In 2011, a brilliant, fine
gentleman from the south-south was elected into the Nigerian senate. He was
full of hopes and dreams. At a dinner with journalist friends, he outlined his
vision and spoke enthusiastically about pursuing “developmental legislative
agenda”. He would make a difference, he promised. Two months after
inauguration, the senator came to see his friends in Lagos with his tail
between his legs. He said in a defeated voice: “If development is this way (he
pointed forward), we are facing this direction (he pointed backward). Since our
inauguration, all we have been discussing is money, money, money. It is all
about our individual account balances.”
I recalled this story as
controversy broke out over President Muhammadu Buhari’s protest that the 2018
budget was severely distorted by the lawmakers with the reduction in
allocations to priority projects and addition of over 6,000 new projects. The
lawmakers also allocated nearly N140 billion to themselves which, God willing,
will be disbursed to the last kobo since it is a first-line charge on the
federation account. However, the lawmakers have stoutly defended themselves and
sought to justify the alterations. They said the changes were meant to reflect
“federal balance”. After listening to both parties, I am still inclined to join
issues with the national assembly.
Let us first settle some
arguments. One, the national assembly has the power of appropriation. The
executive proposes and implements budgets but the legislature must first
approve through appropriation. It is in the spirit of checks and balances. Two,
the national assembly is not a rubber stamp. It is not as if the executive will
send a budget to the legislature and they will just stamp it. Under military
regimes, the executive and legislature were one. They were at various times
known as the Supreme Military Council, Armed Forces Ruling Council and
Provisional Ruling Council. They did everything at once. We always had the
budget approved by January 1 every year.
Three, the representation function
of the parliament comes into bold relief in the budgeting process. While the
president is representing the whole country, legislators represent individual
constituencies, and they have a responsibility to factor in the interests of
their constituents — and in a way balance the national and the local. Four, the
constitution empowers the national assembly to make laws for “peace, order and
good government of the federation”. Appropriation offers a powerful opportunity
for them to do this. I don’t think we need to be arguing over this. It is
therefore logical and legal for the lawmakers to make inputs into the budget in
the national interest.
In the national interest? Now,
this is where the problem begins. Does the national assembly do anything in the
national interest? This is where the argument starts. The parliament has three
primary responsibilities: one, representation; two, lawmaking (including
appropriation); and three, oversight. These powers are so awesome that if they
were properly and patriotically exercised by the lawmakers, Nigeria would have
been a much better place. Just imagine all the appropriations to
infrastructure, education, health and water from 1999 till date; just imagine a
proper parliamentary oversight function; and just imagine how Nigeria would
have been transformed.
Based on my observations since
1999, I can safely conclude that the motive behind most budget alterations is
anything but national interest. When Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, two-time minister
of finance, said in her book, Fighting Corruption is Dangerous, that the
national assembly was “bribed” with N17 billion to pass the 2015 budget, some
lawmakers raised hell. They deliberately interpreted that to mean bribe was
shared among lawmakers, but they knew what she was saying: the executive had to
allow the legislature to add that amount to its own budget before the bill was
passed. That was the deal maker. This year, lawmakers added N14.5 billion to
their budget. Nothing new.
When the president sends the
appropriation bill to the national assembly, committees invite chief executives
and accounting officers of the ministries, departments and agencies (MDAs) to
defend their proposals. This is usually at a high cost. Some sessions are
televised live. Refreshments are served. Precious time is spent on budget
defence. After the whole show when some form of agreements might have been
reached, the budget goes to the appropriations committees which then, in a
dictatorial manner, begin to alter the budgets. The figures are usually
allocated arbitrarily. So why waste time and resources on useless budget
defence sessions? What’s the value?
Has anyone ever wondered why the
executive will propose a budget of N8.612 trillion with a crude oil benchmark
of $45 per barrel and the parliament will raise the benchmark to $51 and
increase the budget to N9.12 trillion? Setting a lower benchmark is a wise way
of saving in the excess crude account so that when the rain comes falling — as
it certainly must do cyclically — we will have something to fall back on. It is
common sense to create a fine balance between the need to spend and the need to
save so that we do not witness the kind of calamity that befell us between 2014
and 2017 again. A prudent parliament will always consider this fact with a
sense of responsibility.
Has anyone also ever wondered why
despite all the budget defence by the MDAs, the budget still comes out heavily
distorted? The idea of budget defence, which usually goes on for months, is for
the executive and the legislature to consider the fine details and arrive at
some compromise. Budgets are prepared based on the policies and programmes of a
government. The executive has its priorities and goals. So, for all those
things lawmakers are unilaterally inserting into the budget, how did they do
the costing? They do not execute projects so how did they arrive at those
figures? What is the basis for cutting down on priority projects?
Truth be told: while the executive
is not blameless, our legislators have turned budgeting to an instrument of
blackmail to further personal interests. Budgeting is seen as harvest season. I
don’t know if this culture still persists, but the MDAs used to be extorted by
the lawmakers ahead of their budget defence in order to facilitate “smooth”
passage. When Professor Fabian Osuji was minister of education in 2005, his
otherwise sterling reputation was destroyed when lawmakers extorted N50 million
from him for “smooth” passage of his ministry’s budget. Some of the criminals
went on to become governors and some are today party executives. So it goes.
It is no secret that if the MDAs
can “settle” lawmakers very well, their budgets will be increased beyond their
wildest dreams. For example, an agency would propose a budget of N10 billion
and the lawmakers would promise to increase it to N20 billion if they can
“settle” in advance. The increase will be presented as “national interest”.
That is one of the reasons the budgets are always bloated every year. They
extort during budget defence, extort during oversight function and extort from
contractors. In some instances, they will even insist on bringing the
contractors for the projects. I don’t know if these practices have stopped but
that used to be the untold story.
The lawmakers actually need to
examine their consciences. They have turned the concept of separation of powers
upside down. They prepare their own budgets and refuse to release the details
to the public. How can you perform oversight function on your own budget? Does
that make sense, fellow Nigerians? It took a courageous Senator Shehu Sani to
reveal to the world that senators legally take home over N13 million a month.
Up till today, the house of reps has not told us how much they take home every
month. National interest indeed! The lawmakers have over the years successfully
arm-twisted us into accepting the so-called constituency projects.
The bigger picture we are not
seeing, however, is that as it is in Abuja, so it is in the states and local
governments. We focus our attention on Aso Rock and national assembly, but
these shenanigans are replicated at local level. Budgets are padded and
ballooned. Non-existent projects are “funded” and money shared by those who
matter. MDA executives and state lawmakers are having fun with public funds and
there is nobody to question them. The controllers of public discourse in
Nigeria are more interested in “true federalism” as defined by them; they
deliberately ignore the bazaar going on under their noses in their states and
councils. So it goes.
The underdevelopment of this
country is not accidental. We cannot continue to do things this way and expect
progress. At some point the political elite will have to repent. If half of the
budget for education or healthcare or roads actually goes into what it is
theoretically meant for, we would have overcome most of our daunting challenges
by now. If leadership is driven by competence and patriotism, all the oil
windfalls since 1999 would have meant something more than ballooning overhead
expenditure and distorting the budget for personal benefit under the pretext of
“national interest”. I hope that one day, our leaders at all levels will change
their ways.
AND FOUR
OTHER THINGS…
UNEQUAL OPPORTUNITY
UNEQUAL OPPORTUNITY
So many things sadden me about
Nigeria, and one of them just manifested in the proposed training of railway
engineers in China. The China Civil Engineering Construction Corporation
(CCECC) had said it would provide scholarships for Nigerian students but, as
things turned out, it is only on paper. Applicants who do not have godfathers
were shocked to realise on the day of interview that only those nominated by
powerful Nigerians were allowed inside. This country continues to kill the
spirit of its citizens. This is why resentment and frustration set in. How do
you expect these young men and women to believe in Nigeria? We run an unfair
system. Depressing.
GESTAPO
STYLE
Senator Eyinnaya Abaribe was
arrested on Friday. The general belief is that he was picked up by the
Department of State Services (DSS). Typically, DSS would neither confirm nor
deny. It does not have a spokesperson. We don’t know why he was picked up; we
can only speculate. This is very disturbing. If a senator can disappear in this
manner, what is the hope for ordinary Nigerians? If DSS continues to operate
this way, I hope this will not open the door to unexplained disappearances in
Nigeria for which nobody will take responsibility. The DSS needs to modernise
its mode of operation. It is one thing that scares me stiff about this Buhari
administration. Alarming.
SORRY YARI
Alhaji Abdulaziz Yari, the
Abuja-based governor of Zamfara state, has finally told us what we knew all
along — that he is not in charge of his state. Zamfara is arguably the state
that has witnessed the most bloodshed in Nigeria in the last three years (it is
not headline news because, frankly speaking, the politicians and their puppets
cannot make a Muslim vs Christian business out of it). Yari says he is giving
up his position as the chief security officer of the state. Except he refunds
all the security votes he has collected since 2011 and stops collecting more
henceforth, we will continue to regard him as the CSO of Zamfara. This has
nothing to do with fornication. Incompetence.
AND
FINALLY…
Who said “success has many fathers
but failure is an orphan”? The person deserves a Nobel for wise saying, if
there is any such category. After Nigeria lost to Croatia at the FIFA World
Cup, I saw videos on social media showing angry fans burning the beautiful
Nigerian jersey. And then we bounced back and beat Iceland on Friday — and
suddenly the Super Eagles are the best thing since pounded yam with egusi and
bush meat. Hearty congratulations to Ahmed Musa, the two-goal hero. Within
minutes after the match, memes of Musa as the presidential candidate of APGA
were already trending! More heroics and we will nominate him to be UN
secretary-general. Ecstasy.
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