Akujobi: How imperative is the change mantra?

UNDOUBTEDLY, there is conflagration in the body polity, on a scale unprecedented in the country’s democratic journey. This is sequel to the approaching elections, of which the countdown is tickling. Politicians are hyperactive in their every effort at undoing their rivals through innuendos and campaigns of calumny. A great beneficiary of the present inferno is the media. What a peculiar period for the media organisations smiling to banks over paid advertisements. 

   However, one ready feature of most campaigning is that they are bereft of deep contents, lacking on issues that tend to constitute challenges to the Nigerian nation. They are best described as pedestrian. Imagine an elected governor gleefully predicting the death of a presidential candidate if elected! Despite the peace accord signed by contestants to the coveted office of the president the campaigns have been bleak and violence-prone. Campaign trains of rival candidates have been attacked, in some cases vehicles burnt. Politicians and the elite in the society are busy booking flight tickets, in other to ferry their families out of the country in this melee. This is indeed a peculiar feature of electioneering in some African countries. What a shame to our mode of electing our representatives to offices. 

    In the midst of this barbarism in the name of electioneering, the question that should readily be agitating minds is how imperative the change mantra as being sung in some quarters or putting it more succinctly, do we really need a change? There is no doubt that skepticism has largely characterised the Goodluck Jonathan (GEJ) administration, among Nigerians and other stakeholders. The left wing party, as represented by Gen. Muhammadu Buhari, GMB, is at their best in trying to wrestle power from the largely conservative party as represented by GEJ. This imbroglio is given a valve by mainly two defining phenomena – corruption and insecurity.

    Insecurity, as largely epitomised by the dare-devil Boko Haram, has really cast a negative perception on the incumbent government. This does not preclude the fact that terrorism is a global phenomenon and lack of effective cohesion by the international community on Boko Haram. A recurring alibi for its non-containment by the government is a claim that successful governments have failed to equip the military over the years. But one is tempted to ask if the present government has done its own part in the last six years to improve on the military arsenal. 

    This question is imperative to prevent buck-passing. An institution nurtured in the past six years, even from the scratch, with the enormous budgetary allocations to the defence ministry should readily be doing better than it is doing at confronting Boko Haram and other security challenges that are gradually overwhelming Nigeria. Even at the risk of compromising the fight against terror, operational vehicles are hardly being fuelled and maintained. These are confessions by military personnel who are at the battlefront trying to annihilate the insurgents. Someone definitely should take responsibility for this anomaly. 

    Besides Boko Haram, piracy has assumed a very dangerous proportion on our territorial waters. There is arbitrary stealing of the nation’s crude oil – unchallenged. The Navy will readily tell you that they lack the technical wherewithal to drive the hoodlums off our coast. Pipeline vandalisation has become a recurring feature that has stalled the effective generation and distribution of electricity. The protection of pipelines should naturally be the responsibility of the Nigerian Air Force, through aerial policing, but a ready excuse is lack of operational jet to monitor the pipeline routes. One is tempted to ask what has happened to the resources allocated in the past years. 

    This has readily brought the issue of corruption to the front burner. Corruption has remained a defining word for most compatriots. The question again is: has GEJ government fared well in the fight against this cankerworm in the past six years, including strengthening relevant institutions? The effort should by now be yielding fruitful dividends, but it is not. Under the present government’s watch, Nigeria has climbed down in transparency international ratings. The anti-corruption agencies have really been rendered comatose. Government has not fallen short at glossing over high profile corruption cases. Even in cases of obvious corruption, culprits are being wooed or cowed to join in propaganda against opponents in lieu of subverting the course of justice rather than punishing them, most especially when such individuals are armed with tools of casting aspersion or propaganda to deceive. 

    There seems to be general lack of accountability in governmental affairs. In view of complaints over lack of motivation of the rank and file in the military, one is tempted to ask about how the enormous funds being released from the Finance Ministry to Defence are deployed. Definitely from the complaints, there are obvious diversions. In fact, Mr. President literally stopped short in one of the media chats to  say that that there appeared to be direct stealing by unidentified top military officers from the Defence votes, prompting the display of ego among service chiefs that eventually led to their sack the other day. It was at that briefing that the infamous categorization by the president of stealing as not corruption arose. At the frustration of the international community, a former United States Secretary of State Hillary Clinton quipped that GEJ is leading a corrupt government. 

    Transparency and accountability are the defining paradigms in democratic societies. The world is embracing these concepts. Where they are lacking, despondency sets in among the populace. In the wake of the allegation of an unremitted 20 billion dollars from the NNPC to the Central Bank of Nigeria, an erstwhile CBN governor was sent packing before the expiration of his tenure. This allegation has remained a defining test in the fight against high profile corruption in government circles. Imagine a similar allegation being made by the chair of Federal Reserve Bank in the United States against a state institution, the controversy would have forced key ministers and officials involved to stand down. 

     Then CBN governor, Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, might have given very conflicting figures of the missing fund, but it does not obviate the fact that there is ineptitude in the management of the nation’s oil proceeds. In the wake of all this, government has not deemed it fit to put the records straight except Senator Markarfi-led committee on finance and appropriation that probed the finances of NNPC vis-à-vis  the allegation of unremitted funds, which findings are inconclusive and highly partisan. Nigerians are still waiting for a forensic probe result by international accounting bodies as earlier promised by the coordinating minister for the economy. 

     There is no doubt the fact that the economy received a great shock owing to the fall in the international price of crude oil, leading to a great cut in the monthly federal allocations to states. This really has led to stoppage of development projects in most states. It is most likely the incumbent governors will be bequeathing uncompleted projects and arrears of salaries to their successors. It is indecorous on the part of managers of the economy not to have created worthwhile buffers at mitigating the shocks. Ineptitude remains the hallmark, despite remarks that state governors are always at the forefront in forcing the Federal Government to share every penny in the excess crude account.

     Failure at diversifying the economy against the backdrop of Nigeria’s great potentials in non-oil commodities is the bane of falling revenue accruing to government. Solid minerals have remained largely untapped. If the efforts aimed at transforming the agricultural sector had been applied to the solid minerals, a lot of buffer at mitigating the fall in price of oil would have been created. 

    The power sector, though bedeviled by years of neglect, would have recorded significant progress in terms of continuous availability of power to homes, offices and factories if the energy mix had been adopted at exploring nuclear, winds, solar and coal forms of energy. South Africa’s amazing feat in power generation is largely propelled by coal, which Nigeria has in abundance in Enugu.

How has the fight against the oil subsidy thieves progressed? Some of the individuals who participated in that undignified act are frequently seen with Mr. President, and some are even in his economic management team. What a shame! The most worrisome is the exportation of jobs, which ordinarily should have been made available for Nigerians as defined by the unbridled importation of refined products owing to the fact that refineries have remained largely non-functional despite enormous investments in the last six years.

   After cataloguing these woes on the part of drivers of governance system, then it will be right to continuously sing the change mantra in a deafening voice. 

• Akujobi is the lead director, Center for Economic Development, Democracy and Peace in Nigeria (CEDDAP).