FAILED FISCAL SYSTEM AND POLITICAL BEGGARY
The
Nexus between the state and economy in Nigeria is such an inertia type,
which is why both institutions are systematically antithetical. This
is because there is rarely a meeting point between the government's
prioritized endeavours (political decisions) and the needs of our
people (economy).
Over the years, Nigeria has
solely depended on fossil fuel and eschewed all other meaningful
commercial alternative avenues that could provide as much as we earn
from oil today. The resultant effect being that all the 36 states of the
federation plan their yearly budgets based on allocations from the
Federation Account. Invariably, ancillary palliative measures to foreign
exchange such as: internal/external loans; bi-lateral grants from donor
country or multilateral/international organizations and economic bail
outs of any sort are no longer seen as occasional or second plan ideas,
but rather, these debt procurement method is now the most fashionable
means of planning budgetary provisions in Nigeria.
A
flash back into the era of regionalism will show how unashamed,
unscrupulous and unintelligent political administrators have become.
Before the proliferation of states regions are specialists in
agricultural products which served as veritable sources of income.
"Regional governments are the landlords that contributed quota/taxes to
the federation's pocket" (Leo Dare, 1978). "This actually weakened any
sort of intending or imaginary central monopoly of power" (Adeoye
Akinsanya, 1985). "Our balance of trade and payment was enhanced in
favour of naira as a currency" (Claude Ake, 1970).
The
fiscal system during the days of regionalism did not allow
parliamentarians or politicians the uncountable retinue of aids they
parade today. There were lesser or non-performing ministries.
Agriculture simply made government the largest employer of labour, not
the fraudulent or opaque NNPC. The civil service consisted those
ingenuous and industrious people with job roles, unlike now when we have
ghost workers who do nothing and earn tax payers money.
Since
1976, state creation did not allow vestigial states the kind of
regional economic platforms that could enable those states exist in
commensalism with the federal government. Moreover, many state governors
are thieves, foolish and greedy to the extent that they loot through
any imaginary means they could fathom. These state governors lacked
creative mentalities; they are so comfortable with the whole
administrative rot/decadence that they took after the federal method of
politics by creating avalanche of ministries with uncountable
appointments.
The collapse of oil price mete
out an attendant effect to Nigeria and the country slumped into
financial crises. Both the Federal and State governments are owing in
Nigeria. As of today, the country is owing #24.95 trillion. The amount
owed to external governments and agencies is $25.61 billion. We keep
borrowing to the extent that we now borrow to pay salaries. The Chinese
government for instance will continue to lend us money because their
leaders have foresight and they know that Nigeria will at one time or
the other become a vassal state to China.
I
once put forward a 'theory of federal dislocation' that could help us
evade paying these huge debts by dissolving the country and allow
splinter states take formations. It is a pity the theory cannot apply to
Nigeria because even, individual state borrow uncontrollably and they
do not have any meaningful development to show for it. Imagine Lagos is
owing #542 billion; Rivers #225 billion; Delta #223 billion and so on.
If you check at the office of Debt Management they will tell you that
the ratio of our debt to GDP is 19.03%, this is a shame. Politicians
will tell you that recession warranted the borrowing. Is that why we
must borrow to pay salaries? The wage bill of these states is almost 75%
of their monthly allocations; little wonder many of our states in
Nigeria look as if they are still in the 19th century!
The
important questions are: (i) for how long will this unnecessary
political/financial babihanla (beggary) continue? (ii) when will state governments in
Nigeria develop their own internal capacities to generating wealth?
(iii) for how long will oil crisis continue to degenerate into financial
crises for Nigeria? (iv) what is the plan of the current political
regime on economic diversification? (v) why did we continue to borrow
and neglect our GDP? (vi) must government appoint/employ so many people
who contribute nothing to the economic development of the state but
receive salaries in the name of carrying files?
My
own submission is that fiscal federalism will go a long way to put to
rest the case of shortage/dearth of financial resources; it will tame
the menace of financial impropriety; it will abate the precarious
situation of the economy; it is going to weed out the non-performing
section(s) of the civil service; it will promote internal competitions;
our mass market shall be enhanced; the economy will be diversified; the
ubiquity of federal character principle shall be relatively reduced or
silenced while a state-centred as against centripetal federalism will be
promoted.
In a simple language, different
states have mineral resources, they should be constitutionally empowered
to put those materials into industrialization while they will only
remit taxes to the federal government. States with little or no natural
resources can resort to pure agriculture or energy-based productions.
Against this backdrop, federal politics will become less chaotic if
there is no much goodies to suck, as such, the centre will be
administrative-driven, purposeful and rule-oriented. The reliance on
oil will reduce drastically. Moreover, financial problems will no longer
warrant political babihanla (borrowings) that has continued to
encourage ineptness, dormancy and over reliance on federal
government by all and sundry.
Unless the
government of this or future era look critically into the aforementioned
problems and the outlined solutions, failure of public policies will no
longer be seen as a setback but rather, as a propellant for government
officials to always arise and stereotype Nigerians as refugees in their
own country. This, they will do and continue to do despite the volume of
illegitimate largesse they enjoy in the midst of fiscal imbalance that
pervaded the country.
