Until there is a social security scheme in place, the government must carry its bloated burden and carry it well.
There are so many things happening all at once that my pen, sorry, my fingers just cannot fly fast enough over the computer keys. What things? Have you been a stranger in these parts that you do not know these things? Are you like that man who was asked by a traveller how to get to a certain part of the city and he replied that he did not know since he was a stranger in the land and had only lived there for fifteen years or so? Or, are you like me (and I am sure there are legions of us) who hear these things as they whiz past our ears from the men folks as they talk to each other over our heads? Then, you can hear us go, our legion that is, ‘Ehn, so, who is facing charges now?’ ‘They say it’s Saraki.’ Ehn, so, who is Saraki?’ ‘The senate president.’ ‘Ehn, so, where is that senate? Hey, where is that child I sent to go and get me some pepper? Hen, can you believe the price of pepper in the market now…?’ Different strokes for different folks, they say.
Well, folks, that is how I got to hear that the senate president is involved in some kind of tangle with the Code of Conduct Bureau and I said, good luck to them all. Me, I am involved in my own tangle with the dog. The blessed thing will just not behave. Someone said he probably does not even know he is a dog. I think I will take him to a psychiatrist.
I also heard that President Buhari had not yet released his ministerial list, what with the promised month of September hurtling to its close; and I thought, what is he trying to do, draw out every breath from our lungs as we hold it in expectation? I heard too that as many as twenty states are still owing their workers many months of back wages even as we speak, and I thought, now, that is worrisome. Out of all these things I am hearing, the fact that people are not being paid is the one that worries me most.
Let me state right out that I do not know the politics of this salary thing, because it appears to have come along with many considerations or even, I suspect, ideologies. There are rumours that playing helpless was the only way the states could force the federal government to share some money it had insisted on keeping hidden for a rainy day. Obviously, the states were not interested in rainy days; they preferred the raining day of the Naira. Some other rumours have it that the states felt that too much of their subventions were going into their monthly wage bills and were getting tired, and many other rumours. Like I said, I don’t know, but let us share a few things related to this problem.
To start with, money is in short supply now in Nigeria. It is also true that Nigeria’s civil service is unnecessarily bloated but again, this is owing to the fact that she does not run any other social service scheme by which the government can reach a good number of her people with the country’s resources. So, as it is now, there are very few families in the land which do not have one relative or the other in government employ. Many will also not rest until they do. Until there is a social security scheme in place, the government must carry its bloated burden and carry it well.
Following on the heels of that burden is the fact that the government by its own short-sightedness has nigh killed the private sector. Many have pointed out, including this column, that the greatest employer of labour in any healthy land should be the private sector made up of the large-, small- and medium-scale enterprises. In the absence of a good and independent economic market, most people have been schooled to believe that government employ is the ultimate. Naturally, under such a large and unnatural weight, the government, both state and federal, appears to be buckling under.
It is this system that has also given rise to and encouraged all the corruption that we are currently battling in the country. The reason is clear I think. Anyone who can manipulate that system, since it has not been built on profit-making or national benefit, simply does so for ethno-religious benefit.
Unfortunately too, about the time that the international price of oil dipped at the close of the Jonathan administration, the then minister of finance pronounced that the first casualty of that shortfall was likely to be civil servants’ wages. Many of us were rather bewildered that staff salaries should be the first target. Now that the state has kept its promise to target staff salaries, we still are.
However, we are wondering why the atrociously high tastes of political leaders for instance have not been targeted. It is on record that Nigeria is paying nearly the highest wages to its legislature. A lot has been said about that already; I guess more will come another day. Today, however, we must reiterate what many, including this column, have said concerning the rapacious appetites of our elected state executives. We have said before that many of them, with few exceptions, have gone to their states not to build but to acquire things like private jets (I am told many are still on the queue to own one) and London houses. In bewilderment, we have watched our state executives’ acquisitive tastes go straight from sub-normal to abnormal without passing through Route Normal.
Seriously, this must be telling us something. First, I believe that our state executives, and indeed, our political leaders must stop behaving like class bullies and hold themselves accountable to the people for their actions. They should please stop swinging their agbadas in our faces and curb their acquisitive appetites. Why should a state executive insist on owning a jet when people are hungry?
A worker controls only the few thousands of Naira s/he is given as his/her wage. With this, he/she feeds his/her family, maintains his/her car/motorcycle/bicycle/feet (yes, everything needs to be oiled, even feet), pays school bills, maintains elderly relatives, pays health bills, builds a house (neither the state not bank will help), clothes him/herself, etc. When the few thousands do not come, everything suffers.
State executives, on the other hand, control billions of Naira each month, heck some each week. With this, they are expected to take care of their states’ needs, pay wages and uplift their environment. From our general knowledge and experiences though, many of them have been content paying wages and upping their tastes; and when there has been a contest between paying wages and massaging their palates, why, many right thinking executives have upheld their private jets. This behaviour closely resembles that of class bullies who beat up the weak ones just because they can.
The fathers of American democracy opted for it because they believed that truth can only be established from many mouths. Many Nigerians are presently not contributing their mouths to its growth in Nigeria because of hunger and ignorance. By not paying salaries as and at when due, our governors appear to be more interested in perpetrating that silence. This is what worries me.
Too much is rotten in the state of Nigeria, and I believe the slowness and silence of the president have been due to this realisation. When the dust is cleared, I pray the president to please enable the private sector once again, not only to provide more credible labour opportunities but to encourage production for export earnings as well. Then we can call the soul of this country our own.
