Successive administrations in the country have acknowledged that one of the main drains of national resources has been the burgeoning cost of governance. Some have argued that Nigeria does not need a bi-camera legislature, suggesting that the Senate is unnecessary. Often they refer to the cost of maintaining these lawmakers, along with their personal staff and legislative aides.
The cry hit the ceiling recently when the Senator representing Kano South, Senator Sumaila Kawu, courageously revealed that he earns over N21m monthly as a total take-home package allowance every month, besides their N1.06 million salary for sitting three days on a week, where their counterparts in the Green Chamber receive N16 million. The situation is not any different from the states where scores commissioners and other aides are appointed, with salaries and overhead costs consuming a huge chunk of federal allocation.
Hence, there has been consensus within the ruling and opposition elements on the need to cut down the cost of running government affairs substantively. For instance, Head of Information and Public Affairs, at the Nigeria Labour Congress, (NLC), Mr. Benson Upah lamented about rising cost of governance in the country, especially in view of lawmakers’ jumbo allowances.
He said: “It is part of the scandalously state-structured wage system that breeds choking inequality and inequity...
The cost of governance will continue to balloon as privileged members of the executive and legislative arms of government continue to outdo one another in the gobbling of our common wealth. It is a bleak picture!” This has become even more imperative considering the parlous state of the nation’s economy following the profligacy of some past administrations. The country is evidently in a debt trap because of persistent borrowings and forward sales of crude oil by the government locally and internationally.
For instance, checks revealed that the country’s debt profile in the first quarter of this year stood at N121.67 trillion, up by N24.33 trillion from N97.
34 trillion in the last quarter of 2023. This surge, according to experts, could be attributed to a combination of fresh borrowing and Naira devaluation, with the exchange rate depreciating by 32.39 per cent.
With many Nigerians pushed into multidimensional poverty and inflation rates hovering around 40 per cent, times are indeed hard for an average person in the country. This picture indicates that the economy is in a dire strait. With the present outlook of the economy, frivolous spending and indulgence in extravagance should not be a past time for a Nigerian leader.
Considering the economic hardship exacerbated by the policies introduced by the President Bola Tinubu’s administration, government officials have no excuse not to slow down on ostentatious living. While the government has persistently pleaded with the people to tighten their belts with an assurance of prosperous future, government officials have, interestingly, continued to be sybaritic in their lifestyles to the chagrin of the people. Following the drifting of the economy to the precipice owing to the hardship brought by government policies of fuel subsidy removal and the deregulation of the power sector, life has not been the same for an ordinary Nigerian.
Countless manufacturing concerns have left the country because of harsh economic climate. This has helped thrown several millions of able bodies men into the labour market. It has also exacerbated the challenge of insecurity as many have taken to crimes because they are not persuaded that the future holds any hope for them.
The hardship in the land led to the recent hunger protests that threatened the very fabric of the nation’s cohesion. The protests was hijacked in certain parts of the country leading to loss of lives and properties. It took concerted efforts to douse the tension.
Tinubu’s new Air Bus With the prevailing grim economic reality,some critics have argued that this is not the time for profligacy and extravagant spending by any government officials, particularly, the President. This is of course the time to live by example to reflect the austerity in town. But, the recent procurement of a new Presidential Jet valued at several millions of dollars has galled the ever suffering Nigerians who have been sacrificing, hoping for a prosperous future.
Even when it has been argued that the former Presidential Jet inherited by the President was old and could be dangerous if not changed, not a few citizen believe that going for a luxurious and expensive one at this austere time, when everyone is adjusting to the harsh economic reality, was unconscionable. Some critics hold that the subsisting Presidential Jet ought to have been upgraded to modern standard. But others countered that doing this could cost fortune insisting that getting a new one was the most reasonable thing to do.
There are concerns too that the procurement of the jet may have been an extra-budgetary expenditure considering the revelation that the National Assembly did not pass the expenditure. However, a dependable source clarified that the plane may have been procured with Service Wide Votes. Responding to the controversies around the procurement of the jet, a presidential spokesman, Mr.
Bayo Onanuga explained that “The new Airbus A330 replaced the 19-year-old Boeing B737-700(BBJ) bought under the Presidency of President Olusegun Obasanjo. The recommendation to replace the B737-700(BBJ) followed an investigative hearing by Nigeria’s parliament that questioned the plane’s safety record and cost efficiency, especially after it malfunctioned during a trip to Saudi Arabia. The Nigerian Senate’s security and intelligence committee recommended replacing the ageing aircraft in the presidential fleet to reduce downtime and operational expenses.
” This suggested that the Senate could not feign ignorance about the desirability of the plane but the concerns remain the timing of the purchase. Those in support of the procurement of the new Presidential jet anchored their argument on the fact that the old 19-year old former Presidential Jet had begun to show signs of distress raising the possibilities of malfunctioning midair with its catastrophic consequences on the safety of the President. They argue that the Presidential Aircraft that crashed and killed President Ebrahim Raisi of Iran was an old one, and that it was better serviced than Nigeria’s old Presidential Jet.
Who wants the President dead? Other expenditures done by the President considered inexpedient by his critics were the award of the N15 trillion contract for the construction of the 700km Lagos-Calabar Super Highway; purchase of three bullet-proof Mercedes Benz S-class 580 and other vehicles for the State House valued at N3 billion between January to December last year; proposed purchase of a Presidential Yatch, valued at N3 billion. Other procurement considered objectionable by the critics were the N21 billion spent on the renovation of the Vice President’s residence; the N70 billion approved for the National Assembly members for procurement of SUVs; the N4 billion approved for the renovation of Dodan Barracks, Lagos and another N3 Billion approved for the renovation of Aguda House; the 300 per cent salary increase for Judges and the approval of humongous salaries for lawmakers in the National Assembly. The President was also criticized for the size of his cabinet and retinue of aides with the recent creation of the Ministry of Livestock.
Even when the President has ordered the implementation of the Steve Oronsaye Reports which recommended scrap and mergers of some government agencies, critics are saying that most of the agencies earmarked for scrap and mergers have yet to do so. However, a cursory look would indicate that the President may have begun to respond to public opinion by deliberately working on reduction on cost of governance. For instance, the President has ordered the reduction of officials in his local and foreign trips thereby saving the nation billions of Naira.
Only recently, the President ordered the establishment of the Climate Accountability Portal to enhance transparency ahead of the nation’s participation in the 29th UN Climate Change Conference (COP 29) in Baku, Azerbaijan in November. This measure, as announced by his spokesman and Special Presidential Envoy on Climate Action, Ajuri Ngelale, was to scrutinize participants at the event with a view to halting wastage. The action alone, he disclosed would save the nation a whopping N10 billion.
The President has also embarked on tax reforms to ensure increase in national revenues even as he has maintained that incomes garnered from taxes and removal of subsidies would be deployed to execution of infrastructure projects. In any case, most of Tinubu’s critics are not particularly against some of his expenditures, particularly those involving infrastructures like the Lagos-Calabar Coastal Expressway, but the concerns being raised are majorly the cost and timing of such ambitious spending at a time of austerity in the land..
