A CLOSE scrutiny of some of the priorities that shaped the 2016 budget portrays the current Federal Government as one willing to spend heavily on the side of poor and vulnerable citizens. Buhari administration’s social investment programme has six schemes, including “teach Nigeria’’ where the FG would directly hire about half a million graduates, train and post them to schools. Others are Youth Empowerment and Employment for non-graduates; the Conditional Cash Transfer scheme targeting about 110 million poor and vulnerable people and the Home Grown School Feeding Programme. The rest are Free Education Scheme for Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics students targeting about 100,000 students and Micro-Credit Scheme to empower micro entrepreneurs through soft loans.

With over half a trillion Naira in projected social spending, President Buhari’s vigorous attempt to reach out to this massive, but largely alienated constituency of Nigerians, is to say the least, very commendable. It is therefore imperative that all relevant voices across government and civil society, brainstorm on the shape and character of the administration’s proposed social protection schemes. The objective of such a robust discourse should be to dissolve the cloud of cynicism that stands in the way of ensuring such programmes deliver the optimum results for the benefit of the long suffering ordinary people of Nigeria.

While there might be concerns in several quarters about the efficacy or sustainability of such social interventions at a time of severe national cash crunch, the powerful symbolism of demonstrating to the ordinary Nigerian that he/she also has a stake in the resources of the nation should not be lost. This principle is well enunciated in the “non-justiciable” second chapter of the 1999 Constitution, which dwells on the Fundamental Objectives and Directive Principles of State Policy. The letters and spirit of these constitutional nuggets offer unused flashes of possibilities for the creation of a socially balanced and egalitarian society.

In the hands of an enlightened political elite, those little drops, could have been used to put Nigeria on the road to stability, through a comprehensive national programme of citizen empowerment and social justice. In Section 16(1a), for instance, the 1999 Constitution invites those holding the levers of State power to harness the material resources of the nation to promote national prosperity for every citizen on the basis of social justice. In a similar vein, Section 16(2b) holds that the material resources of the nation be harnessed and distributed as best as possible to serve the common good. There can be nothing possibly wrong with these provisions urging those controlling state power to work and deploy state resources in the interest of the common good.

In fact, one would have reasoned that it is even in the interest of the political elite that the generality of the people are assisted with the means to live a meaningful life. One of the biggest threats to national stability since the advent of the current democratic dispensation in 1999 would be found in the failure of the political elite to locate their self and national interests in provisions of the “non-justiciable” chapter two. Notwithstanding other stands of narratives, conflicts like the Boko Haram insurgency, and the increasing alienation of the Nigerian youth from the State are pointers to a thoroughly disgruntled citizenry that sees no stake whatsoever in the debauchery that has passed for governance over the years. The unending wave of violent challenge of the authority of the Nigerian State, such as armed robbery, kidnapping as well as the general assault on the primacy of life in Nigeria are all convulsions reflecting a system that has left too many behind.
Ajanaku is Media Manager of Transition Monitoring Group (TMG) [email protected]