Daniel Kanu
Renowned human rights activist, Femi Aborishade, has taken a broad retrospective look on the Nigerian condition and its prospect.
The university teacher in this exclusive interview with Sunday Sun gave a deep analysis of the 2020 budget, border closure, visa on arrival policy, minimum wage, corruption fight, among other sensitive issues. Excerpt:
Can we have your assessment of the Nigerian journey through the President Muhammadu Buhari-led All Progressives Congress (APC) leadership as we move into 2020?
Though the APC did not create the multifarious socio-economic problems confronting Nigeria today, the truth is that the party has contributed to sinking the country into a state of unprecedented poverty, inequality, and insecurity. Rather than adopt income redistribution policies and programmes to reduce pervasive poverty and inequality, which could have an effect in attenuating the problem of insecurity, the party has been implementing neo-liberal policies that have the effects of aggravating income inequality, poverty, and insecurity. This is why the regime has become more intolerant, arbitrary, vicious, dictatorial, totalitarian and tyrannical in criminalizing exercise of democratic rights of expression and peaceful protests, disregarding rule of law, disobeying court orders and desecrating the hallowed chambers of justice by, in an unparalleled manner, invading the courts by armed and masked security agents. The intellectual reason for this dreadful development is that there is a relationship between the state of the economy and resort to rule by force (as opposed to the rule of law) by the political authority. Where the economy can afford to meet the material needs of ordinary people for survival, the political authority would tend to accommodate the exercise of democratic rights, thereby creating the illusion of a free and democratic society. However, where the economy is in a crisis and cannot meet the material needs of ordinary people, the political authority tends to be repressive in order to maintain its hold on power and all pretenses to, and illusions in democratic grandiloquence would be thrown overboard. The context herein characterized, predicated on recent practical life experiences, means that the year 2020 and beyond would pose severe challenges, not only for socio-economic rights, but also for political rights. The above constitutes an attempt at a broad assessment of the performance of the APC government and what the future portends for ordinary people, in a general sense. We seem to be walking the wrong path. My basic concern is that I am disturbed that Nigeria has now acquired a new name, the poverty capital of the world, on account of hosting the highest number of persons living in chronic poverty. There is widespread poverty in Nigeria, not because Nigeria is poor, no. Nigeria is a rich society in terms of resources, but the majority of the people are poor. The basic explanation is that the rich are rich because the poor are poor and the poor are poor because the rich are rich. The process of the enrichment of the rich is the same process of impoverishing the poor. Mass dispossession and impoverishing of the larger society take place through legitimised and unlawful looting by the putrid rich elite, at the expense of the welfare of the popular masses.
Are you saying that you are not seeing any hope with the 2020 budget?
For me, the 2020 budget appears as a tool for legitimised looting. Whereas Nigeria generates a lot of revenue through several agencies, dissenting members of the ruling class even express concerns that many of the generating agencies hardly remit the revenue generated to the federation account. The NEITI has established that the NNPC has unremitted, the sum of $21 billion between 1999 and 2012. Mr Femi Falana, SAN, has compiled a list of sources through which the Federal Government can recover the unremitted sum of over US$200 billion, including the unremitted US$21 billion by the NNPC.
Indeed, what the Federal Government budgets and publicly declares on an annual basis is possibly just about 100th of what is actually spent. This is because, for example, the budgets of about 64 agencies of government are never included in what Mr President presents to the National Assembly for appropriation. The budgets of such agencies are considered separately by the National Assembly, where the agencies bring forward their budgets. Much of the budgets are, therefore, shrouded in utmost secrecy. Thus, for example, journalists were shut out when the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) defended its N1.3 trillion budget for the 2020 fiscal year.
You can observe that the basic needs were deprioritised in the 2020 Budget. Indeed, the budget shows that meeting the basic needs for health, education, etc, of ordinary people, is not the concern of the ruling class. The greed of members of the ruling class is prioritized over and above the basic needs of ordinary people. The CBN budget of N1.3 trillion is scandalous when it is compared to its N420 billion budget in 2019 and 2020 capital budgetary allocations to health (N46 billion) and education (N48 billion). The allocations to education in the 2020 Budget should be compared to N128 billion to the National Assembly, excluding N37 billion for the renovation of the National Assembly building, which building was renovated with N40.2 billion six years ago in 2013. While N37 billion is allocated for re-renovating the National Assembly building, only N22.89 billion for the Federal Roads Maintenance Agency’s capital expenditure in the 2020 budget for maintenance of federal roads throughout the country. The APC prides itself as committing a greater proportion of annual budgets to capital expenditure. In the 2020 Budget, some N2.7 trillion is budgeted for capital expenditure. In 2016, 30 per cent of the total budget of N6.08 trillion was budgeted for capital expenditure. But in reality, only N1.2 trillion or 20 per cent of the total budget was released. In 2017, N2.36 trillion (or 31 per cent of total budget) was earmarked for capital spending, but only N1.56 (about N1.6 trillion) was released. Though there is a great emphasis on capital spending, it is actually for the benefit of private contractors rather than being used to strengthen the capacity of public institutions, ministries and departments. Money that is consumed in the award of shady contracts does not pay for wages and salaries of teachers, medical doctors or nurses. It does not pay for school books or medicines. In contrast, it is capital spending through contracting that provides the largest area for potential corruption, contrary to the claim by the regime of fighting corruption. So, in reality, capital budgets (meant for contracts awards instead of strengthening the capacity of MDAs) only provide additional kick-backs for politicians in addition to their huge and disproportionate salaries.
What is your take on the nation’s debt burden?
According to Senator Shehu Sani, former Chairman, Senate Committee on Local and Foreign Debt in the 8th Senate, the external debt burden as of 2015 has risen from $10.32 billion. The total debt burden is estimated to have risen to $84 billion as of 2019. An additional external loan of about $30 billion (precisely $29.6 billion) is being proposed. If this additional loan is taken, experts estimate that it has the implication that a huge chunk of $3.2 billion of the 2020 Budget could be committed to debt servicing alone. In the 2020 Budget, N2.7 trillion is allocated for debt servicing. However, contrary to the claim that the debt burden is too high, Nigeria actually has a very low level of debt to GDP ratiocompared to the benchmark established by the European Union. By June 2018, Nigeria’s total public debt represented less than 20 per cent of GDP (African Development Bank, 2019). The only global benchmark is the 60 per cent level adopted by the European Union where many countries have debt that is at least 100 per cent of GDP. So, the Nigerian government could actually borrow more than three times its current debts and still not breach European guidance. The concern really is the purpose for which the loans are taken. If the loans were taken for productive ventures under the control of the state and to address infrastructural deficits and basic needs such as education, health, and social housing, there could have been no worries. But more often than not, the loans are taken and consumed in corruption, Public-Private Partnerships and contractocracy, which are, in reality, conduit pipes to fritter away public wealth to companies owned by politicians in and out of power and/or their cronies. What is required is an end to contractocracyin the execution of public projects, in preference for enhancing the capacity of public institutions/ministries set up for different mandates and entering into PPPs – Public, Public Partnerships, on a national and international basis where public institutions currently lack the required capacities – skills and equipment.
Let’s look at the issue of border closure and visa on arrival (VOA) policy…?
(Cuts in) Nothing best represents the confusion of the Federal Government of Nigeria than the contradictory border closure and VOA policies. The confusion shows those at the helm of affairs lack a clear-cut understanding of the issues of governance. The government tends to be responding to external counter-pressures rather than providing a vision and leadership. First, border closure represents a mercantilist policy of striving to limit imports for economic advantages. But the reality of the globalized world has shown clearly that mercantilism cannot resolve the attendant economic problems. Rather than forcibly closing borders, the government could have put policies in place to assist rice growers, in particular, to aid domestic production and reduce prices, which could discourage import or smuggling of products. The border closure has now resulted in an astronomical rise in the price of rice by nothing less than 40 per cent and subjected other non-rice dealers who rely on external trading with neighbouring countries to avoidable economic pains. The VOA policy is also a reflection of impunity by the executive arm of government within the context of the Immigration Act of 2015, which provides for a particular visa procedure and Section 12 of the extant constitution, which subjects international treaties to domestication and enactment into law by the National Assembly before implementation, with the exception of conventions and recommendations of the International Labour Organisation (ILO) under Section 254 C of the same constitution. The VOA policy is, therefore, an unconstitutional executive-made law, which should be opposed on that ground.
What is your view on the issue of National Minimum Wage which some states say they will not implementation?
The N30, 000 new National Minimum Wage represents a 67 per cent increase over the previous minimum wage of N18,000. The consequential increases granted for staff within GL1 and GL7 and more senior officers above Grade Level 7 are just over 23 per cent and only 14 per cent respectively. What is more, in many states, the minimum wage of N18,000 per month was not being paid. In a state like Zamfara, only N6,000 minimum wage is being paid till today. Bismark Rewane, Financial Derivative analyst, and an economic adviser to Mr President has established that cumulative inflation in the last five years is 752.92 per cent as against wage increase of 66.7 per cent. What this means is that even when and if the new minimum wage is paid, wages and salaries still lag behind inflation. Indeed, much of the increase (if paid) would immediately be lost by the VAT increase from five per cent to 7.5 per cent and the 40 per cent increase in the price of rice due to the recent closure of the land borders of Nigeria.
Critics say the civil society group where you belong, as well as organised labour, professional bodies, appears dead when compared to what was obtained in the past. How do you react to this allegation?
As Fulton Sheen challenged us: “The refusal to take sides on great moral issues is itself a decision. It is a silent acquiescence to evil. The tragedy of our time is that those who still believe in honesty lack fire and conviction, while those who believe in dishonesty are full of passionate conviction.” The quality of the state of life today in Nigeria is a product of governance failure. The major ruling political parties cannot resolve societal problems. The required solutions to poverty, inequality, and insecurity are against the interest of the rulers. Though civil society appears weak, things would have been worse without the roles of civil society. Unless the civil society provides leadership islands of barbarism, the Boko Haram barbarism, kidnapping for ransom barbarism, armed robbery barbarism, banditry barbarism, including political barbarism involving the invasion of the court by armed and masked security agents, would continue to spread. The building of a new and better world would be a product of the self-activity of the deprived, through their organisations, economic and political. Unless ordinary people organize independently to defend their rights and build a fairer society, based on pro-poor policies and programmes, the option of descent into deeper forms of barbarism would be inevitable.