The Government of Nigeria, as I understand it, is upset: the United States Mission in Nigeria last week called it a hypocrite.
Not in that exact adjective: the Mission highlighted a story by Africa Report, which exposed how some Nigerian governors squander billions on new government buildings while asking citizens to endure austerity.
Actually, it is a stretch to say that any Nigerian governor has asked their citizens to absorb current pains. It is President Bola Tinubu who does that in support of his crushing economic policies, but perhaps diplomatic etiquette prevented the Mission from affirming that.
The Mission said in the ‘offending’ tweet: “While Nigerians are urged to endure economic hardship ‘like labour pains,’ some governors are splurging billions on new government houses.”
There are people who feel that it is improper for the Mission to have made a comment of this nature. I am not one of them. In these first 25 years of the Fourth Republic, I have routinely written about the very practice of governors turning their governorships into estates for their own selfish advancement.
The phenomenon of building and rebuilding Government House or Government Lodge is one of our republic’s most telling tragedies. Just six months ago, I “alluded” to it: “Governors make and unmake, especially when it comes to personal luxury. In state capitals, Abuja and even Lagos, they build, rebuild, reconstruct, upgrade or repeatedly renovate and re-furnish the Governor’s Lodge.”
For context: in addition to the June 2024 impressions of Daily Trust mentioned above, here are those of Menapolee, an independent travel content creator, who also last January reported on the 36 Governors’ Lodges in Abuja, finding insane and scandalous levels of spending.
Keep in mind that in the United States, on which our democracy is constitutionally modelled, states are represented in Washingto,n DC by their Senators and congressmen, not governors pretending to live there. In Nigeria, sadly, the governors need a hiding place where they can interact with other politicians and conduct private businesses, particularly currency speculators.
The Nigerian governor wants to live in luxury in his state, but he also wants to make money, and what better way than a project that is under his thumb from the beginning to the end? These projects, and no, they are not “infrastructure”, take care of the governor, as well as his life following the governorship, which is often a Senatorial chair, as they seamlessly transit directly into the Senate.
A related “benefit” of governors’ perennial building of the Governor’s Lodge is that they often then build palatial personal residences for themselves, as well in Abuja. Some of them have used the state legislature to guarantee such a lifestyle for themselves and their families after the governorship.
Because the Nigerian state was apparently set up not for elected officials to serve the people, but to worship themselves.
It began with the constitution establishing the governorship. “There shall be for each State of the Federation a Governor,” it stated. “The Governor of a State shall be the Chief Executive of that State.”
Note that the constitution does not establish an “executive” governor, and that it is illegal to speak of an “executive” governor. But our governors, supported by an unthinking mass media, advertise and perpetuate the fiction of an “executive” governor as if there is somehow another kind of governor. They want to be called “Excellency,” even though that title is also alien to the constitution.
In two and a half decades, Nigerians have found the “executive” in the governor to be in the area of opportunism, not security, health, education or infrastructure, skirting due process and commonsense in the process. It is why Oyo State’s Governor Seyi Makinde, somehow believes he can justify N63.4bn simply to renovate Government House. Just last month, The Guardian authoritatively reported on these reprehensible perennial renovations, estimated N200bn in the last three years alone.
To take advantage of the lavish accommodations they own or renovate in Abuja, to which many of them travel several times a week, have you considered how much money they spend on chartered flights? Or how much money is repeatedly expended on their aides? Because the governor is made of money!
And think about it: when was the last time in these two and a half decades that you saw a governor, unless he was “secretly” visiting his girlfriend, in a convoy of three or four cars? It does not happen: to substantiate the governorship, he has to be in an extensive, loud convoy.
And his cars have to be massive, glittering SUVs that look like they arrived from the bakery abroad just an hour ago. Because the governor is made of money!
When was the last time you saw the governor’s wife shopping locally, or the governor’s son graduating from a local school? Because the governor is money!
When was the last time you saw the governor building or commissioning a library? Or advocating a library? Or visiting a library?
The Nigerian predicament, therefore, is that an “executive” governor is not simply an office: he is an industry all by himself frothing over with boundless influence, affluence, fear and power, especially in Abuja, and without having to suffer the indignity of visiting any of the localities on the state map. Because the governor is made of money!
The “executive” governorship in Nigeria is, therefore, in greater crisis than his splashing of billions on government houses. It has collapsed under the sheer weight of the office, the governor blinded by the sun-rays of his own importance. He is so powerful, he forgets why he is where he is. And that is why you see no governor on his own streets once his tenure is over.
To be fair, a part of this is not, and should not be, the governor’s fault. Building and maintaining the Governor’s Lodge and offices should be the responsibility of an external body to manage and regulate Government Houses, set up like one of the three State Executive.
This would mean that a governor cannot wake up in the morning and determine that he needs a “befitting” new mansion, or that he will renovate the Abuja Lodge starting on Wednesday simply because he saw his counterpart building a “better” Gate House.
In the end, this is less about our governor than our sense of purpose. We are a poor people who, no matter how powerful, have established for ourselves a system focused on consumption, not commitment. And then, once armed with the opportunity, greed and hypocrisy take control of us, and we want everything for ourselves. Ask yourself: where, for instance, are the glittering new cars that our presidents, governors, their appointees, and aides acquired in every budget in the past 26 years?
Think about it: what if President Tinubu this August converted those luxury EFCC fortified quarters in the FCT, that were renovated into “State House complexes” in 2023 at a cost of N3bn, into public libraries?
How many intellectual Super Falcons might we produce in the next decade?
Because we cannot advance if we do not conquer greed.
