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Tag: cost of governance

  • Reducing cost of governance (2)

    Reducing cost of governance (2)

    The wealth of many African political leaders is at the expense of their poor people. It is because politicians on the continent largely see the administration of domestic affairs as a lucrative business and the corridor of power as an avenue for private accumulation.

    It is relatively easier for them to declare their assets when they enter government, but most of them feel reluctant to admit that they have accumulated huge wealth after leaving office. Ill-gotten wealth is for the few; the burden is shifted to the poor who are many and wallow in squalor, desolate and unheard.

    Swimming in opulence when the disadvantaged poor are in want of one meal per day is the height of insensitivity; it is unjust, provocative, and oppressive.

    What President Bola Tinubu has done by cutting the cost of travel expenses and “Estacode” allowance for his aides was partly in response to calls for the reduction of wastes associated with officialdom. But it pales into tokenism unless lawmakers (federal and states), governors, ministers, council chairmen, and other top government officials take a cue.

    Also, as the government tries to cut costs, there should be a renewed war against other forms of institutionalised corruption: graft, sleaze, pilfering, misappropriation, and embezzlement of public funds.

    The budget should ordinarily show the direction. Whenever the recurrent expenditure rivals the capital expenditure, a big problem arises. A recurrent estimate is funding for a bloated bureaucracy, whereas the totality of governmental structures, which comprise political appointees and the typical civil service, is usually less than five per cent of the general populace.

    The greater benefit that accrues to the greatest number of people is through capital expenditure, particularly when the budget is faithfully implemented by honest leadership at the national and sub-regional levels.

    A culture that should be discouraged relates to the perception that any person who is given a political appointment has hit the gold mine. Political appointments are celebrated, not for being a privilege to serve but for being perceived as an opportunity to access state resources.

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    Although it should be a vocation, many now erroneously embrace politics as a career; a big and rare occupation of economic and social value.

    Government, therefore, is attractive because of the pecks of office, which may come with or without much sweat. The corridors of power are perceived as avenues for primitive accumulation by elected and appointed officials, instead of being taken as means of service delivery. This is counter-productive. It is a wrong orientation.

    Not all politicians or public servants follow the path of aggrandisement. Men of the old order were far better, more patriotic, honestly cautious, and committedly service-driven. But the tribe of those bubbling with a real sense of vision and productive service appears to be on the decline. The attraction, to the majority, is money and what it can do: how to acquire choice properties in Nigerian cities and abroad.

    At issue today is the cost of leadership, the cost of administration, and the cost of governance.

    This has ultimately become an institutionalised drain, a collective burden, and a liability.

    Why, for example, should a former governor, who is now a minister, senator, or ambassador, collect pensions while still collecting a salary due to his current position? What is the wisdom in paying millions as annual pensions to a former governor and his deputy by states that cannot afford to pay N30,000 minimum wage? It is the tragedy of a country that likes to indulge in waste, an economically fragile nation overburdened with the payment of double emoluments to certain privileged persons.

    In utter sensitivity, some states have tried to alter the pattern. For example, Lagos State Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu has tried to halt the implementation of the pensions law that grants retirement benefits to his predecessors and their deputies. This is the semblance of value engineering, a creative method geared towards cost reduction which has elicited some applause from stakeholders.

    But pension laws are not the only problems. By nature, the executive presidency is not cost-effective. The political bureaucracy is akin to an employment opportunity and the key to the sharing of state resources.

    Under the presidential system, the cost of governance is too high. The President is expected to preside over the Federal Executive Council (FEC), which comprises at least 40 ministers, ministers of state and special advisers, Senior Special Assistants, Special Assistants, and Personal Assistants. The ministries and departments are usually duplicated, extended, and expanded.

    In the Second Republic, while President Shehu Shagari had a minister of education and a minister of state for education, he also appointed a minister of student affairs. He had a Special Adviser on Political Matters. Yet, he appointed another person as a “Political Adviser”. It was a case of jobs for party men and women, and surrogates.

    The National Assembly is bi-cameral. In the Senate, there are 109 members. The House of Representatives has 360 legislators. All of them have special assistants and other legislative aides. The size of the government is too bloated, making the recurrent expenditure account for over 55 per cent of the budget in the past, leaving only 45 per cent for capital projects.

    Governors at the state level also have over-sized Excos which, in some cases, have 40 members or more – commissioners, senior special advisers, and special advisers. These appointments have their aides who draw emoluments from the treasury. At a time, a state had 72 SSAs and SAs. On another occasion, a governor had hundreds of liaison officers in the districts, constituencies, and local governments.

    Not all the states are buoyant because not all of them are equally endowed. The 36 states are not the same. Their sources of revenue differ, so are their priorities. But it is one of the wonders of the Nigerian brand of federalism that governors are placed on the same salary structure, even though their states are different in terms of resources, opportunities, endowments, and potential. Nigerian federalism is about uniformity, not peculiarity.

    The cost of “local governance” is also huge. Council chairmen crave autonomy to free themselves from state control exercised marginally by the governor, the ministry of local government, and the House of Assembly. The grassroots administrative system has been a bastion of corruption.

    Local government chairmen – or mayors – pose as “local governors” with a measure of semi-autonomous executive powers and functions. Presidentialism is also practised at the local government level with appointed supervisory councillors and elected councillors and their countless aides competing for the meagre council revenue. Even the SSAs and SAs in many councils also have aides.

    When new governors and Houses of Assembly are inaugurated, states are overburdened by new expenses. The governors, commissioners, special advisers, Speakers and other lawmakers are not to inherit the official vehicles of their predecessors. New vehicles have to be purchased. The offices have to be refurbished. Old cars pale into a subset of severance allowance. It is a recurring decimal.

    Times have changed. The pathfinders of history are not emulated. In the old Ondo State under the late Governor Adekunle Ajasin, commissioners had to drop their official cars in office on Fridays unless they had official assignments at the weekends. Some of them lived in their private residences.

    That was what Chief Obafemi Awolowo taught his disciples. Instructively, Premier Awolowo, who never lived in Government Quarters, had admonished his associates in government not to embrace the lifestyle they could not sustain outside office.

    Now, at the national level, the accommodation provided for National Assembly members is sold to them at give-away prices. That means public office is exploited as a gateway to kleptocracy.

    The legitimate pecks of office are in order. But the penchant for wealth accumulation by public officers is anomalous. Indeed, many government officials often capitalise on loopholes to perpetrate graft. There is no fiscal discipline. Therefore, national development is sacrificed on the altar of corruption among many public officials. It would appear that governance is just for the benefit of those in power, their lackeys and confederates.

    In 2015, President Muhammadu Buhari and Vice President Yemi Osinbajo (SAN) slashed their salaries by 50 per cent. They also reiterated their commitment to the anti-graft war to stem the misappropriation of public funds. The National Assembly members, governors, and elected officials refused to emulate them.

    Today, some elder statesmen have attributed the high political expenditure to the neglect of the parliamentary system. But this is debatable. The only difference was that non-ministerial parliamentarians were not full-time legislators. Therefore, they kept their jobs as teachers, lawyers, businessmen, and professionals in their fields. They only took time off from work to attend parliamentary sessions.

    However, to reduce rivalry between the crop of parliamentarians who were ministers and those who were not, the latter were also appointed as parliamentary secretaries; others were appointed to boards of corporations. The Senate was ceremonial, like the Regional House of Chiefs.

    Under the presidential system, the competition for elected offices is fiercer. As the treasury becomes the inheritance of the political class, there is the pervading feeling that the quest for political power is tantamount to political investment for which the investors must always garner returns. As those in power get rich, the electorate is abandoned in spiraling penury.

    How would citizens not perceive the government as a burden when its recurrent expenditure is repeatedly higher than its capital expenditure, which should impact positively on the economy, especially in employment generation, investment, and other activities that propel growth?

    This is the challenge that stares some states in the face. It is obvious that less than five per cent of the projected 200 million population consumes the higher part of the nation’s wealth. The effects of over-bloated political bureaucracies involving the big Federal Government, 36 state governments and 774 local governments are alarming. There is disquiet among experts who believe that when recurrent expenditure is high, it may impact negatively on the implementation of capital projects and hamper the realisation of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).

    Delegates to the 2004 collapsed National Political Conference in Abuja were alarmed by the retinue of presidential aides and appointees at the state levels. They recommended that the structure should be trimmed. During the Jonathan administration, some technocrats also suggested that certain ministries and departments should be merged or fused.

    Also, some experts have lamented that the rising cost of governance has not been accompanied by corresponding service delivery and efficiency of structures for optimal performance. For example, they explained that the defunct Western Region has been split to eight states. However, the output of the states has not matched the pioneering achievements of the golden era of Obafemi Awolowo’s premiership.

    Up to now, the salaries paid to senators continue to generate controversy, although the total package is unknown. It has been suggested that Nigerian senators and Representatives earn more than their counterparts in Europe and America, which are more advanced economies.

    Governors and council chairmen also have convenient access to resources through the inexplicable security votes. In fact, the Revenue Mobilisation and Fiscal Commission had been overwhelmed by the mounting allowances of public officers across the three arms of government at the state, federal, and local levels.

    Apart from basic salaries, allowances cover other details, such as accommodation, furniture, overseas trips, motor vehicle loan, car fuelling, medicals, special assistance, domestic workers, entertainment, leave, and severance gratuity.

    At a time many parts of Nigeria lack potable water, stable electricity, and quality schools, budgetary proposals and political emoluments should reflect national soberness.

    The current political class needs to learn lessons from the selfless service of the men of the old order – Ahmadu Bello, Abubakar Tafawa Balewa, Aminu Kano, Adekunle Ajasin, Lateef Jakande, and Awolowo.

    President Tinubu is showing the way now. Other leaders should emulate his steps.

  • The Cost of Governance

    “Occurrences of life have tendency to force men/women to grow grey
    hair. And life itself is like a horse. If it allows you to ride it
    today, do not take it for granted for it may turn round to ride you
    tomorrow”.
    The above quotation is from an Arab poem.

    Preamble

    Governance in mundane life is a transit in which some political travellers take a momentary sojourn at a time when others are exiting from it. Politics itself is a package of both realizable and unrealizable wishes. And the worst of such wishes is the one based on self-deception and self-aggrandizement. The just concluded election in Nigeria is a clear attestation to this assertion. With a fortuitous exit from their political transit, as surprisingly determined by that election, where will many flamboyant Nigerian Senators and other so-called Honourable Legislators, who had deserted those who elected them, be for the next four years? That is life for you. When the political horse turns round to ride its riders, hardly will those riders be remembers again. Where are the riders of yesteryears?

     

    Governance in Islam

    In Islam, governance is like pregnancy in the womb of a woman. Its duration is naturally defined barring any anomaly or aberration. Its delivery depends on the safety of its carrier and the circumstances of her wellbeing. And the product of such pregnancy is claimed, not by the carrier but by the impregnator.

    Naturally, there is no pregnancy without semen actively planted in the womb of a woman. And the planter of that semen is the man who in this case, is called the impregnator. For this reason, children bear the names of their fathers rather than those of their mothers as surnames.

     

    Analogy

    By analogy, one can compare governance to a pregnant woman who could not have become pregnant without an impregnator. The impregnator here is, proverbially, the populace that gave those in government the mandate to rule over them. And just as the product of the womb (the child) belongs to the impregnator as a matter of legitimacy so should dividend of governance be the property of the populace.

    In a patriarchal setting, any child who bears his mother’s name as surname rather than that of his father is nothing but a bastard. That is always the case where dividend of governance is cornered by those who are entrusted with the custody of governance.

     

    The Norms of Governance

    In Islam, after security, law and justice, all of which reflect strong faith in Allah and adherence to His divine guidance, nothing else is held more sacrosanct than governance. Thus,  governance can be compared to a magnificent canopy under which the people are supposed to take cover during torrential rains or burning sun. In a democratic environment, such canopy is owned, not by the politicians but by the citizenry who, otherwise, are known as the electorate. In other words, the bearer of the mentioned proverbial canopy is just a servant keeping it in trust for the people. Perhaps that is one major fact that the late President Musa Yar’Adua realized when he called himself a servant leader on assumption of office in May. 2007.

     

    Servants and Messengers

    In Islam, rulers are statutorily the servants of God and the messengers of the people. They are employees who must always report back to their employers. Where rulers behave contrary to this norm, a fundamental breach of protocol is likely to occur which may be tantamount to rebellion against the people. In such instance, those rulers no longer have any legitimate authority to rule over the people.

     

    Memory Lane

    In an open letter that yours sincerely wrote to the late President Umar Musa Yar’Adua in this column in June, 2007, shortly after his assumption of office as President, I cited example of two of his namesakes (Umar) in history. One of them was Umar Bn Khattab who eventually became the second Caliph in Islam. The other was Umar Bn… who eventually became an infidel. But a third one, not mentioned in that letter, emerged some decades after Prophet Muhammad’s demise. His name was Umar Bn Abdul Aziz, a famous Caliph of the Umayyad dynasty.

    He became Caliph about 85 years after the demise of the Prophet.

    This third Umar became a reference point in human history because of the unique way in which he managed the economy of the Caliphate. In a particular year during his reign, the state made so much money from Zakah collection that the problem was how to spend it.

    The tradition, according to Islamic injunction, was for the state to dispense the zakah to the poor among the citizenry from the much money made through the collection of zakah. But when this was to be done, it turned out that nobody in the entire state was so poor as to be a zakat recipient. The huge amount earmarked for zakah distribution that year had to be returned to the state treasury.

     

    Umar Bn Abdul Aziz

    The mentioned Umar Bn Abdul Aziz, who became so much famous in history as an ingenuous economic manager, ruled for only three years from 717 to 720 C.E. Yet, he died at the age of 37.

    The secret of his success was his ability to identify two major areas of economic management in governance. One was to regulate the cost of governance by harmonizing the salaries and allowances of political appointees with those of government employees. This was to ensure that those employees were not enslaved, if psychologically, to the privileged political appointees or those elected to legislate for the state. And there was an independent body responsible for the determination of public workers’ remunerations.

     

    Umar’s 1st Success Secret

    In the cited case, neither the legislators nor the appointed officials were allowed to fix their own salaries or allowances by themselves.

    According to Caliph Umar bn Abdul Aziz, “fixing your own salary as appointed or elected government officials is nothing but theft”, which is punishable in Islam. He held that both the government and the resources of the state belonged to the people and nothing was to be done to the lives of the people through government policies without their consent.

    That can be compared to the situation in Nigeria today where the legislators fix their own salaries and allowances and are to earn such salaries and allowance forever even after leaving office. One can now see why the cost of governance has become a noose on the neck of the populace. How can the country progress in such a situation?

     

    Umar’s 2nd Success Secret

    Caliph Umar Bn Abdul Aziz’s second secret of success was his official recognition of the middle class as the greatest employer of labour in any society. He knew that if two million professionals or artisans in the state could employ four staff each, the burden of gross unemployment would be off the neck of the government because 10 million people including those employers would have been effectively employed. And that would not only have ordinarily brought the rate of crime in the state to its lowest ebb it would have also enhanced the state economy tremendously.

    What he did, in emulation of Prophet Muhammad (SAW), therefore, was to use the resources of the state to encourage self-employment through professionalism and artisanship. He knew very well that whatever was spent on such a vital venture would return to the state treasury in many folds through taxation.

    This economic ingenuity, which is now being partially borrowed by Nigerian government under President Muhammad Buhari, through n-power and trader money has since become the heritage of the Western countries and they are thriving gloriously in it today.

    Any government that eliminates the middle class as in the case of Nigeria automatically opens the gate of poverty and crime to the populace.

     

    Bane of Nigerian Economy

    Today, the greatest bane of Nigerian economy is not just the elimination of the middle class but also the extremely high cost of running the government. And, unless these two are properly addressed, this country may continue to wander aimlessly, in economic wilderness, just like the Egyptian gypsies of yore. One of the deceptive measures imbibed by Nigeria’s past governments was  to name year 2020 as a date of economic Eldorado even when all positive indices that could propel such a dream into realty were non-existent. There is even no assurance that Nigeria’s electricity would have become stable by that year let alone the other major factors of a viable economy.

     

    Economic Calamity

    Virtually all the companies manufacturing power generators in the world today are in business because of Nigerian market. Yet the ordinary fuel with which to power those generators is either not affordable or sometimes not available at all. Thuis, Judging by the number of generators in this country today who says Nigeria is not qualified as the greatest contributor to the depletion of Ozone Layer?

    Shortly after the south-west governors assumed office in 1999, yours sincerely wrote an open letter to them, which was published in Vanguard newspaper where I was then a member of the Editorial Board.

    In that letter, I suggested three major areas of economic success with which they could sustain that region’s pace-setting in the country.

    First was a regional power generating centre with which to permanently stabilize electricity supply in that region. With this, I argued that not only would industrialization take a sound footing but also that most unemployed young men and women would be self- employed to the greatest relief of those governments.

    Secondly, I suggested an establishment of regional railway system that could serve, not just as a mass transit for the commuters, but also as a cargo currier for all the goods, especially farm products in the region. With such a regional railway in place, the region would have become the doyen of commerce in the country and every able hand would have been effectively engaged without bothering the state governments.

    Thirdly, I suggested the establishment of a common refinery that could fill the vacuum created by constant non-availability of oil products.

    In that letter, I emphasized that each of these projects could be jointly put in place by the six South-West states since they were on the concurrent list and they belong to the same political party which was then called Alliance for Democracy (AD).

    If the then governors (Bola Tinubu of Lagos State, Segun Osoba of Ogun State, Lam Adesina of Oyo State, Bisi Akande of Osun State, Niyi Adebayo of Ekiti State and Adebayo Adefarati of Ondo State) had accepted even only one of those suggestions, the economic situation of the south-west would have been wonderfully different today and the other regions of the country would have followed suit in a new progressive economic competition. That was the kind of competition that shot the Asian tiger states ahead of Africa.

    However, today, 20 years after those suggestions, where is the South-West, economically?

    Waiting for the federal government to do everything for the States despite federalism to which Nigeria lays claim is nothing but a regimental siege exposing the hypocrisy of the so-called politicians.

     

    Absence of Middle Class

    In modern economic management, there can be no place for the middle class in the absence of such infrastructures as mentioned above. And without the middle class, no economy can thrive to the benefit of the populace.

    The current lopsided situation which deliberately puts over 97% of the national wealth in the hands of about 3% of Nigerians is not only ungodly but suicidal. And it is not in the long run interest of those who designed it as such.

     

    Economic Aberration

    The posture of owner and seller of petroleum products assumed locally by some politically privileged demagogues in Nigeria who award oil wells to themselves by fiat is not only immoral, it is also a betrayal of people’s trust. And that is the main breeder of the cancerous monster called corruption in this country today. As a matter of fact, the populace seems to have lost total confidence in the federal style of governance after decades of deception and inhuman policies which continue to make them wallow helplessly in abject poverty even in the midst of plenty. Restoring that confidence should now take a front burner in the policy formulations of the current administration as a way of fulfilling its promise of ‘the next level’. Most of the policies formulated by the last regime can be described as dead horse which no one could kick back to life. Any attempt to pursue those policies in the name of ‘continuity’ can only amount to rigmarolling into political Siberia.

    Now, the threats of industrial strike by every Tom, Dick and Harry, especially over minimum wage is sensitive enough for President Buhari to note with special attention in his ‘next level’ tenure. In that case, the first step to focus is the issue of the legislators’ salaries and allowances as Nigeria does not have the type of economy that is capable of sustaining presidential system of government. To any developing country, such a system is an unnecessary luxury that may serve as the bastion of corruption at advanced level. And spending too much time to beam searchlight on  pathologically corrupt elements in a country like Nigeria, where corruption has become a culture, is like searching for a missing needle in the Atlantic Ocean. Let the system of governance be changed institutionally and the orientation of Nigerians will automatically change. That is a major task upon which the history of Nigeria’s change mantra may be based in the future.

    God bless Nigeria!

  • Kano NLC urges governors to cut cost of governance

    The Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), Kano State chapter, has urged governors to reduce spending, cost of governance and stop lamenting about the proposed N30,000 new national minimum wage.

    Speaking while inaugurating the NLC executives for the 44 local government areas of the state, Chairman, NLC Kano State Chapter, Comrade Kabiru Ado Minjibir, appealed to President Muhammadu Buhari to over-rule non progressive governors to pass the tripartite committee recommendation to the legislature for action.

    He faulted claims by some governors that  they would not be able to pay N30,000 to their workers, blaming their reckless spending on governance and extravagant lifestyle as the major problem.

    He said N30,000 is not a living wage for a Nigerian worker, given the prevailing economic situation, and appealed to the President to use his prerogative powers to bring the lingering crises to an end.

    He, however, commended Governor Abdullahi Umar Ganduje of Kano State for his willingness to pay N30,600 as new minimum wage to workers in the state.

    Governor Ganduje, who was represented by the Head of Civil Service, Alhaji Auwal Mohammed Na’iya, while congratulating the new executives, promised to continue to work in harmony with the labour oragnisations in the state for the benefit of the workers.

  • Jigawa: Abubakar to reduce cost of governance

    Jigawa: Abubakar to reduce cost of governance

    The Jigawa state governor, Alhaji Muhammadu Badaru Abubakar promised to reduce cost of governance in order to create opportunities and provide dividends of democracy to voters in the state.

    The governor who made the disclosure Friday in Aminu Kano Triangle, Dutse while delivering his inaugural speech shortly after taking oath of office, said his administration inherited over N117 billion left by the immediate fast government.

    According to him “the liabilities left by the previous government is N117 billion contrary to what is contained in the transition note presented by the last government.”

    Alhaji Abubakar explained, “if considering the state’s federation allocation, it would take the state consecutive seven years before it settles the debts we inherited.”

    He said; “This means that we cannot execute any project, it is only to pay workers salaries in the next seven years. Presently there are payment vouchers of N13.3 billion in the state’s treasury due for payment.”

    Alhaji Abubakar added that there are also other certificates of payment of various projects at different levels certified by due process and projects monitoring agencies.

    He promised to lay emphasis on the agricultural sector through mechanized agriculture and further revive and establish research institutions to support the sector in order to ensure sustainable social and economic lives of the state.

  • ‘Buhari must reduce cost of governance’

    ‘Buhari must reduce cost of governance’

    In 2005, Chief Bisi Adegbuyi, lawyer and the Asiwaju of Ode-Remo, Ogun State, hosted the alternative National Conference organised by the Pro-National Conference Organisation (PRONACO) in Lagos. Last year, he was a delegate to the National Conference in Abuja. During the last general elections, the former senatorial aspirant in Ogun East District on the platform of the defunct Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) was Deputy Director-General of Amosun Campaign Organisation. He spoke with Group Political Editor EMMANUEL OLADESU on the challenge of transition, tasks before the incoming Federal Government and the significance of Southwest’s participation in the mainstream politics.

    A progressive government will be inaugurated at the centre on May 29. What are your expectations?

    My expectation is that the change, which was our mantra, and which the people overwhelmingly subscribed to, should be made to be a reality. It is not just a cosmetic change; it must be a fundamental change, a new direction, a new thinking in government, a paradigm shift. The expectations of our people are high. They believe that, by voting out the incumbent, which in a way was a referendum on the performance of the Jonathan Administration, they expect the government of Gen. Muhammadu Buhari to do what Jonathan did not do in office.

    What are the challenges?                      

    We all know Nigeria’s problems-insecurity, impunity, lawlessness, corruption, dearth of infrastructure. A lot of Nigerians know the problems. But, few people know the solution. are. As Chief Obafemi Awolowo, my hero, has said, only the deep can call to the deep. What we have on our hands requires somebody with stoic and sound determination, very resolute to take on the power that be. The President-elect must step on toes. To bring the ship of state back on track, you must do the unusual. The powerful people are entrenched. They are running from pillar to post. I hope the President-elect will see through their shenanigans. At the end, we will have the government of the poor. We have had the government of the elite before. The elite of Nigeria have benefitted immensely from the system. Leakages must be blocked. The bloated government must be reduced. There must be a lean government. The high recurrent expenditure in our budget must be drastically reduced. Insecurity is multi-dimensional. We have poverty and unemployment. There must be a carrot and stick approach. Central to reforming security in Nigeria is the issue of state police because policing is a local issue.

    State police is one of the recommendations of the last National Conference. Are there other recommendations that can be useful to the incoming government?

    The incoming administration of President-elect Gen. Muhammadu Buhari can only ignore the recommendation of the National Conference to our own peril. We have structural problems in Nigeria. We have the problems of asymmetric federalism, lopsided federalism; the tail wagging the head. Devolution of power. Increased revenue allocation to federating states, state police. There is a recommendation which the President-elect must quickly look into. And that is the law setting up the parastatals that allows parastatals to withdraw from the source the recurrent expenditure content of their budget before remitting whatever remains to the Federation Account. That is the biggest drain pipe and the huge component of the recurrent expenditure content of the federal budget.  Why will NNPC withdraw from source unilaterally the amount determined by it as forming the recurrent expenditure and remitting partly sum to the Federation Account. We need to look at such laws that impinge and impede progress. When you spend 72.3 percent of your budget on recurrent expenditure, leaving 27. 7 for debt servicing and capital expenditure, certainly, there is no way you can improve on the welfare if the people. The cost of governance in Nigeria is humongous. We must find a way of reducing the cost so that people with sublime ability who do not have a huge amount of money to spend on the electoral process will be interested in government. All these have been recommended in about 6000 recommendations of the National Conference.

    Buhari will be inheriting a divided country. How do you see him emerging as a personification of national unity?

    We should deceive ourselves that the cleavages will disappear because a President Buhari has emerged. The national question is there. Buhari will fight corruption, impunity and lawlessness. He will strengthened the institutions. His deputy is versed in building institutions. But, we should stop behaving like the Ostrich, who will bury his head in the sand, pretending that the whole body is not seen. The result of the election has further divided Nigeria along ethnic and religious lines. What Mr. President should do is to get experts to advise him on how to wean a nation out of the multi-ethnic and multi-religious state. Central to that is the devolution of power and autonomy to different geo-political entities and multi-ethnic make-ups.

    What is the solution to unemployment?

    Unemployment is a major problem confronting Nigeria. There are three main sources of generating employment-massive construction of houses, revolutionalising agriculture and revamping the manufacturing sector. Without achieving the requisite electricity supply, you can’t do anything to manufacturing. For agricultural revolution, you must embark on land reform. By virtue of my membership of the National Conference and my membership of the Sub-committee on Land Tenure and boundary adjustment, my eyes were open to the problems militating against agriculture in Nigeria, which is land reform. Let the President-elect look at what they do in Brazil. He shares similarity with the President of Brazil, who contested four times before becoming the President. What he did was to embark on extensive land reform in Brazil and thereafter, he revolutionalised agriculture. Ethiopia is the second largest producer of maize in Africa and third largest producer of livestock. Twenty years ago, it was ravaged with farming.

    How do we resolve the housing deficit? We need a primary mortgage in Nigeria for people who have steady income to access income from the primary mortgage market. Then, you can begin the process of massively constructing houses. If we  block loopholes and we reduce the number of parastatals, we have a lean government, the money that will be saved can be ploughed into agriculture and housing. But, the Federal Government may not be able to successfully do that without devolving power to the state governments. But, after the regime of impunity has gone, a government that is against impunity will look into it and recover the money from the few people.

    Do you see the President-elect setting up a cabinet of talents, judging by the sheer number of politicians looking for ministerial positions?

    Expectations are high. Politicians are working, lobbying and positioning themselves. There are ways of taking care of the run of the mill politicians. You can give them patronages and contracts. But, you don’t allow them to occupy the dying seat of governance. That is not to say that you don’t have politicians who are technocrats and who must be involved in governance. There are politicians without second address. There are politicians who are technocrats. These are the people that must be considered. There are grassroots politicians that have worked for the emergence of Gen. Buhari. There are ways of taking care of people like that. Gen. Buhari’s cabinet should be a cabinet that will unusual, a cabinet that will consist of people Nigerians can have confidence in. We need a breath of fresh air. we cannot continue to re-circle people who have been part of governments that have not done well for Nigeria. He can bring in old men, full of wisdom. They understands themselves. He must also bring in relatively young men and women, well educated; those who have ideas about governance, people who can think out of the box. Governance is about the judicious application of scare resources for the benefit of the people.

    What will be the impact of the gravitation to mainstream politics for the Southwest?

    This is the first time we are having an alliance between the Northwest and the Southwest. It is important to recall the prophesy of Awolowo that there will be a time when the dialectical process of the forces of thesis will coalesce with the anti-thesis to produce a synthesis; a time will come when progressives in conservative parties will dump their parties and join forces with their progressive counterparts that will get out of the woods. This is what we are likely to have. It is the prophecy of Chief Obafemi Awolowo that is coming to past. It is a revolution. It is the first time an opposition party will take over power from an incumbent government. It will lay an automatic foundation for progress in Nigeria. An incumbent has lost. An opposition party is taking over power. The next ruling party will look inward to ensure that it does not commit the same mistake committed by the PDP. My worry is that, because the PDP is so power drunk and it is used to dispensations of patronages, it may be difficult for the PDP to play the role of the opposition. They are jumping their ship to the APC. The leaders of the APC should be careful so that there will be no overload that will sink it. Let them stay in their party. We remained in our party fro 16 years and gave the PDP constructive opposition.

    Why was it difficult for the associates of Chief Obafemi Awolowo in Afenifere to imagine that the prediction of the late sage was about to be fulfilled in the last general elections?

    With due respect to our great leaders, the associates of Chief Obafemi Awolowo, I think their major undoing, was that they were fighting proxy war against Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu. They never wanted to belong to the same political party with him for reasons best known to them, whether justifiable or not. The case of Chief Olu Falae comes to mind. I respect him so much. In 2011, he supported Buhari. But, in 2015, he supported Jonathan because he believes that he will implement the recommendations of the National Conference. I don’t think it is right to endorse Jonathan because he has promised to implement the report. The man has failed to fulfilled the promises he made in the past. Now, everybody has gone to the political field to test his strength. We know the people Yoruba will listen to. There is a new, emerging power bloc. It is clear no who will tell the Yoruba where to go and they will listen to them. As it is said, the Yoruba know their leaders. There is no controversy as to who the political head of Yoruba is. Somebody worked from one government, worked assiduously, moved to four, and later, after working with people, increased to 16 and now he has succeeded in joining forces with other people to win the central government. There are four heroes of democracy in Nigeria now and not in any particular order-Major-General Buhari, out-going President Goodluck Jonathan, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu and Prof. Attahiru Jega. It became possible for the opposition to wrest power from the central government because of the political sagacity of Tinubu.

  • Starting point for austerity should be a cut-back in the cost of governance

    Starting point for austerity should be a cut-back in the cost of governance

    The General Secretary of Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), Dr. Peter Oso-Eson, in this interview with TOBA AGBOOLA stated that Nigeria is extremely in need of drastic action to ensure that the nation’s economy does not collapse. He said labour will rise to the ongoing socio-economic Challenges and deal with the challenges.

    WHAT is congress’s position on the current socio-economic and political situations in the country?

    I think it is a very genuine question, but you know it is like asking me to deal with the whole burden of this country. But we recently expressed our worries because the socio-political problem in our country today frightens us so much. That is why, recently, we decided that apart from issuing a press statement on the issue, we also addressed it through a formal letter to the president.

    We have not released the letter to the press because we are waiting for the response. But, we thought that there are now very weighty issues that have to do with the security situation in our country. We are also worried that the country is at war, but the body language of our political leaders does not suggest it, they are all going around as if all is well.

    Our fear is that we are getting into a situation that may actually undermine the survival of the country. This is what we have all fought for in the past and we should not allow our past efforts to be in vain. We must all join hands together to save the situation.

    On the security issues, we are concerned that security issues have been politicised and it should not. We have seen a situation whereby political parties tried to use security matters to score a point. We are not in support of this and so we think that there is need for some avenue we can deal with the security matters that will not be put in the political realm and that is why we wrote Mr. President. We hope that Mr. President will take that letter seriously. On whether we will make it public, as I said earlier, it will depend on the response from Mr President. So broadly, these are a consensus and we will try to deal with them.

    Few years ago, a study group in US predicted that if care is not taken, Nigeria would disintegrate this year. Today, we have lots of problems, including insecurity. What is your take on this?

    Yes, you’re right. The study said the country may disintegrate by year 2015 and lots of people have shed their views on it. However, labour doesn’t agree to this. I am confident that the prediction will fail because Nigeria will not disintegrate. Yes, we have these socio-economic challenges,  we are, however, confident that Nigerians will rise to the challenge and deal with these challenges. Nigerians have faced challenges in the past probably more severe than this and we did not disintegrate. I believe that this country has so much uniting it.

    For instance, if we disintegrate today, my daughter who may be married to a man from the North, where will she go? Benson, my colleague sitting beside me here, who may have taken a wife from my village, where will they go? The youths of this country have created a magnitude of social network and nexus that will not be so easily dissolved. The various elements that joined us together are so big and have really grown. All these will make it very difficult for the country to disintegrate. So, in a simple answer to your question, I believe that the prediction will not come true. Of course there are challenges that can lead to disintegration, but we will overcome them. But, what we need to agitate for now is, quick solution and that can happen if we get the right leader(s).

    How does NLC see the austerity measures when they were announced by the Federal Government?

    We are convinced that the starting point for austerity should be a cut-back in the cost of governance. We have always argued that the cost of governance is excessive;  there is a lot of waste and that government can efficiently function with a much leaner expenditure pattern.

    That does not, however, mean that government should sack or reduce its workers or close down some of its agencies or institutions. We are not in support of these. Our position is that with the employment position in the public sector today, most of the costs that are running and weighing heavily down on the finances of government, have nothing to do with the remuneration of the workers. It has to do with the bloated pre-requisites attached to the management of people who are paid under the political officers’ scheme. There are lots of wastes going on.

    So, this period of austerity should avail us the opportunity to revisit and streamline the cost of governance. And that should be the starting point. Also, tariffs should be imposed on luxuries. Because, you see, the extremely skewed distribution of income in our country in which less than 10 per cent of the population control more than 70 per cent of the total income and wealth is not good. Most of those very rich people are not paying tax. Therefore, there must be a scheme to ensure that we get them to pay adequate taxes. But in determining luxury goods, we need to carefully pick those goods. That is, goods consumed mainly by the rich.

    For instance, our airports are being congested with private jets. Some people find it very easy to buy private jets, even with this austerity. This indicates that there some super rich in this country. The wealth of this country is being controlled by some people. In fact, the joke among the rich today is, ‘how many jets do you have?’ If we put heavy tax on such luxuries, that will be great and it’s a good way to start. We have a bottle of wine that can pay somebody’s salary. Those who consume such commodities should be taxed and taxed heavily. So, we need to define correctly what the luxury goods are and we agree with that.

    How will congress react should government decide to retrench Nigerian workers as part of the austerity measures?

    When it comes to retrenchment, we have taken the position all along, that we will resist any retrenchment. And if government try to put the burden of this adjustment on the workers, the Congress in unity with its counterpart, the TUC, will do everything to prevent it. Let me also make it clear here that in terms of the impact on the workers, the area that worries us very seriously is that crude prices are falling. In other countries, what it translates to is that the price of petroleum products and pump head is coming down.

    In the United States, in the last one month, the price of a gallon of petrol has come down from $3 to $2 in response to this price adjustment. In our country, we are not allowed to really enjoy that benefit. What government is doing is that in order to shore up its naira revenue, it has gone to devalue excessively, the naira; $13 devaluation in one day, and then a   continuous process of depreciation. What that does is that because we import petroleum products largely, the gains  from the falling price of crude which ought to translate to we the consumers, are prevented by that devaluation. This is because, by devaluing the cost of the head price, it might even increase and we say that is wrong. The benefits of the falling price of crude must be translated to Nigerians. We want the pump price of the petrol to be further adjusted downwards.

    The real sector of the economy is the hub of economic development globally. What is your impression about the performance of this sector over the last few years in Nigeria?

    If we go by the available statistics, there has been reasonable performance in terms of growth in the key sectors of the economy. You will discover, for instance that the agriculture sector and more recently industry have become the main drivers of the growth which in the last decade has been averaging over six per cent. To that extent, we can say that there are some positive developments in the real sector.                         However, we need to disaggregate that data a little more.  When we talk about the real sector, we know that the main engine that actually drives the economy and capable of inclusive growth is the manufacturing sub sector. We, therefore, need to focus on the manufacturing sector. The collapse of the manufacturing sector, following the Structural Adjustment Programme, dealt a serious blow to our economy. It manifested in low capacity utilisation to the extent that our official figures came down at below 30 per cent. Even though there seems to have been a little pick, the rate of that pick up is not fast enough and we believe that this is the real reason why we are having the high rate of growth and not creating jobs.

    One of the flaws that experts have identified has been the exclusivity of the economic growth. What do you think is fundamentally wrong in economic policies that allow for this worrisome trend?

    When you base your market policies on market fundamentalism, you will end up with exactly what you have. It is not new. We know that there is a nexus of linkage that the economy must have to have true development. There should be linkages across sectors, but market fundamentalism will not lead to that.

    We need government’s deliberate policies that are geared towards the promotion of certain sectors identified as desirable. They may not immediately be too profitable but they are desirable for true economic development. This also brings to the fore the role of the states in the whole process of development. Those who want to take the market purist position say that government does not have business in business. That is the type of economics that our policy makers subscribe to and that is why we always end up with what we have now in which we have high economic growth that is quite high by all international standards, but with little effect on employment generation opportunities.

    In your own opinion, which sectors of the economy would you want government to concentrate on to drive the needed inclusive growth?

    Let us look at the iron and steel sector, for example. It has the potential to galvanise the economy because of its intrinsic value across the different sectors.