When this journey began 20 years ago, no one could predict the sustainability of the project. Every participant presumed that somewhere along the line, something will give in. Going by history, there wasn’t much hope. The longest we had done was six unbroken years, but that was in the first republic. That was in 1960-1966. If you drag it out, you could say it was 1963-1966. But let us give it to our founding fathers and accept the six years tenure. In the second republic we managed four years, 1979-1983. Then there was also the still-birth third republic which did not take off at all. However a National Assembly was inaugurated. We can’t claim to have done two years or one and half. It was a misnomer because a president was never sworn in. It was a highbred, a military cum civilian administration.
Each of these epochs presented special focus for social, economic and political development. No one can claim again that we have not practised democracy. However the issues that plagued the former republics are still with us. Insecurity, instability, poor leadership, corruption, ethnic and religious crisis are still with us. Sometimes it even appears these vices are deepening. It is impossible not to heap part of the blame on the long years of the military which by nature was not accountable. For example, it is sickening to now realize that the long years of military rule did not add any value to our power sector. There was no investment whatsoever while the population was growing. The military did not expand our downstream sector of the oil and gas sector in a way to show any seriousness. It was the work done in the 1970s that sufficed.
So as we swore in the president and the vice president, 29 governors and their deputies plus the expected inauguration of state and National assemblies in the days ahead it is a thing of pride therefore that we have been able to sustain this for the past 20 years in spite of all the variables that are clearly against us. Yet we cannot continue to celebrate events and handover notes alone. Our democracy must mean something in the lives of Nigerians in all indicators of development. So far, it appears that the greatest beneficiaries of our democracy are civil servants and public servants. The public servants include elected and unelected officials who now run our daily lives.
The easiest way to see this is the 70 percent budget allocation to recurrent expenditure, while capital spending is a meager 30 percent. It has improved a bit; after all prior to this administration the country was doing 80-90 percent recurrent expenditure. This is almost sacrilege, but that is what we have. We also have a $25-28 billion annual national budget. This is crazy. There is no way Nigeria can develop or even cater for her population of about 200 million people with that kind of money. Our poverty clearly stares us in the face. We can no longer pretend about it. The various challenges we encounter is partly a reflection of our poverty both in terms of a social problem and a capacity problem.
Consequently we need a new order, a new template to create wealth and improve the lots of Nigerians who vote but who get very little. The charge for better governance is not for the Federal Government alone. It must cut across board. We need selfless politicians at all levels.
First, let our politicians make judicious use of the little money we have. It is inconceivable that our poverty does not discourage pilfering of our resources instead there is mindless stealing going on at all levels. Most government officials take advantage of their appointments or election to wreck havoc on public finance. We should no longer tolerate that. We have had enough stealing to last us a life time therefore we need honourable men and women at this time. We have entered emergency mode.
We also need visionaries. We need folks who can help expand our economy. Folks who think big and can get the job done. We no longer need deliberate and laid back people. The president must not repeat what he did in his first term. First he must be a lot faster in taking decisions. He should be a lot open in identifying people who can work with him. Our economy needs a lot of assistance from knowledgeable people; the same with our politics and social issues. We need to embrace new and sometimes revolutionary ideas as we step into the next cycle of Buhari’s administration.
