Last week, I contended that the 2015 general elections will afford voters the opportunity to make a choice between continuity or change both at the centre and in the various states of the federation. I argued that a resounding case can be made for fundamental, even drastic, change at the centre. Nigeria totters on the brink of collapse. She is a crippled giant (apologies to Professor Eghosa Osagie). Insecurity pervades the land. Poverty stalks the streets. Unemployment aborts the future of millions of our youth. Corruption arrogantly inspects a guard of honour on our highways. Most Nigerians are worse off today than they were before the inception of this democratic dispensation in 1999.
Of course, I am aware of the partly valid argument that the overall state of the nation is a joint responsibility of the federal, state and local governments. However, the bulk of the country’s revenues are controlled by the centre. The 36 states of the federation get less than 1% each of nationally generated revenues. Yet, they are nearest to the people. Moreover, the Federal Government has the responsibility and powers to determine the general direction of the country including the economy. It has failed abysmally to utilise its enormous powers and resources to pursue the public good.
The presidency is the centre of gravity of our presidential system of government. Effective and visionary presidential leadership is, therefore, critical for national progress and transformation. This has been sorely lacking since 1999. Each successive PDP president since Obasanjo has been weaker and more ineffective than his predecessor. The presidency has sunken to its nadir under Dr Goodluck Jonathan. Yet, the PDP continues to ridiculously dress him in borrowed, ill-fitting garbs of greatness. The people of Nigeria have the right to reject this delusion of grandeur and look elsewhere for genuinely transformational leadership.
Is it that the PDP and President Jonathan have not chalked up some achievements that they can be proud of? Certainly not. Some progress has been recorded by the Federal Government in aviation, power supply, agriculture and rail transportation among others. But there is a vast gulf between the resources at its disposal and actual accomplishments. A country as endowed and blessed as Nigeria should be thoroughly embarrassed and ashamed of what are today celebrated as landmark achievements by the Jonathan administration. It will be tragic to entrust a party and leader with such a pedestrian standard of performance with another four years of the country’s life. National greatness is made of loftier and more ambitious stuff. The case for change at the centre is unassailable.
I argued last week that while some PDP and APC-controlled states deserve continuity on the basis of their exemplary performance, others of both parties should be shown out of power for famished vision and manifest mediocrity. The state elections will be a different kettle of fish from that of the centre. Ogun state, for instance, will offer an interesting study at the next polls.
Even his most ardent critics cannot credibly claim that Governor Ibikunle Amosun is not one of the star performers of this dispensation. His spectacular road infrastructure revolution is clearly the flagship of his administration. It is an aggressive, path-breaking initiative that has seen the massive construction of a network of fully equipped modern roads, bridges and flyovers crisscrossing and transforming the landscape of substantial parts of the state. The positive implications of this kind of radical modernization of infrastructurefor job creation, foreign and local investment, as well as rapid industrialization are obvious.
Even though the infrastructure revolution must surely task the financial ingenuity of the governor, a chartered accountant, and his team to the utmost, the administration has also been pursuing other aspects of its five cardinal programmes, which include Affordable Qualitative Education, Efficient Health Care Delivery, Agricultural Production/Industrialization as well as Affordable Housing/Urban Renewal.
In education, for instance, the Amosun administration provides free education in all public primary and secondary schools, has consistently devoted not less than 22-23% of its annual budget to education in accordance with UNESCO standards and expended N1.8 billion on the provision of free text books to all primary and secondary school pupils and students in public schools. While the sum of N415 million was expended on provision of instructional materials to public primary and secondary schools in 2011 and 2012, N120 million was disbursed as bursary, scholarship and grants to students of Ogun state origin while 15 of 28 proposed Model Schools with a capacity of 1000 students each are under construction across the state.
To achieve its goal of consolidating the agricultural sector to enhance food production as well as serve as a basis for agro-allied industrialization, the Amosun administration has enumerated 43 hectares of land for corporate bodies to engage in agricultural production, enumerated 2526 potential beneficiaries of a N1 billion agricultural loan facility, allocated 3290 hectares of land to investors in the state and completed a Cassava Processing Cottage Industry at Okolemo Community in partnership with British American Tobacco under the state Fadama Project.
Its massive investment in infrastructure and security has paid off with the creation of a conducive environment that has attracted major industrial concerns to invest in the state. Since the inception of the Amosun administration, 50 new firms and investment worth $10 billion have been attracted to the state. Ogun state is thus emerging as the country’s industrial hub, its economy is being diversified; opportunities for employment are being multiplied while the revenue base of the state is being strengthened to lessen dependence on centrally collected revenues.Of course, the administration is also pursuing policies to take maximum advantage of the state’s massive real estate potential, boost its housing stock and take economic advantage of the huge population of neighbouring Lagos.
While a significant number of citizens will appreciate and fully support the Amosun administration’s development strategy, it also has its own risks and vulnerabilities. For one, the pressure on resources will mean there is less to accumulate by public office holders. Secondly, sections of the political class will be aggrieved that the emphasis is on development expenditure rather than political patronage. The administration will have to creatively and effectively respond to sustained attempts by the latter to mislead members of the public into believing that the administration’s massive investment in infrastructure is wasteful, fanciful and unproductive.
Matters are compounded for Ogun and other states by the inept, opaque and incompetent management of the national economy by the federal government. The Edo State governor, Comrade Adams Oshiomhole recently lamented that the amounts received by states from the Federation Account had dwindled significantly because of the non-transparent management of the account by the Federal Government. The comrade governor wondered how oil theft and the attendant loss in revenue due the federation account had grown astronomically under the Jonathan administration even with the end of Niger Delta insurgency and the award of multibillion naira oil pipeline protection contracts to ex-militants.
Painting a graphic picture of the unfortunate scenario, Oshiomhole said “What this means is that our budgets have not performed over the past three years, whereas the budgets have been based on an average of between $77 and $79 a barrel. The average price of Nigeria’s sweet crude has been around $108 per barrel. That gives a surplus of over $30. Ideally, we ought to be saving $36 per barrel and 2.3 million barrels a day over the past three years and if you look at these numbers, you will find that we have in our excess crude oil account should be over $30 billion but we have barely $3 billion in the Excess Crude Account”.
The continuity we need is the financial acumen and developmental impetus exhibited by the Amosun government in Ogun and not the financial ineptness, incompetence and lack of transparency exposed so scathingly by Oshiomhole in the centre’s management of national oil revenues. Of course, it will be easier and more convenient for an Amosun to sit back complacently, collect monthly allocation from Abuja, distribute the largesse to political entrepreneurs and leave Ogun at the end of his tenure as financially dependent on Abuja as he met her. The path he has chosen is a more difficult one. It is one of laying a solid foundation today for the future financial independence of the state. It is the path that might involve temporary pain but will ensure enduring gain. It is the path of courage and statesmanship that can guarantee a lasting legacy.
