiveness.
Details of what to do “to entrench true Federalism and the Federal spirit,” are missing in the episodic narrative of change in the nation. But what to do to promote “regional economic planning and development” shows the impishness (birthed by the philosophy and sociology of spending petrodollars) of throwing money at problems by creating bureaucracies to administer, rather than solve problems. The pledge of Buhari and the APC to re-craft the 1999 Constitution with the aim of re-federalising the country needs be addressed with as much speed and enthusiasm as doing everything else on the manifesto.
Just as the new minister of power has set out to look for the root cause of decades of epileptic power supply in the country, so do the president and his team need to look for the root cause of the country’s under-development, in spite of half a century of over $500 billion revenue to the country from petroleum.
– To be continued