The short answer to my question is: NOTHING! Otherwise why should it be considered a useless burden paying civil servants salaries they earned if their services had any value?In a political program aired by a radio station in Kano, one political commentator was chiding Kano state government for paying its employees incomplete salary. Meaning that we have come to a stage where APC administrations across the country are reneging on the contract between them and their employees.
What that political commentator aired over the radio, was also echoed by one newspaper this morning, that workers’ salaries are slashed amidst rising inflation.What did people expect from Buhari when they elected him in 2015? Three words might capture that aspiration: SANITY, PRUDENCE, FORESIGHT.Of the three, I would rank FORESIGHT higher than the others.We need no reminder that we have three tiers of government.
Practically we have only two, since state governors have been allowed to gobble up local governments by having absolute control over their finances.The action or inaction of a president of federal government of Nigeria must impact on every state in the country. It is not a plus, but it is the reality that more than 90% of state and local governments in Nigeria depend on allocation from federation account to survive, to function at all.
Therefore, the lower the available amounts for distribution, the more the misery of citizens in states, particularly those employed by states and local governments.One of the celebrated achievements of the Buhari administration was that it bailed out states and local governments that had salaries unpaid for long.
Today, the prospect of states defaulting on salary payment is here with us, and the stark reality of part payment of salaries is already digging its heels in.Since president Buhari is supposed to be president for the whole country, not Abuja alone, then he should have gone beyond bailouts and made a holistic appraisal on how Nigeria’s public sector is to be financed.
That he didn’t do, and may not do within the remaining months of his administration. ( As I was writing this piece, the news bar showed the news item that naira might fall to as low as 700 to a dollar, predicted by NACCIMA, economists.
It might be possible readers had the wrong notion that good management of economy meant strong currency, low inflation, low unemployment, stable power supply etc. How very wrong we were! Having Buhari in office is all that good management of the economy is all about.
Another news item said two police personnel feared dead as another police station is bombed in Imo. Government has no tool to prevent future occurrence. This article is not about Buhari per se. It is not meant to belittle him, he has done that ‘excellently ‘ well himself. It is not an attempt to showcase his failures in order to take power from him at the conclusion of his term.
PDP and other parties have been doing just that for the past seven years. My view is that Buhari is a spilt milk. The exhortation that one should not cry over spilt milk must have been crafted long before I was born, and I am an old man.
What I want to bring to attention is that APC has brought us to the same state that PDP took us in their sixteen years of rule. Some would say we were better off during the PDP years, inflation and value of naira wise. That to my understanding was purely circumstantial, not because of prudence and patriotism.
Under Buhari’s peculiar economic management, we are neck deep in debts. And those who know a thing or two about economic management tell us that there is a correlation between an indebted country with declining earnings, high inflation on the one hand, and the low value of its currency on the other. Which future president can bail us out?What we Nigerians do not have time for is to appraise our political system.
Because some people with ‘apish’ mind saw America having a Senate, then we also must have one, even though more than 200 million Nigerians are wolfishly coveting a slice from less than 2 million barrels of oil daily. I am not a mathematician, but when I divided 2 million barrels by 200 million people, I got 0.01 of a barrel. That is if the barrels were to be divided equally. But the question of equality does not arise in Nigeria.
Politicians, foreign creditors are gobbling up nearly everything, such that it is becoming a tag of war for politicians to agree to pay civil servants who maintain government’s structures.Does NLC care? Why should it? They are good at going on strike when it is the popular thing to do. But they are not able to look at the iniquities deeply embedded in Nigeria’s political system, talk less of thinking of how to change it for the better.
A politician who is in opposition to Buhari’s political party said that Nigeria’s war against terrorists and bandits has created billionaire Generals. That is not news. It started with PDP when it was in power at the centre, Buhari’s administration perpetuated it. Now, in any new incoming administration, which new Service Chief would be foolish enough to work assiduously to have complete victory over terrorists and bandits? It is not in the nature of Nigerians to reject awoof.I would not reject it were I to be dubbed a theorist, one not grounded in reality.
The ‘best’ position one should take as a Nigerian citizen is to be a blackmailer. First of all, leaders blackmail us. Unions like ASUU, NLC etc also prosper by blackmailing us. The cream of the security services blackmail us at the expense of our lives, economic wellbeing: we are no longer secure to undertake the drudgery that is our lot as farmers. If politicians, unions, traditional rulers, and even religious leaders benefit, prosper at the expense of the nation and its ordinary citizens, then who remains?
Only ordinary workers, artisans, farmers, traders etc. The system excludes us. But we are criminally culpable when we legitimise a cruel governance system by voting- in those who will emasculate us. Is our expectation of good governance unrealistic? Then why are countries like China, Japan, Asian Tigers governed well?
Or does being Black mean being a slave to fellow Blacks in what is called one’s country?Were one to appeal to the academic community, the Unions, it would be that they should work together to change Nigeria for the better towards 2023. But the present cruel, exploitative system favors them, so why should they work to change it?
Abdullahi Musa writes from Kano.