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| GOV ADAMS OSHIOMHOLE |
State Governments in Nigeria has crash; the Second constitutional Tier
of governance of the Nigerian Sovereignty has become a great embarrassment to
the peoples of Nigeria,
the entire African continent and the world in generality…due mainly to decades
of wanton looting of the treasuries of the state by successive governors since
the independence of the Nigerian Nation state…
A giant sprawling civilization of Sub-Saharan
Africa with a population estimate of 250 Million people projected from the
authentic 1963 census and peopled by the Bantu stock of dark pigmented negroid
typology, mixed with the Meronik peoples from the kursh civilization of the
Middle Nile as in the Yoruba's, Igarra, Kanuri, Basange ….etc and a sizable
percentage of the Fulani tribesmen who migrated to that part of the world after
the collapse of the Fulani rule of the Mali Empire……
With this type of mixed tribal
setting of more than 300 different tribes of Africans living together in a
geo-political entity it became imperative to adopt a system of Federalism based
on the concepts of 36 federating States under a Federal Government of
presidential system and another third tire of government- Local Government, was
added into it for reasons that the dividends of the sovereignty to trickle down
to the poor dispossessed natives and those living in the rural areas..
the system is great as designed
by those who drafted the constitution but those who become elected into offices
are the problem of this large country as the genuine patriotic people are edged
out of elective offices by the looters and mostly questionable leaders of this
part of the world who rig the elections and grab power at all costs and begin
to loot the nation dry in a vicious dangerously calculating cabals.
Little wonder after decades of
looting more than $30 trillion dollars earned from petroleum export resources of the Nigerian hard working peoples
the state governance structure as in many of the federating states have become
either distressed or in critical conditions, only four states [ Abia, anambra,
akwa ibom and…. ]out of the 36 federating state are adjudged healthy with clean
bill of health, all the other 34 states are either distressed as for…[Niger state, Kano State, Katsina
state…]..While a large number of the them are in critical condition category as
in [ Kaduna, Edo,Oyo, Ekiti, Ondo…]and lastly a
handful fall under the category of tolerable as in [Lagos State…….]
The collapse of the state
structure has finally vindicated all the civil right groups and other pressure
groups, including the world and Nigeria
media that has been vocal against the recklessness and wanton larceny of the
states by the governors.
For instance about 40 percent of the total
earnings in the federated account are constitutionally allotted to the states
government every month since in the
inception of the nascent democratic dispensation in 1999 and within the period Nigeria
has earned more than $ 4 trillion dollars from the recent increase in the
prices of petroleum in the world market , that means close to $2 trillion
dollars has been allotted to the state governments since 1999 plus the IGR
internally Generated Revenue of average of 30% of the federal allocations, the
states had access to above $ 3 trillion dollars in the past one decade but unfortunately has nothing to
show for this colossal sum of money that the federal government had sunk into
them other than bad roads, lack of portable drinking water, illiteracy, poverty
of the majority of peoples, poor and declining standards of education, mass
failure in schools[ 77% failed both WASC, JAMB, NECO EXAMS], poor health
delivery systems, the hospitals are mere consulting clinics, redundancy of
skilled and unskilled labor, more than 200 million Nigerians are unemployed
according to manufacturers Association of
Nigeria, youth restiveness, insecurity of lives and property, ravaging
cases of AID ,HIV pandemic etc. Malaria and typhoid fever that is curable has
become the major source of death of the people… right now the average life span
is less than 40 years, no industries, nor factories, while the once that were operating
before are checking out to other neighboring countries like Ghana, Togo .etc
when they saw the situation of the leadership as abysmal.
Rather than the governors to assist the
Federal government in the aspects of electricity power generation, all they do
is globe troth round the world with their wives and girl friends, buying
everything in site in a gluttonous fashion, as if tomorrow will never come…alas
tomorrow is just by the corner and it is
come. The day is dawn… the hour of reckoning is come… and all we have to show
is failure of virtually everything in the polity….One of the greatest
embarrassment in the entirety of the history of the Human Race in the aspects
of statesmanship… the situation is despicable …
And like a sinking ship who is
desperate vulnerable and dangerously calculating the governor grabbed all the
funds allocated to the third tier of governance the Local Government structure
of 774 local government like Counties and embezzle all the funds meant for the
third statutory parallel tier of government because they operate the same joint
account of which the governors are sole signatories..
So, through greed, indiscretion
and mismanagement of resources have also killed the Local Government structures
as well. And if urgent drastic action is not taken to shape things up they have
the capacity to drag the entire sovereignty into further embarrassment as they
are strong collectively.
WHAT SHOULD THE GOVERNMENT DO TO
SOLVE THE SITUATION?
The functional approach is to
isolate the specimen than can cause further destruction to any ecosystem and
begin to give it serious medical treatment addressed to rapier that portion in
this context the followings must be done urgently by the federal government
!] Separate the Local Government
account from the state government account and have the first tier of governance
firmly rooted as an anchorage of last resort. The advantage of this is to have
774 genuine authentic functioning Local Government with a review of their
constitutional provisions as in power devolution from the states to the Local
government councils….so that they can function on autonomous status and bring
rapid social economic development to the grass root of the polity.
2] A committee to be set up by
the federal government to look into the proper situation of things with the states
under the following mandate:
a] Causes of the failure of State
government institution in the country
b] The actual amount of money misappropriated
or looted from the treasuries of the states and a record of those who looted
them
c] A recovery back of this looted
funds back to the state by appealing to EFCC for support.
d] What is to be done to revamp
back to standard practice the State Government institution in the country.
e] Deterrence; after bringing
them back to the standard practice what cane be done to make sure they do no go
distressed again.
CONCLUSION:
In classical economic theory, the
conclusion will always be that funds are insufficient as the reason for the
failure of the states; and if after crucial examination this was the reason for
mass failure of state governments then the Federal government will have to do
something for them as in re empowering them back to stable functional
capacities…
NOTATIONS:
1] BLOATED LARGER THAN LIFE IMAGE
OF GOVERNORS:
It is only in Nigeria that I have seen governors
behaving as if they are head of Sovereign countries. They compete with the
President and Ministers and Senators as if they are all equal. In trying to
meet up with this bloated over inflated status quo of borrowed robs which they
clad themselves in, is the crux of the entire reason of bloated state
government spending and the inability for the allocations from the Federal
accounts to cover their large recurrent expenditure budget, leaving nothing for
the capital expenditures.
2] INFRASTRUCTURAL DEVELOPMENT
LOANS: Those state that have taken loans of infrastructural development bias
will come to ruin and grief as it is a very technical aspect of governance that
can easily ruin any government be it state or federal if the moneys were solely
spent on development and constructions of Roads, bridges etc in a resilient and
reluctant industrial environments or perhaps non existent industrial
environment… you will only be constructing roads for a few rich people to use
and the majority to trek on foot , poor, unemployed, denigrated and wallowing
in illiteracy, poor health delivery system, lack of portable drinking water and
lack of electricity… So thenceforth all governors and local govt chairmen
should invest directly in factories and take loans to build factories and not
just leave that aspects to the private sector.. as the real sector of the
economy contribute less than 3% to our GNP… that is the area the governors
could have been highly invaluable in forming, investing and promoting small and
medium scales industries with their resources… this will create a wealthy
market and the multiplier effect will increase the IGR via taxes, create employment,
reduce poverty and improve education and health care sectors…
DEFINITIONS & MISCONCEPTIONS
ON BUDGETARY ANALYSIS:
In modern economic theories,
government spending as in budgeting is classified under three categories
namely:
1] CAPITAL EXPENDITURE,
2] RECURRENT EXPENDITURE
3] SOCIAL SPENDING
In Nigeria there seems to be a mixed
up of this three aspects of budgeting to our own peril. For instance Road
Construction is classified as Capital expenditure for the single reason that it
is capital intensive; were as, this is perhaps an obscuring interpretation ;as
to whether Roads have the capacity to return back the huge sums of money out
played in its construction is not taken into consideration…
Road construction in comtempory times will be
classified as social spending which though mandatory but should not come before
industries, investment in the real
sector of the economy, production lines, electricity, etc are the crucial
substances that should be classified under capital expenditure in the aspects
of developing economies. State and federal government spending should be
directed to the areas of the real sector of the economy which has the immediate
capacities in paying itself back directly and not on Roads that has only an
indirect effect of paying itself back… when you have many factories, industries
and commerce in place you can now tax the industries to build modern roads….
What we are saying here is that industries and the availability and plentiful
of it should be the natural areas that the state government should invest in as
in the U.S.A, Germany etc that has a large percent of small and medium scale
industries rolling their economies these are the real middle class that are
powering big world powers…
RECURRENT EXPENDITURE: All the
three tiers of governance should as a matter of urgency cut down on recurrent
expenditure that is taking over 80% of the fund of the country. Looting of
public funds and treasuries should also stop as this further exacerbates the
situation.
AUSTERITY MEASURES: All the Tiers
of Government are advised to immediately declare austerity measures and cut
down on spending and spend prudently. There must be no wastage any more.
THE SENATE & LEGISLATURES
CONSUMPTION OF 30% OF THE GNP TO MAKE LAWS:
Malam Sanusi Lamidi made a public
out cry that if the country does not cut down the allowances and overhead of
the third arm of government of National Assembly; Nigeria runs the risk of becoming
bankrupt in 10 year. And it has begun just a few months after he cautioned all
of us… Malam Sanusi Lamido is rightly guided…may God continue to bless him…. In
Ghana, Liberia etc and most West African countries MPs have voluntarily slashed
down the cost of overhead on those Nations so that money can be made available for
other more pressing needs; and indeed urgent needs of other parts of the
economy, but in our own case the MPs are increasing their take home and as time
goes on the predictions of Malam Sanusi Lamido will come to pass …it has come
to pass on the State level…we pray earnestly that it will not manifest on
Federal Level….
We wish the sovereignty of Nigeria the
best of all three be now and for ever…
LONG LIVE FEDERAL
REPUBLIC OF NIGERIA.
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