The decision by the Federal Government to offer another bailout to enable bankrupt States to clear workers’ salary arrears and other recurrent expenditure is a national embarrassment which points to a democracy that is not working. The unacceptable anomaly which has turned the states into beggars and the FG as Father Christmas should not be allowed to become endemic. This second bailout, announced after governors of the 36 states rose from their meeting, last Thursday seeking urgent assistance should, therefore, be the last. If this seeming state of financial bankruptcy is disgraceful, more shameful is the leadership bankruptcy that has engendered it. Never again should profligacy, graft and bad governance be rewarded. And to underscore that resolve, the government should not entertain any future bailout demands from the governors, because it is in their predilection for self-aggrandizement and outright incompetence that many have run their states bankrupt.
Hours after their meeting in Abuja under the aegis of Nigerian Governors Forum (NGF), the governors got a lifeline as the National Economic Council (NEC) at its 63rd meeting approved about $150 million out of the $400 million proceeds from the Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) to be shared among the three tiers of government. Reading the communique at the end of the meeting, Taraba Governor, Abdulaziz Yari said the states could no longer pay the N18,000 minimum wage that was imposed on them when oil sold for $126 as against its present $41. He cited economic diversification as the way forward, but urged the FG to show more understanding now that some states today are taking N100 million monthly allocation while they have salaries of over N2 billion. The governors also resolved to reduce their salaries and other overhead expenses.
This self-righteous indignation by the governors is buck-passing because they are responsible for the financial predicaments of their states, given that many governors have proven time and again to be profligates, lacking in decency of character and wasteful with resources while totally bereft of ideas on how to supplement income from the federation account. While low oil prices may have led to smaller accruals to the states from the federation account, poor governance, laziness and corruption, among other vices on the part of the governors have compounded their woes. A situation whereby governors and the leadership of the state assemblies award huge severance packages to themselves is deplorable, amounting to sheer robbery.
It is on record that many governors hardly present themselves as models of good governance with lifestyles that are flamboyant or too extravagant for comfort. It is indeed unfortunate that the same governors who are too quick to plead helplessness and seek understanding on the sliding fortunes of the country’s economy due to falling oil prices have also always found enough to charter private jets for their travels and sustain their conspicuous consumption; no shame, no compunction. In no unmistakable terms, some governors have proven themselves unworthy of their offices.
It is a fact too that many states are contending with bloated workforces they either inherited, or created for political patronage. Appointments into those offices lack honesty of purpose. The governors should, however, squarely take the blame, and cut their coat according to their cloth. Government workers have suffered in the hands of states defaulting on salary payments. Owing workers unjustifiably and for no fault of theirs is indefensible; families should be spared this ordeal. In fact, the change preached so vociferously by the Buhari administration must start with the settlement of the salary commitments as a priority of the states.
The multiplier effect of unpaid wages is real. The worker suffers, the immediate family and dependents suffer; society is worse off for harboring stress-filled human beings who are not proud to call themselves citizens. The situation is disaster waiting to happen. In the face of all of these, the governors live in the clouds, and, at the same time, glory in their cluelessness on governance. With the way Nigeria is structured or the states are made to function, there is no economy outside of civil service. If civil servants, teachers and the like are not paid, nothing else happens.
Governors should know that public office is not a profit-making business. For instance, flying around in chartered jets adds no value to governance and is inconsistent with service to people. Mismanaging funds in the guise of security votes or constituency and wardrobe allowances, office of the first consort and the like is not only fraudulent, it is an insult to the people a governor is elected to serve. Needless to say unrestrained wastage of states’ resources is criminal. Therefore, such profligacy must end. The country, of course, has enough laws to take care of opportunistic parvenus in high places.
The failure and betrayal of the peoples’ trust is advertised by a certain moral bankruptcy that makes governors who ran their state economies aground, shamelessly line up for federal support or further fund sharing. Clearly, from the current bankruptcy of the states, the danger now and ahead of Nigeria’s warped federal system is becoming more obvious, calling for the political will to institute a true and balanced federation. As the stress on financially weak states is beginning to take its toll, the country can only continue with such bailouts with national collapse in mind as the final result.
Certainly, a total dependence of many states on federal allocations raises fundamental questions of fiscal federalism. Monthly allocations to the states are not shared equally as some receive more than others for some statutory reasons. It cannot be justified, therefore, when all states are required by labor provisions to pay workers the same minimum wage. Each state deserves to negotiate with its workers. States must also be encouraged to explore and invest in resources in their domains, pay royalties to the federal authorities and have access to more revenue.
The point to ponder is whether it is proper in the first place for the executive arms at the federal and state levels to involve themselves in exercising the power of appropriation, which is tantamount to usurpation of the function of the National Assembly. To be sure, this is a means of institutionalizing corruption and freeloading money to generate discord in the economy. Governors and particularly the President require no reminding that they are constitutionally mandated to pursue sound economic policy options at all times. Although the Buhari administration is just rolling off, it is obvious many governors still have not learnt any lessons. They must either change their attitudes or have the train of change leave them behind.
These difficult times avail Nigeria the chance to embrace the truth, let governance be liberalized in a way that states can be truly federating units. In this regard, the government can ride on the last National Conference’s recommendations to restructure the country for efficiency and prosperity. The lesson from the present debacle is that a bailout, desirable as this one is, and by whatever designation, cannot solve the states’ problems. A regime of good governance, accountability and prosperity for all can only be created in a well-structured truly federal Nigeria, shorn of laggards in office and rent-seekers in power.
