Tag: VIGIL

Time to  face reality 

Nigeria’s governors are at it again! They want more money. But for how long will they be going cap-in-hand to Abuja to look for money or ‘bailout’, as the fine bara (begging) has now become famously known? Bailout gained currency in the country when the Federal Government, perhaps in some cases for want of what to do with public funds, started giving money to some sectors of the economy, ostensibly to get them out of the woods. Thus, the textile sector, the agriculture sector and even airlines benefited from this free money that no one is sure the government can ever recover. Anyway, was the money ever meant to be recovered?

In fairness to the governors, their financial fortune has dwindled over the last 12 months or so; with the continued fall in crude oil prices. It would appear reasonable too, as the governors argued, that they agreed to a minimum wage of N18,000 per month when crude oil was selling for $126 per barrel; it is now $41. Now that crude prices have fallen, they added, it is difficult for them to sustain the minimum wage. Zamfara State governor Abdulaziz Yari, who read the communiqué issued by the governors at the end of their meeting held at the Banquet Hall of the Presidential Villa, under the auspices of their umbrella body, the Nigeria Governors Forum (NGF) on Thursday, said: “The situation is no longer the same when we were asked to pay N18,000 minimum wage when oil price was $126 (per barrel) and continued paying N18,000 minimum wage when the oil is $41 and the source of government expenditure is from oil and we have not seen prospects in the oil industry in the near future”.

This is the extent to which I sympathise with the governors. Even then, the sympathy should be qualified because this is not the first time that crude prices would fall. And, as a major crude oil producer, we have always known that the international oil market is volatile and that this volatility is beyond our control. Yet, we did not as a country take any practical step towards providing any cushion such that we would not catch cold whenever crude prices slump or sneeze. Year in, year out, our schools have been turning out graduates (including governors) at all levels that were taught in the various schools some lesson about diversification of the economy. We have heard so many economic experts who wrote papers upon papers delivered at seminars and symposiums about this topic, and many of these papers only gather dust in government establishments; that is when the documents have not been handed to the groundnut seller across the road in the government offices in exchange for groundnut due to lack of space to keep them.

In other words, successive governments that should have seen the developments that eventually culminated in the slump in oil prices, including the discovery of shale oil, which have put everyone in Nigeria in a mess, merely paid lip service to diversification or, characteristically Nigerian, simply wished that no evil would befall oil prices in Jesus’ name!. Even when we lost the United States, our major crude customer, a thing that should have warned us further of the impending crisis, we celebrated the replacement of the U.S. by Russia and some Asian countries.

It is sad that I have to return to the Goodluck Jonathan administration so early after my leave, but it is inevitable because it was under his watch that oil prices plummeted last year and the only thing that occupied the then president’s mind was reelection; a thing he did not deserve considering the result he posted after running the country for about five years.   At a time President Jonathan should be strategising on how to address the challenges facing the country’s jugular, he was busy polarising virtually everything that seemed a hindrance to his second term ambition; everything including the NGF some of whose members suddenly became exposed for the dullards that they were as they claimed that 16 was greater than 19 in an election involving just 35 persons!.

One point the governors must realise now is that the era of sharing is gradually coming to an end in the country. It’s now time to bake. Few persons, if any, have been talking about baking, the emphasis has been on sharing; we have dissipated so much energy on revenue sharing formula when we should be talking about revenue baking formula. This is a reality that our governors have to start accepting. And I want to believe we are getting there because the governors too tasted what a vigil is like. I hear their meeting lasted from Wednesday to the early hours of Thursday last week. So, when the poor too talk about vigil, the governors would have a feel of what they (the poor) mean. I hope the governors would permanently wake up to this reality on baking before it is too late. They gave that impression on Thursday.

And, when the time for baking comes, no one would need to tell state creation agitators that their time is up. Even as we speak, they seem to have gone into hiding since the cash crunch set in. The truth is; many of them will get silenced for life the moment states begin to fend for themselves. Even as things are, creation of some of the existing states was a mistake. because most of those who created them did so more for political expediency.

Without doubt, the Federal Government has to shed weight even under the lopsided federalism that we are practicing. But then, the governors have to resolve this time around that if the NGF must be relevant, they would use it more for functional rather than the dysfunctional purposes that many of them used it for under the Jonathan presidency.

It is not just a question of meeting President Buhari again as the governors resolved at the meeting; it is about being ready to take hard, even if painful decisions about unlocking the potentials buried in the bowels of many of the states and checking corruption. After all, they (governors) met with the president on the same issue in June; yet, not all of them paid their workers with the money as directed by the Federal Government which bailed them out then. The truth is; unless things improve, I foresee a situation where one of these days, all that the governors would bring back from Abuja would be the admonition given by one of the military commanders during the civil war when his subordinates told him that their food supplies at the battle front had been exhausted. The commander simply told the soldiers to “go and manage”. When he was reminded that there was nothing left to ‘manage’, he merely repeated himself; ‘I say go and manage’!

The solution to the economic crisis is not in reduction of minimum wage as some of the governors are thinking because the N18,000 minimum wage is ridiculously low. How many of the governors with girlfriends would ‘dash’ their mistress N18,000 for transportation even for a single trip (or a single shot) and expect to see her again?

My point is that, before the situation gets this bad, the governors should start thinking about alternatives to the Abuja ‘fine bara’. President Buhari may not be in a position to bail them out all the time if things do not improve, because he too will be under pressure from Nigerians to deliver the democratic dividend he promised them during the electioneering. Let our governors put on their thinking caps so that they won’t have to go and ‘manage’ when it is visible, even to the blind, that there is nothing to ‘manage’. In the same vein retrenchment does not seem a likely option so that we do not compound the present security situation. Rather, what is required is a pragmatic and holistic approach to getting our economy out of the woods and this involves all, the president, governors and other stakeholders.