By Tochukwu Ezukanma
The former American Secretary of State, Mrs. Hillary Clinton, once
summed up the follies of the Nigerian power elite, “They have
squandered their oil wealth, they have allowed corruption to fester and
now they are losing control of parts of their territory because they
won’t make hard choices”. Despite his much-hyped incorruptibility
and moral courage, President Buhari, like earlier Nigerian presidents,
has failed to make hard choices.
Consequently, political power continues to be wielded as an enemy of the
people by self-absorbed power elite, and a shady, spooky, self-seeking
cabal continues to pull its oligarchic strings from behind the façade
of democracy. Power exercised as an enemy of the people ignores the
legitimate aspirations of the people and subverts equity and social
justice. It steals from the people and panders to the avarice of an
elite few. It promotes the unjustifiable affluence of the political
class and their cronies and relegates the generality of the people to
hard poverty and insufferable misery.
While Nigerian legislators are the highest paid in the world, Nigerian
workers live on the lowest minimum wage in the world. The income per
capita in America is twenty times that of Nigeria, but Nigerian senators
earn nearly three times as much as American senators and more than the
American president. Is this not, in essence, robbery, robbery colorfully
festooned as legislative remuneration? In addition to their legitimized
robbery, the legislators still splurge excessive amounts of money on
other perks of office, for example, the spending of N5.6billion for the
purchase of new SUV for senators. In the 2021 budget, the feeding and
travel allowances for the president and vice president are N3.97billion.
It rends the heart and boggles the mind when the greed and extravagance
of our rulers are considered against the backdrop that Nigeria has the
greatest concentration of extreme poverty in the world.
With government institutions bloated and wasteful, a preponderant
percentage of the budget is spent on recurrent expenditure and debt
servicing. The total expenditure for the 2021 budget is 13.58 trillion
naira, with a deficit of 5.2 trillion naira. The deficit will be
financed by loans from the World Bank, Islamic Development Bank, and
countries like Brazil, and sales and concessions of none-oil assets.
Borrowing to invest in public infrastructure, health, education, and law
enforcement is laudable economics, but borrowing to service debts and
sustain bloated and wasteful institutions is woeful economics. In the
2021 budget, only 30.4 percent of the total budget is for capital
expenditure. The percentage of the budget devoted to education, health,
and the police is distressingly low. For example, Nigeria has high
malaria burden and mortality rate, but only N297million was budgeted to
fight malaria in 2021.
Despite Buhari’s claptrap about fighting corruption, Nigeria remains
one of the most corrupt countries in the world. The toll of corruption
on the country is terrifyingly evident. For example, it enervates the
war against crimes, like kidnapping and banditry, and the war against
terror. With the resources already committed to the war against terror,
Boko Haram should have been defeated, or severely weakened to the point
of not constituting a major military threat. Paradoxically, it remains a
potent military force; striking at civilian and military targets at
will, and overrunning sections of the country. This is because some
powerful interests are benefiting, financially, from the endless war. An
endless war necessitates endless budgeting of endless billions of
dollars for the war and the endless sharing and salting them away into
the private pockets of the military hierarchy, politicians, and other
government officials.
The refusal to make hard choices explains the intractable problem of
inadequate electric generation in Nigeria. The “spending” of
significant amounts of money to increase power generation with nothing
to show for it continues under the Buhari administration. Does common
sense not dictate that to entrust the responsibility to revamp power
generation on those that gain from lack of power is fantastic absurdity?
Those that benefit from the inexplicable trillions of naira paid to oil
marketers for nonexistent subsidies; importers of refined fuel that fuel
private generation of power; and importers of generators cannot solve
the problem of power generation. Not surprisingly, darkness holds sway
over Nigeria.
The president is unable to subordinate his nepotism, tribalism, and
commitment to Fulani expansionism to the peace of the country; his
administration encourages the murderous binge of Fulani herdsmen across
central and southern Nigeria. Under the pretext of seeking grazing area,
Fulani herdsmen have been raping women; killing innocent men, women, and
children; and razing, seizing, and renaming peoples’ villages. It is
blindingly clear that these have nothing to do with grazing, but the
advancement of Fulani irredentism. By emboldening Fulani terrorists and
encouraging Fulani blood-soaked expansionism, President Buhari is
nudging Nigeria towards a civil war.
Making hard choices is challenging. It demands courage, principles, and
the resolve to subordinate selfish, cliquish, oligarchic, nepotistic,
and tribal interests to the collective good of the country. In addition,
it demands genuineness, transparency, and accountability. The Buhari
administration cannot meet these demands because Buhari is laden with
all the vices of previous Nigerian rulers. As such, like previous
administrations, his administration cannot make the hard choices.
Tochukwu Ezukanma writes from Lagos, Nigeria