|
Too Many Happy Returns For Political Office Holders By Tony Ishiekwene
(London UK)
It is an irony of circumstance that a poor and underdeveloped country like Nigeria would engage in so much waste and extravagance in the running of its bureaucracy, particularly with regard to the monetary benefits and packages accruable to political office holders in Nigeria, compared to the richer developed economies of the west.
From the federal executive to States and Local Government levels, the executive and legislative office holders enjoy too many perks at the expense of hungry, suffering tax payers with these public office holders not caring to know that they are denying millions of Nigerians their meagre share of the national income.
At the presidency, they have chains of Presidential jets- no one even knows how many of these wasteful jets costing hundreds of Billions are in the inventory, as our Finance ministry or the Budget Office hardly gives Nigerians any information on this and how much it is costing Nigeria in the maintenance of these unnecessary fleets of Air machines! In the last two years the presidency has acquired a new, state of the arts super-duper jets costing about $72 million (N9.3 billion), and another Helicopter costing N2 billions in addition to existing ones. We are not talking yet of the so many super limousines and big cars numbering over twenty attached to the presidency and the n the Vice president and so many for advisers, special assistants and senior special assistants all attached to the presidency. Can some one tell Nigerians how much all these fleets are costing the tax payers annually by way of maintenance, annual depreciation charge and staff costs (Pilots, service crew etc) and other related hidden costs! Only recently I read that the presidency has budgeted a mega N500 million for food for the presidency in one year alone.
At the Legislative level, we have the Senate president and his deputy allegedly having about 20 cars each attached to their office at the tax payers expense. Only recently, in addition to the monster new cars attached to the Senate president, a N30 million naira bullet proof Lexus 4 X 4 (super Jeep) was acquired for the Senate president. Even the Deputy speaker of the House of Reps travel within Abuja with convoys of about 15 cars with siren blazing and the ordinary Nigerians in cars or foot are chased off the road by gun carrying and “koboko wielding mobile policemen, also maintained by long-suffering tax payers, so that the “big man” can have the roads free to themselves and their entourage!
These extravance and waste are been replicated at the States and local government levels. The State governors, speakers and members of the legislative house of assemblies have retinue of cars in their convoys when travelling and many to spare at home, so that they even have some for their wives, mistresses and children to go on personal errands, all at the expense of the tax payers. Local Government chairmen also do the same.
Only recently Governor Ibori of Delta state , for reasons best known to him, decided to give new Land Cruiser Prado 4 X 4 (Jeeps) to his house of Assembly members, less than seven months to the expiration of his tenure. These Assembly men and women already have state funded cars for their use. And this behaviour is replicated across most states in Nigeria so that the assembly persons become mere rubber stamps to the waste and mismanagement of the State governors. The impression they all give is that Nigeria is too rich because they feel the billions and trillions of allocations belong to them public office holders alone. They forget that about 70% of Nigerians live on less than a miserly Dollar a day! And these are so-called legitimate budgeted expenditure approved by the various legislative houses. We are yet to even talk of the massive opportunity for looting the common wealth because of this belief that we have too much resources by these public office holders. Do you wonder then why the massive looting and stealing of public funds is rampant while there are massive decay in public infrastructure?
I have never seen one man so hypocritical as President Obasanjo. In one breadth he pretends to understand that Nigeria is not rich enough to undertake all the necessary developments required across a huge geographical area and number of people in the entity called Nigeria, and he says so rightly; in another breath you see the man encouraging waste under the nose of his presidency and across the board for political office holders. About two years ago when OBJ was cornered by a delegation of the Agbor kingdom, led by the Dein of Agbor, Keagborekuzi 1, the president retorted: "I feel worried at times, when people talk about Nigeria being in money. With our population of about 140 million, we produce as much oil or nearly as much oil as Libya with a population of five million. So, when you look at our land area, which we have to criss-cross by road, by pipelines, we are three or four times the size of Great Britain, which colonised us. So, when people talk about resources in this country, one wonders what really they are talking about because we are poor in spite of what we may think that we have."
Explaining further how miserably poor Nigeria is comparatively the president continued:
"The total budget of the Federal Government is about the budget of the Fire Services in the city of New York. And yet, we think that we are a rich country. Yet, the city of New York doesn't have to think of the foreign services where we have a little bit over 80 missions abroad. It doesn't have to think of a defence of Army, Navy and Air Force. It is only a city. So, when people talk about Nigeria being a rich country and they want to live without being productive but relying on oil income, we are just deceiving ourselves."
The president was right on that occasion. Nigeria is very poor indeed but he refuse to walk the walk, only talking the talk! A president that understands that whereas $30-40 Billion could be earned from a mono-cultured product (Oil and Oil alone), this money is to be shared by a whooping 130 million people a year and over a geographic area of 923,768 sq km would not encourage the type of waste that we see everyday, including over-inflated projects and events in Abuja alone. So by any stretch of imagination Nigeria is not rich or over flowing with idle cash to be wasted as Obasanjo and other political office holders are saying by their behaviour and actions.
The time is over due for Nigeria to make political office far less lucrative than it is at the moment. The return on getting into political office is far too much on the investment that any one would kill and murder to clear their path to political office. Why would you then be surprised at the spate of politically motivated murders across the country in the build up to 2007 elections? In a land where there are no decent avenues for economic return on any investment, everyone would want to put their last millions in politics expecting massive financial return on investment, and by jove, the return is wonderful, including all the monetary benefits, the glamour and appellation of honourable and “your excellency” applicable to those public offices.
The irony of all these is that a country so poor as Nigeria- The governors and LGA chair persons may not agree, even though Obasanjo pretends to understand- waste too much money on its Governance, comparatively than say United Kingdom and many developed countries of the world. Prime Minister Tony Blair of Britain, for example do not have a single presidential jet, and he probably travels out of the country more than our “flying president” Obasanjo. Tony Blair travels on chartered British airways plane when ever he is on state business travel, and he pays for private holiday flights for his wife and children whenever he goes on holiday with his family. That way millions of pounds are saved for purchases, storage and annual maintenance of several presidential jets, attached to the presidency alone and with which the president and his boot lickers can do what they like with at the expense of millions of hungry, impoverished Nigerians.
There is no reason why legislators, Senators, Representatives and State assemblies and councillors at the local government level cannot be on part time basis, and paid only for the time they attend meetings and sessions, instead of the current huge allocations to their housing and furnishing allowance, and huge allocation of cars and other perks on a year on year basis whereas on many sitting occasions the houses are empty. Their legitimate holidays are even too much and yet you hardly see a 50% capacity on any sitting sessions. So they enjoy all theses perks for nothing. If they get paid on part time, by attendance then they will all come on sitting days and the Nation will also save valuable funds that can be deployed to other pressing areas of common need like health, educational and decayed public infrastructure.
I don’t know what is wrong with the brains of those running our government. There don’t appear to be any thinkers or people with common sense who appreciate the enormity of the socio-economic problem facing Nigerians- that millions of able bodied men and women are unemployed at the prime of their youth; that health sector is almost comatose with hospitals lacking essential drugs and equipments; that educational facilities are in urgent need of refurbishment and investment in learning materials; that our roads are death traps and electricity non existent across the country! If these politicians are not animals and senseless goons they will understand that they are taking too much off the people and that they needed to give back to the people they have taken too much from already.
There have been many talks of reforms and why we needed an Obasanjo acolyte to take over and continue with the reforms. Monetisation reform is one change that impressed me although the implementation has been very half hearted. Here in UK, MPs and Ministers purchase their houses by Mortgage from their salaries. Government do not give houses to MPs who are paid their monthly salaries, nor are they given cars for their personal use. Only the ministers who are also MPs use official cars and they do not have more than one car. I see the MPs hop into trains and busses like any other common person and you will never know they are MPs unless you are told. The monetisation reform should be taken across Nigeria to the States and local governments, and where an MP decides to take government car or house the cost of such should be deducted instalmentally from their monthly wages and salaries.
By Tony Ishiekwene
(London UK)
|