The embarrassing wages quagmire that has engulfed the country is quite unfortunate, most especially as the Governor of the State of Osun, Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola, has been singled out and made the symbol of this monstrous national calamity by political hawks and their capricious-minded agents in the state. That these antagonists are hell-bent on destroying Aregbesola, his government and by extension his political party is most worrisome. And their angst is not being driven by any shred of altruism.
They simply ache because he denied them the seat of power in the state at the August 9, 2014 election, an opportunity they always sought since Abaca’s inglorious and ignominious transition programme with just one agenda – corner state resources. Secondly, Ogbeni Aregbesola, in the last four years, has judiciously applied the meager resources of the state towards putting the state on the course of monumental human capital and infrastructural development, at a dimension their parochialism could not imagine.
Having carefully followed all the vituperations, aspersions and arguments against the financial management style of the Governor, the keen observer cannot but note that they range from total ignorance of current issues, to ludicrousness and wackiness by incurably self-centered Labour “leaders,” individuals and (most bothersome) certain wrongheaded Rights Activists in and outside the state.
Against this backdrop of misinformation and distortions, one is persuaded to add his voice to these issues that will continue to dominate public discourse because no one seems to be thinking about lasting solution to this humongous problem. My intervention aims to scratch beyond the surface of the problem as we currently have. This is because a fundamental problem militating against the growth and development of the country has to do with the failure to accept the fact of the pervasive culture of corruption, pursuit of vain glory and the nature of our political structure.
The current travail of Ogbeni Aregbesola is unfortunate because he is one person who strives to follow the Late Chief Obafemi Awolowo both in ideological and philosophical outlook, as well as demonstrating genuine concern and willingness to uplift the economic capacity and wellbeing of the masses.
Like the late sage Awolowo, Ogbeni incurred a heavy capital outlay as a result of his welfarist programmes for the people in education, health, good conditions of service for the work force, etc. The only difference is that Awolowo was fully aware that there was no Federal Government father-figure anywhere to give him money; therefore he looked inward by first of all designing programmes to expand the economic base and capacity of the people who were mere peasant farmers, village-square artisans and traders. Awo made huge investments in agriculture, infrastructure and education.
The result of his investment reflected in increased output, which meant increase in taxable incomes and profits from the sale of agricultural produce. These were in turn invested in hotels and tourism, estates, industries, etc. through the Oodua Investment Company, a conglomerate that became the first in Africa and formed a template quickly adopted by the highly revered SirAhmadu Bello for the Northern Region.
The point being made is that, it is just impossible for any state to continue to rely on the Federal Government for a purposeful development agenda. For this reason, I have never been persuaded by neo-liberal economic evangelists, whose article of faith is a shift of economic factors from the public sector to private sector. These ones preach free market/trade, privatisation, minimal or zero-engagement in business by states, almost zero public expenditure on social services like education, etc. Adoption of this gospel has foisted governments without responsibility and accountability on Nigerians since the ‘Maradonic’ regime of Ibrahim Babangida.
I have aligned myself with the argument for state-driven economy. The reason is that it has the capacity to combine the commercial and social objectives of the state in a manner that the private concern would not, because, while profit is the sole objective of the private concern, the state-owned enterprise could achieve profitability without losing sight of the social objectives of the state. For example, the state could deliberately invest in an industry because of the peculiarity of the people of a certain section of the state, region or community to generate employment opportunities and set a standard for workers’ working condition.
The idea here is that, states in Nigeria cannot continue to spend money without viable investment options that will make them less dependent on Abuja for their sustainability. They must necessarily move away from the present situation where they are reduced to rent and commission takers in the name of monthly revenue allocation, a fact that has brewed laziness and parasitism on the part of handlers of many states who embrace indolence because they are certain of collecting their own share of revenue allocation every month.
However, for states in Nigeria to become viable economic and political units, as it was during the days of Obafemi Awolowo, Ahmadu Bello and Michael Okpara, there must be a fundamental and critical interrogation of the current state of national orientation, and socio-political structures.
The starting point in the cause of national rebirth is for all and sundry to encourage and support the current anti-corruption efforts. We must, as a of matter urgency, wage serious, sincere and genuine war against the pervasive culture of corruption in the land. To lead this crusade is not just President Muhammadu Buhari and Vice President Yemi Osinbajo alone, but state governors who wear the stereotype of profligacy and licentiousness.
State governors and other political leaders must reduce the cost of running government bureaucracies. I am not talking about mere salary cuts here, but a radical reviewing of the cost of maintaining government houses, the cost and maintenance of vehicles in their convoys, travel expenses, etc. In this regard, the governing APC must make real its commitment to Nigerians to “end all private jet and first-class foreign travels for all government employees and end immunity from prosecution for sitting politicians,” as stated in the party’s manifesto.
Also, a strict budget monitoring and implementation mechanism must be put in place to guide against diversion of public funds for private and pecuniary usages. The governors must necessarily imbibe the culture of modesty in both their private and public conducts as against the present situation whereby some of them want to be treated as demigods.
My worry about the war against corruption is that, eradication of corrupt practices in our polity may continue to be a mirage so long as we continue to place a high premium on material success as a people. I also fear that, it will be impossible to tackle this cankerworm, so long as we continue to make our electoral process very expensive.
Electioneering is heavily monetised today and political offices highly attractive. If we really want to make headway in the fight against corruption, we must thoroughly interrogate these issues in order to reverse the prevailing trend arising from the failure of politicians to view politics as a lifetime opportunity to serve the people by judiciously applying state resource for the maximum benefit of people. Rather, participation in politics is viewed as the most lucrative business venture that promises the highest and unequal returns anyone can get from other sectors of our economic engagements.
One way to a permanent solution lies in looking at our political structure. It is high time we face the objective realities of our socio-economic and cultural context, to put in place an enduring political structure that will redefine power relations among the country’s federating units, that is, the states as presently constituted. This will happen through constitutional reengineering.
As a matter of fact, one can safely conclude that the adoption of the presidential system of government in 1979 and beyond permitted persistent and unbridled corruption, recklessness and impunity being exhibited by the Nigerian political class. It is quite unfortunate that the drafters of the 1979 Constitution were naïve to think that unity among the peoples of Nigeria could be achieved mechanically by adopting the American system. They forgot that our history and culture (Nigeria and America’s) are not in any way identical, therefore our realities cannot be the same. The advantages of the 1963 Constitution and the Westminster system over whatever Constitution we have been given since the 1979 presidential system of government will be discussed later.
Back to the issue at hand, besides being wasteful and expensive to maintain, the present system gives too much power, responsibilities and resources to the Centre, turning it into what Dr. Olu Onagoruwa calls a Leviathan, so powerful as to be dictating the heartbeat of the states. For instance, the Centre decides what amount a state should pay its workers, like the recent N18,000 minimum wage that has become a maximum problem to many states, as well as remunerations to political office-holders. This makes one wonder why oil-producing Delta and Bayelsa governors or councillors should be on the same pedestal as those of zero-oil Ekiti, Osun and Zamfara states.
There is no better time than now to consider putting in place a constitutional mechanism that will engender Fiscal Federalism in our Constitution. It has been said times without number by pro-restructuring and true Federalism advocates that there are many items on the Exclusive List of our present Constitution that actually should be on the Residual List.
All these provide President Buhari a golden opportunity of becoming the father of modern Nigeria. He must go beyond the provisions of power devolution enumerated in the APC manifesto, his bold fight against corruption foisted on the country by the extant Constitution and the pervading “quick money” culture. He must move towards establishing a mechanism that will lead to a Constitution that will guarantee devolution of powers to the federating units as obtained in the First Republic.
This way, we can diffuse the tension being generated by over-concentration of power and resources at the Centre, and give enterprising Governors like Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola the opportunity to adequately harness his state’s resources for planning its development agenda at its own
•Michael Popoola Ajayi is of the Centre for Democracy and Socio-Economic Rights, Lagos. He can be reached via 08033543010; This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. Photo shows Governor Aregbesola
