Getting our priorities righ It is no longer news that the managers of the Nigerian economy through the Coordinating Minister for the Economy have indicated that Nigeria lacks the resources to undertake a number of core state responsibilities. They claim not to have the money to meet the demands of the striking members of the Academic Staff Union of Universities; properly fund education and health and build infrastructure. They embark on all sorts of travel and traverse seas and land to woo and invite the proverbial foreign investors. But at the end of the day, nothing concrete comes from their fruitless efforts. It is the story of repeating the same mistakes but expecting different results. It may be true that the resources to finance these responsibilities are no longer there. But the posers are: Where do we invest the available resources? Do we get our priorities right and do we have the right scale of preference in determining where to spend our relatively scarce resources? Is there a pan-Nigerian consensus that differentiates real issues from frivolities? It is my contention that available resources can go a long way in solving Nigeria’s developmental challenges if we get our priorities right. How can we justify the amount of money we budget for the maintenance and upkeep of our political office holders in the executive and legislature? If it is true, as The Economist magazine recently reported, that the Nigerian legislator is the highest paid in the world and he claims to be representing us, why should university professors be told to forget their earned incomes under an agreement signed with the same Federal Government? If the same Federal Government that signed the agreement a couple of years ago comes out to declare it “un-implementable”, is it not an evidence of having fraudulently signed the agreement? For the days are gone when Nigerians will listen and take seriously any government official who calls on us to make sacrifices when he is overfed and having stomach upset due to excessive consumption. No, we can no longer be taken for granted. If there is no money, then the government must be more transparent and cut down on excess fat. Ministers and commissioners of the federal and state governments, assistants and advisers of the President and governors and the members of the National Assembly and state Houses of Assembly must sincerely and honestly declare how much they earn. They must after declaring their assets make the information available to the public because there can be no declaration without the public knowing what was declared. A secret declaration is a contradiction in terms. If governments across the federation account for their income and expenditure to the last kobo, there is no reason for Nigerians not to agree to make sacrifices and contributions in the task of nation building. The challenge is that the person calling for the sacrifices does not believe in such and makes such a call to mock and hold others in contempt. Nigerians have seen through the veil and cannot be fooled. If we are searching for the excess fat to be cut down, there have been, and there are so many, suggestions and recommendations. Suffice to say that it is an insult on the labour and integrity of Nigerian workers every time the Minister of Finance, Mrs. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala comes out to say that wage increase for public servants is responsible for the burgeoning recurrent expenditure. Let her tell Nigerians the real figures of the remuneration of political office holders and their numbers and compare same with the peanuts paid Nigerian workers. The waste is coming from politics and political decision makers. It is the decision makers that allow 45,000 ‘ghost’ workers to collect over N107bn without sanctions to anyone. It is the same crop of people that allows about 500,000 barrels of crude oil to be stolen everyday and no one is held to account. It is the same political class who accounts for the stolen billions through the fuel subsidy scam and the pension scams. We are living witnesses to the fact that the National Assembly through the power of appropriation votes N150bn for itself every year. Yes, it can bet on the abstruse and convoluted concept of the legality of its powers but what its members do is illegitimate, unreasonable and an affront on all right-thinking Nigerians. We are also living witnesses to the amount of money severally documented on the pages newspapers for entertainment, meals, travels and trips and all sorts of frivolities by the executive arm of government. Every year, Nigerians cry and protest against these frivolities during budget considerations, but their cries fall on deaf ears. The greed of the leadership has turned them deaf. But a day of reckoning shall soon come as the anger in the land is over-boiling. Let me boldly state that if you remove all the legalese and the veil of technicalities, what happens in the name of appropriation is outright stealing and looting of the treasury by those entrusted with power at the expense of the poor and those outside the corridors of powers. As Prof. Itse Sagay would say, the mere assertion of a mad man that he is God does not make him the Godhead. The mere fact that those in authority abuse their powers hiding under the cloak of legalism does not make their position right. If we manage available resources well and get our priorities right, they will attract more potential resources. For those who are faithful over a little, much more will be set in store for them. The building blocks, spirit and values that place merit above politics, and the need of the majority over the greed of the minority will definitely attract more resources for nation building. It is only then that we can facilitate social cohesion and therefore drive a system built on deploying our best resources including human personnel for development. A nation that rewards the indolent and gives the greatest remuneration to those who contribute the least to nation building cannot go far. It is doomed to fail. In the light of the foregoing, as we prepare to start the debate on the 2014 budget process and to give account for what we did with the resources in 2013, let the executive and legislature have a rethink and a new approach for the determination of priorities. The actual needs of the people in infrastructure, education, housing, health etc, should trump the greed for new houses, cars, plots of land, distant trips, etc by the leadership. It is also an opportunity for the people to re-strategise and ensure that they do not just talk and walk away, which has produced no results in the past. Yes, we have been talking for so many years, but we need to enforce the popular will against greedy and rapacious elite.
Posted on: Mon, 19 Aug 2013 08:29:22 +0000