FAILED FISCAL SYSTEM AND POLITICAL BEGGARY

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.