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Follow Us on Google DiscoverUNTIL the capacity of the citizens is enhanced towards increased earnings through increased productivity any talk of increased IGR will be akin to putting your hands in a naked man’s pocket. Unemployment is raging, infrastructure, especially, roads and power are decaying, so, how and from where would you be increasing IGR? For me it is simply a chicken and egg dilemma. The truth is that you invest from what is left after meeting basic obligations. The most basic of these obligations is paying your workers as at when due. Many States are unable to do this from the reasons I had given earlier, so, they are incapable of investing. With the situation at hand, would you support creation of more states?
Apart from a few states, it seem most governors have not done enough in terms of investment and wealth creation?
I had said that our current Federal structure, given the current number of states, has gone past optimum point. Indeed, it is now a drag. We are told that as at 1960, Nigeria was at par with Brazil, Malaysia, India, Indonesia and Singapore. By 1965, with a four region structure, the East, West, North and Mid-West, the Nigerian economy was one of the fastest growing in the world. How did these other countries leave us behind? Could it be as a result of military rule? Certainly no because, some of these countries also experienced military rule at some point in their histories.
I think the cause is that, whereas their federating units have remained the same since 1960, we have moved from three regions in 1960 to four regions in 1963, to 12 states in 1967, to 19 states, to 21 and now 36 states. These developments have had severe consequences for budget delivery. The recurrent components kept increasing at the expense of capital; it has had negative effect on the integrity of public institutions, efficiency and consequently corruption. Creation of new states in this situation will be wishful thinking and suicidal. We should rather interrogate the possibility of a merger of States in our constitutional amendment exercise.
Why are the states failing? I have already given the reasons; indiscipline, ostentatious lifestyles, lack of creativity and fundamental structural inefficiencies in our federation leading to budget failures, collapsed public institutions resulting in systemic inefficiencies and consequently widespread corruption. Corruption is when people take advantage of systemic inefficiencies or failures for personal advantage.
Some people are clamouring for return to regional government as against states, what’s your opinion on this?
Regionalism should be seriously considered; our economic history clearly establishes a correlation between the number of federating units and the performance of the economy. I challenge our economists and social scientists to establish the ratio between the capital and recurrent components of our budgets from 1960 and the number of our federating units and analyse the implications and consequences.
What’s the best way out of the current economic situation? Discipline, creativity and rectitude; our public institutions must be recreated to ensure accountability and the rule of law. We must eliminate the culture of impunity and hold people responsible and accountable for their actions through a quick and efficient justice delivery system. With the current economic situation in the country, it seems Nigeria’s over-dependence on oil has finally caught up with us?
This is a day long foretold; it was clear to everyone that our oil fortune was certainly not going to last forever. But we have this overdose of optimism as a result of our preference for convenience over planning and consistency. So, though we knew that today was coming, we still yielded to the short-term comfort of convenience. Even when it became obvious that there was the imperative to save for the rainy day, for a sovereign wealth fund for future contingencies, our imperial governors opposed it.
Today, we are in this tight corner. The reality is that the so-called ‘good old days,’ if they were indeed good old days, are gone forever; we are now in the season of discipline, creativity, hardwork, accountability, rule of law and diversification. However, we must break with our past of self-indulgence, self-delusion and impunity.
