It is true that as of today, Nigerian workers, artisans, market women and indeed, majority of Nigerians except politicians in the ranks of president, vice-president, ministers, members of National Assembly, successful business men and women and some privileged ones who have easy access to the public purse are groaning under unusual, unimaginable, excruciating financial condition. Some say it has never been this bad. Some attribute the present bad condition of Nigerian citizens in the land of plenty to wickedness, greed and selfishness on the part of our leaders. As I would say, human beings are basically selfish, which informs the biblical golden rule: “do unto others as you wish them do unto you” or the great German philosopher, Immanuel Kant’s Categorical Imperative: “Act in such a way that you would wish your action to be a universal law of nature”.
Unfortunately, the above condition of Nigerians is real. People are hungry and angry. Our friends from the US would find it unimaginable under the sun that people would work anywhere for one month without pay, not to talk of 5, 10, or 20 months! How do workers survive in Nigeria? How do they meet their monthly financial obligations on house rent, food, hospital bills, school fees, repayment of loans or bank over drafts which workers obtain every month from the banks to be paid back immediately from monthly salaries? There is the microeconomic issue of thrift societies like esusu where workers must contribute certain amount as compulsory savings every month without fail. This collective arrangement is derailed or aborted if one misses a month’s contribution! Such a profitable saving device among workers is no longer possible, as people no longer receive their salaries every month. The consequence of this for workers is bye-bye to thrift societies.
Generally speaking, people feel aggrieved and angry that our political leaders never feel the pangs of extreme poverty occasioned by nonpayment of salaries and pensions. Rather, our leaders live in opulence as if they don’t know that Nigerians are suffering as many families cannot afford one decent meal a day. Many have died from hunger and from their inability to pay for needed drugs that are meant to keep them alive. Some had committed suicide out of neglect and frustration while some of our selfish leaders live in outlandish opulence and could even afford to comfortably take their families abroad for medical treatment at exorbitant cost in foreign exchange, and still draw estacodes to the bargain. This is a perfect demonstration that human beings are basically selfish, and there seems to be no cure for this disease, especially in Nigeria.
However, our top political functionaries from the presidency to the governors and National Assembly members may have a calculated alibi for the current plight of the common man by invoking the self-inflicted economic recession. I know that, as a matter of fact, Nigeria had no problem of payment of workers’ salaries until sometime in 2013 under Jonathan’s administration. Now they have joined the ranks of pensioners who have always been a forgotten section of the society simply because they could not embark on strikes. Right now, the federal pensioners are having a running battle with the government not only for nonpayment of three years arrears of their pensions, but for wicked and illegal deduction of 20% as tax on nontaxable pensions. Perhaps our governments deliberately want the pensioners to die instead of taking proper care of them at old age as governments in civilized countries do for their pensioners seen as respected senior citizens.
But there is no way we can discuss the present bad situation of workers and pensioners without going back to the memory the lane – Jonathan’s profligate administration. That was why, in one of my writings entitled “Aregbesola: more sinned against than sinning?” (Nation, April 7, p19) I argued, not only on behalf of Governor Aregbesola, but also on behalf of all governors including the President and the Federal Government in the present dispensation. The core of my argument and defence was that, with the monumental corruption and emptying of national treasury by Jonathan’s administration, the problem of nonpayment of salaries which started before the end of his administration was inevitable.
In fact, I had envisaged this problem by warning the All Progressive Governors in an earlier article entitled “APC Governors beware!” (Nation, March 29, 2014, p21) in the following excerpt: “Since about July last year (i.e. 2013), the 36 states of the federation and the Federal Capital Territory have been starved of funds through a drastic reduction of 40% of their statutory allocations attributed to shortfall in oil revenue. For instance, the State of Osun which used to receive monthly allocation of between ¦ 4.4 – 4.6bn now gets ¦ 3.2bn, a shortfall of a whopping ¦ 1.2bn per month! Consequent upon this, some states have not been able to meet their obligation to workers in the payment of salaries and pensions as and at when due”. For this strange development, I asked the affected governors all over the country to raise local and international alarms about the coincidence of the alleged 40% cut in monthly statutory allocations, with the time of the Ekiti and Osun States governorship elections in 2014, and presidential and National Assembly elections the following year, 2015. I then wondered about the motive that led the federal government to begin starving the states of funds at that time and why it coincided with the disappearance of $20bn, earned largely from bumper oil revenue which ought to have gone to the states, into thin air! I then posited that the 40% shortfall for all the states was a ruse, as only the APC states would be affected while the PDP states, their governors and National Assembly candidates for the 2015 elections would get hefty money through the back door, at least from the $20bn missing oil money – a gigantic loot which I said would be shared by PDP and governorship candidates, including the pursuit of Jonathan’s presidential ambition. Now, the sharing of part of the loot as exposed from Dasukigate has proved me right. So also are several looted funds allegedly supervised by the then Minister of Petroleum, Mrs. Alison-Madueke and many others still under investigation. Fortunately, some of these looted funds from bumper harvest of oil revenue are being recovered.
The question now is, why should people now groan under an unprecedented economic crunch even after some appreciable loot have been recovered? The loots belong to Nigerians who are citizens of the 36 states of the federation and not the Federal Government which is only a custodian of the nation’s wealth with its own share as prescribed by the constitution. But there can be no Federal Government without the state governments as its essential and irreducible components. If you are told that The Federal Republic of Nigeria is made up of 36 states plus the Federal Capital Territory, then the Federal Republic of Nigeria is only an abstract entity, unknown to villagers in their individual states. So when I tell you all the states that constitute The Federal Republic Nigeria and you ask me “where is The Federal Republic of Nigeria?” you are making what philosophers call a category mistake. There is no Federal Government outside the 36 states and the Federal Territory.
My advice to the Presidency is to realize always, that the state governments constitute the essence, existence and soul of what is known as The Federal Republic of Nigeria. The federation is an organic whole, just like any living organism which, if it fails to take proper care of any of its component parts, is doomed to extinction. The non-functioning of just one organ of the body can lead to the death of a person. The same is true of Nigeria, and any nation, as a federation. The problem in one state can cause a lot of problem for the entire federation, or even its death or disintegration, just as we have witnessed in Borno State, and now witnessing in the Niger Delta.
I think the federal government should take seriously the problem of nonpayment of salaries with governors, as this affects the nation’s economy badly. Citizens have no money to spend while market women, businessmen and women and petty traders cry loud for lack of patronage. There is also the need to reconsider the issue of TSA whose effect is telling heavily on banks and federal institutions which can no longer service the Nigerian people with money that have been seized by the Federal Government. The entire nation suffers while all its money is stockpiled in one place – an overstuffed central bank.
Prof. Makinde, FNAL, writes from Awolowo Centre for Philosophy, Ideology and Good Governance, Osogbo.
