Agaju Madugba, Katsina
An elder statesman and a former Minister of State for Finance, Alhaji Abu Gidado, has reviewed the current political and socio-economic developments in the country arguing that the Nigerian people are yet to derive any tangible benefits from the nation’s democratic rule.
Gidado who spoke with our correspondent in an interview in Katsina said that, “Nigerians have not benefited anything from the return of democratic rule. I say, nothing.
“There are so many unemployed people in this country and we have so many natural resources in abundance which are not exploited. Successive administrations have actually failed the people.
“We ought to have patriotic leaders who are ready to implement the right polices in order to address the prevailing difficulties and hardship including lack of security and lack of certain basic infrastructure.
“A truly patriotic leader should use whatever we have to improve the society and well-being of the people. Can anyone sincerely say that we have the dividends of democratic rule in Nigeria? With the collapse of our industries?
“If you compare the performance of military rule with what we have as civilian democratic governance, that of democracy is zero. You can use your finger tips to count so many things built by the military that have since collapsed.
“There is no justification whatsoever in the argument that the military ruled the country for so many years. There is virtually nothing new in the country in terms development of infrastructure other than what our past leaders built.
“We do not practise true presidential democratic rule in Nigeria. In a truly democratic setting, you find effective checks and balances of the three arms of government.”
According to Gidado who was also the chairman of the monthly meeting of the Federation Accounts Allocation Committee (FAAC) during the regime of late head of state, Gen. Sani Abacha, “look at the money they say is going to be used to renovate the National Assembly complex. It just doesn’t make sense especially under a government that came with so-called programme to change the situation of things for the betterment of the nation. The situation has actually degenerated instead of improving.
“Let me give you an example. I served in the revenue allocation commission. The FAAC determines and fixes salaries of all political office holders and some public officers.
“But right now, that commission no longer plays the role it should play, that of determining the salaries and wages of all public officers.
“In the American Constitution which we claim to copy, there is nothing like constituency allowances, for example.
“If you have constituency allowances for members of the legislature, how can you check the excesses of the president?
“The legislature is expected to enact laws concerning all expenses of government, among other functions.
“If you are given a certain amount of money as a legislator for constituency allowance, do you give account of that money?
“When the legislature is deeply involved in handling affairs meant for the presidency, then they cannot do anything. They crave for constituency allowances and they are given freely. That is why they do not have the moral capacity to question the presidency’s expenditure.
“There should be respect for the functions of the three arms of government. There appears to be undue influence on the FAAC to the extent that it has lost its regulatory function.
“Some Nigerians are not patriotic. They do not believe in this country and some of them are still in key positions right now.
“That is why we are in this situation. The problem is that we lack committed leadership. Our founding fathers did not have the resources we enjoy now.
“They used the little they had to even exploit the oil and they built schools and industries. Today, all the textile industries are dead, all of them.
“It’s amazing that people are already busy talking about 2023 when at the moment there is nothing visible to show for the entire period of we have had democratic rule.
“There is nothing tangible to show for the period. We are not making any progress. With the present setup, it is very difficult to get good people to handle the affairs of the country because even the electoral process is not reliable.
“When you budget so much money to repaint the National Assembly complex, what do you expect? For how long now have we had uninterrupted civilian rule?
“There are certain government policies that ought to be in place in order to support economic development of the country. For example, electricity power and with our enormous resources, government should provide the enabling environment and some other privileges for organisations including foreign ones to come in and exploit the abundant natural resources that we have.
“This will further create employment for various categories of our people. Look at the steel rolling mills. They were about three prominent ones. They all died with the coming of democratic rule.
“What is wrong in providing certain basic amenities like water for the people? The democracy we have in Nigeria, as it is today, has failed us completely.”