I read in one of our national newspapers, a statement attributed to Governor David Umahi that plans are on the way to pay “monthly stipends to former lawmakers and local government chiefs in Ebonyi State”. He went on to say he would send a bill to the House to this effect. His press secretary Emma Anya quoted the governor as saying “my aim is to carry everybody along especially the political class, that’s why I will be approaching the House of Assembly to ask for approval so that those legislators who are not on seat now and former local government chairmen can continue to be paid. I believe this is how we can get them to help in developing and creating wealth in our state”. I felt very sad about how low we have descended in this country that we have a governor who thinks this way. How does paying ex-legislators help to develop and increase the wealth of a state as suggested by the governor? What does he mean by “political class”? Is there such a thing sociologically speaking? A group of freeloaders cannot constitute a class. This kind of thinking shows our buccaneering approach to politics. Politics is regarded by some Nigerians as their own farms where they go to harvest. They sometimes do this on farms which do not belong to them. This is the way I see this “Ebonyi formula” of sharing the commonwealth among a few people while the vast majority of the people are suffering. This is why our youth are okada riders and politicians. When one goes to the village and meets a young man and he is asked – “young man what are you doing for a living?” – the answer is “I am into politics” as if politics is a job or a professional calling and not just a call to serve. And this is why the approach in Ebonyi to sharing the state riches among politicians is so wrong that it deserves to be challenged. This sharing is planned for one of the poorest states in the country. It raises the fundamental question of what platform or manifesto was this man elected? Is paying all politicians who had previously held office part of his manifesto or that of his party? This kind of irresponsible behavior justifies the call from Chief Emeka Anyaoku that these so-called states should be scrapped so that we can return to regional governments that served our people very well and threw up people knowledgeable in the art of government and not village champions as we have today. It is also because we practice this form of centralized federalism in which states that have no resources at all can share in the wealth generated and derived from other parts of the federation and are therefore not accountable to their people or to anybody about how state funds are spent. If we have fiscal federalism and Ebonyi revenues are derived from rice farmed by poor people using ancient tools of hoes and cutlasses, their government would think twice before abandoning the people to pay stipends to politicians who previously held office on the grounds that the transient governor wants to carry everybody along. If we do not stop this practice in Ebonyi, it will create precedence and every state including the centre will follow suit and begin to pay anybody who had previously held one kind of office or the other. It will spread to all former board members at state and federal level, all former chairmen of boards, all former non-career ambassadors and so on. Sometimes ago, some members of the National Assembly asked that their members be granted immunity and be paid for life. I do not know whether this suggestion has been surreptitiously passed since the legislative budget at the federal level is shrouded in secrecy. To imagine these ridiculous suggestions are coming during recession when there is just no money anywhere, one wonders what our politicians will do when we come out of recession. Nigeria carries the victor ludorum as the country with the highest percentage of its budget going to administration. We are totally over governed with 774 local government administrations 37 states administrations that is including the federal capital territory and of course the elephantine federal government . We are so over administered that there is no money left for development. Our rulers at all levels get away with murder so to say.
It is because we as a people without protest have accepted the humongous golden handshakes and allowances being paid to all former chief executives and their deputies at the federal and state levels that our politicians want to take us for a ride. In Akwa Ibom, former governors are entitled in cash and other allowances well over N100 million a year. Less endowed states are not far behind. Recently Edo State government is planning to spend N300 million to build houses for the former governor and his deputy. Presumably, this largesse will be extended to all former state chief executives in the same state. This is also the practice across the whole country. I am really sorry for this country because one wonders where we learnt this from. Is it also borrowed from the American system? Our people unreasonably point to America when they spring this corrupt practice on us. First of all, this does not happen in America. Secondly, Nigeria is not America. The entire budget of the Federal Republic of Nigeria is not even as big as that of New York fire department. We should stop comparing ourselves with America and face squarely the fact of our underdevelopment. Sometimes the action of our governments suggests that we are not only physically underdeveloped, we are also cerebrally and mentally under developed. This is the only way we can understand the poorest state in the South-east of Nigeria and one of the poorest states of the federation planning to start paying former office holders in the state when they are not holding pensionable jobs. This action will be outrightly illegal and could constitute a threat to public order and security if the common people were to challenge the government for its insensitivity.
I pray that the audit departments at state and federal levels should be well staffed and should be made aware of their responsibility to stop any errant governor from frittering away the riches of the state on frivolous grounds not provided for in the constitution. The public, the press and NGOS in the country should wake up to protect public interest so that what belongs to the commonwealth of Nigerian peoples at federal and state levels are not appropriated by a few . Democracy is not government by politicians for politicians.
