Nigeria is undoubtedly a blessed country. Very rich in men, materials and money. But as observed last week, very poor in management. No nation can grow greater than the quality of its managers. It is management that combines and utilises the nation’s resources of men, materials and money in the right manner to produce the goods and services desired by the citizens so that the economic, social and political objectives of the nation are achieved. However, some are of the opinion that even if angels are brought from heaven to manage Nigeria, they will have little to do to save the country from eventual demise. They refer to the structure of the country as a faulty foundation of which no skyscraper of advanced development can be built. In their considered opinion, restructuring is the only solution to this irreparable flaw.
We x-rayed the leadership styles of two great Nigeria leaders who have had the honour of governing the country twice each, both as military dictators and democratic Presidents. They are President Olusegun Obasanjo and President Muhammadu Buhari. These men achieved relatively some appreciable milestones in their first outing as Heads of State but are undoubtedly finding it difficult to make appreciable impact in the lives of Nigerians in their second outing as Presidents. The comparison of their two outings will expose the nature of our problems in this country.
They became Heads of State in their early forties but became Presidents in their seventies. They were Heads of State in the twentieth century but became Presidents in the twenty-first century. They supervised a rich country with only 19 States in total as Heads of State but are supervising a poor country with 36 States and the FCT as Presidents. They supervised a timid population in which thieves run when house owners bark as Heads of State but are supervising a sophisticated society in which house owners urinate on themselves and run when bandits and terrorists yawn around their houses. When they were Heads of State, the value of our currency was good, our refineries were working, we were net exporters of agricultural and petrochemical products, corruption was insignificant, they lived up to their promises and the citizens respected them a lot. Those achievements made the people yearn for their return to power. Unfortunately, all the indices that made the people yearn for them have been achieved in the reverse. Our currency has been bastardized, we import even the fuel we need because all our refineries are not working, Corruption has become celebrated and corrupt people secure the best of everything to themselves, electric power has become comatose while bandits, kidnappers, terrorists, insurgents, secessionists, unknown gunmen and criminality are trying hard to engulf the country. The preliminary signs of a failed State are staring us in the face and this is the technical definition of heading for the precipice. The greatest reason for the failure of these great leaders in recent times is their belief that they will apply the management mentality of the twentieth century to the challenges and problems of the twenty-first century Nigeria. Obasanjo did it and failed, Buhari is doing it now and is failing.
As noted earlier, as Heads of State, they supervised a rich, docile and amenable country of 19-State structure but as Presidents they are supervising a poor, volatile and rebellious country of almost 37-State (including FCT) structure. I wonder how they thought they will succeed when they spend double to administer the country in the twenty-first century with a lean purse than they spent in the twentieth century. 37 is almost the double of 19. When they were Heads of State, they were Military dictators that didn’t have the Legislature to finance and sustain. The Local Government was administered by civil servants, mostly by Sole Administrators. Today, the economy is sustaining 36 Houses of Assembly with average of about 27 members each, totalling almost 1000 Legislators and a National Assembly with about 469 Legislators. The revenue sharing formula is based on how many states, local governments, land and population you have not on how much revenue you are generating, meaning that the more you consume, the more you are given, while the more you produce, the less you get. Effectively, our revenue sharing formula encourages consumption not productivity. Are you then surprised to hear some Geo-Political Zones in Nigeria today clamouring for additional states in their Geo-Political Zones even in this already saturated state structure, rather than clamouring for the acquisition of the latest technology for productivity. Ask Lagos why it wants more local governments, it will immediately tell you that it has more population than Kano State but has less local governments, almost half of Kano. Ask Bayelsa State while it’s clamouring for resource control, it will immediately answer you that oil was first discovered in Bayelsa and oil is contributing almost 85 percent of the revenue of Nigeria, but it has only 8 states compared to Kano State that has 40 States, which Bayelsa accuses of contributing nothing to the revenue of Nigeria, yet the revenue is shared according to local governments. Our problem, in addition to awful leaders, is our structure that needs urgent recasting to enable the country survive.
Some Northerners may think they are benefiting from their over-bloated bureaucracy. The truth is that they are not. This is why you have poorer people in the North today than in the South. North was richer in the times of Ahmadu Bello with only one region, while the South had three regions, than it is today with 19, almost 20 (FCT) states, compared to the 17 of the South. The reason is that the same money the North collects from the national purse is used principally to feed the bloated bureaucracy rather than the northern citizens. It is very costly to sustain 40 local government Chairmen and their legislative houses in Kano and Jigawa than in Lagos and Bayelsa, which are comparatively richer in resources. Only the politicians benefit, not the masses. Majority of these Chairmen reside in Abuja and Kaduna and wait only for the time of allocation to go home and take the allocation and rush back to their choicest locations to enjoy. The North today is the most traumatised region in terms of insecurity and poverty. Almajiris were deported back to their States of origin in the far north when other states could not cope with their numbers. These numbers swell the army of out of school children who have become willing resources for recruitment by terrorists and bandits. We have to rise urgently to restructure or risk the collapse of Nigeria. Restructuring is for everyone’s benefit because population without productivity is a burden not a blessing.
As things stand now, our aim in restructuring should be to reduce the cost of governance to the barest minimum, secure our country from outlaws and skew our revenue sharing formula to encourage production and not consumption. Every Geo-Political Zone in Nigeria is so blessed that it doesn’t need the resoures of other Zones to survive. The Northern Nigeria is the home of expensive precious stones, pearls, gold and other solid minerals desired by the whole world. A lot of foreign mercenaries with their local collaborators have been making billions of dollars from these solid resoures and siphoning them out of Nigeria without any benefit to the Northerners and Nigerians. The Northern Nigeria leaders lied to their people to depend on oil and abandon their agricultural heritage which made them the food basket of the country. I can do without fuel for some days but can’t do without food for some days.
We must find a way to prune down our Legislature. There’s no reason we should compel every state to have a House of Assembly when we know that every Geo-Political Zone is reasonably homogenous in ethnicity and religion. Let us have Geo-Political Legislature, even if we retain the state structure as administrative units. The present members of the House of Representatives from a Geo-Political Zone can also legislate for their respective Zones meaning that the financial burden of more than 1000 House of Assembly Legislators will be removed from the cost of governing Nigeria. After all, the entire North had one law, East had one law and West one law, immediately after independence. The Senate will be the main Chamber for the approval of nominated political appointees of the President and carrying out of oversight functions. A situation where both the Senate and the House are carrying out oversight functions on the same issue has led to a lot of duplication of duties and a waste of time of the ministries, departments and agencies involved. The Senate will debate laws and pass them to the House for concurrence whenever they sit to make laws for the Federation. After that they dissolve to their respective Zones to carry out complete legislative duties for their respective Zones.
The Local Government administration should be removed from the Constitution and be left for the federating units to determine and finance. The original intention of the framers of the constitution to make the Local Governments the third tier of government has failed woefully. The establishment of SIEC was the albatross of the Local Government administration. It is unlikely that the Governors will permit the SIEC to be abrogated and this puts paid perpetually to democracy at the local government level. The Governors cannot be determining everything going on in the local government level, while the Federal Government will be picking the bills. The local government level has become a breeding ground for corruption, not democracy, as all they do now is share the money. They pretend to be operating democracy with full legislative structure without any executive or legislative powers whatsoever. The Governors are the sole administrators of the local governments and we should stop living in pretense about it. If we allow the local government structure the way it is now, then the future politicians will be more corrupt than the present ones. The Local Governments should be governed by civil servants to reduce the cost of governance. The states will be spared the expenses of organising sham local government elections through the State “Dependent” Electoral Commission. The local governments should be administrative units for development not corrupt democratic units for the breeding of future criminals and embezzlers.
State police should be allowed and better equipped to increase the manpower of the security agencies and their fighting power. This will ensure that the insecurity, which is threatening the stability of Nigeria is removed or reduced to the barest minimum. The Geo-Political Zones should be recognised constitutionally and be the basis of sharing of offices and amenities. More than 36 Ministers are too much to sustain in a depressed economy when the President can have fewer people to nominate as ministers if Geo-Political Zones are recognised as basis for sharing ministers. Revenue should be shared on the basis of what you produce not what you consume.