Nigeria Governors Trip To Germany - The Need For Justification

By

Dr. Marwan Haruna Abdulkarim

marwanharuna@hotmail.com

 

Six governors are embarking on a 3-day trip to Germany to discuss areas of partnership and cooperation with a select group of German technocrats and investors…”, Bello-Barkindo

 

 

Unlike any other time, the above announcement made by the Governors forum spokesperson for a planned trip by Governors elicited a lot of complaints. The travel will particularly be beneficial where the cause is fully harnessed. A corresponding drawback, however, is where governors end up acting otherwise and hence making it look as a jamboree.

 

The guiding philosophy to any overseas travel by government officials should be to provide development opportunities to the society. The key significance of foreign trips is diplomacy and it is aimed at:

 

   involving treaties/agreements between high level officials;

   dialogue amongst academics, business, religious and NGOs to foster relationships in various sectors;

   people-people diplomacy aimed at building understanding between hostile communities.

 

Obviously and based on the information given by their spokesperson, the trip is aimed at the first two parts of the diplomacy.

 

It is noteworthy that even in the developed world, the Governors embark on foreign trips to woo both investors and investment in various sectors. A clear indication therefore, that foreign trips bring about integration and consequently societal development. In the last one and half decades of Nigerias democracy, in order to woo investors virtually all the governors during the period embarked on various foreign trips. The key question therefore is have they yielded anything positive?

 

The considerable evidence with some state governors lack of carrying along their peoples interest is connected to how people feel about their overall governance. The basic view of Nigerians generally, is that instead of governors to first explore the opportunities provided locally, they resort to globe trotting, an action that is seen by many as selfish.

 

At the end of one of their meetings in 2015, the governors forum publicly complained about their inability to harness/access the many federal government intervention programs. This will further make people believe that even some of international grants and aids that are channelled through the federal government are as well being found inaccessible by the governors. If these are true, then instead of most jamboree trips, why will the governors not stay home and finish the needed?

 

Early in his tenure, President Muhammadu Buhari embarked on several foreign travels to, among other things entice foreign businesses to Nigeria. These trips have obviously brought in investments and investors in the agricultural, power, oil & gas and transport sectors etc. In the same vein, governors have either in their first or second tenures embarked on several foreign travels apparently too woo investors.

The governors forum spokesperson further explained the reason for their travel as follows:

 

“The partnerships they are seeking will cover non-oil sectors such as agriculture, health, renewable energy and vocational training institutions that could employ our teeming unemployed and jobless youths.

 

The trip that is being embarked upon is as Spartan as possible as no governor is traveling with more than an aide, who is also responsible for the area of need as it relates to their region, and they will be visiting several industrial installations, vocational training centres and theme-parks to get a firsthand feel of how they are organised so as to replicate same in their domains”.

 

But before the journey, it is however necessary for the governors to justify to the populace on whether or not they've locally explored such opportunities from the CBN, BOI, NDE, SMEDAN, and many other federal governments intervention programs in various sectors. These opportunities that abound locally are also in the non-oil sector and skill acquisition in tandem with the governors quest of the travel. In furtherance of this, state governors should as much as possible create a strong synergy with the federal government in such a way that they can quickly tap into the openings brought by the presidents travels and foreign aid that abound. Another important function that each state government ought to do is to give opportunities to local investors and periodically make a review of how much they've succeeded in tapping from these openings.

 

It is noteworthy that similar to Lagos state which has a more diverse economic base and a well-developed tax collection system, some states are following suit to boost their economies. It is also encouraging to see that some local partnerships amongst states are being developed, these should continue.

 

The activities and functions of state governors should certainly not stop at home, they ought to travel and integrate for the betterment of the society. Where this privilege is abused, the society will have no option than to cry foul and consequently use legal opportunities to stop that.

 

Finally, whenever foreign travels are proposed, the proposal should give full justification of the travel, including reviewing the previous travels and the expected outcome of the proposed one.