It is true that the President Muhammadu
Buhari administration has just spent a negligible four of its 48 months
term. I understand that this period represents a paltry 8. 3 per cent of
the entire tenure but then, it is also true that none of these 180 days
will ever come back.
Someone likened opportunities to sunrises
which you will miss if you wait too long. This is why a government
which rode on the affection of the bulk of the people of Nigeria should
have seized the opportunity of that fondness, which will not last
forever, to set its promise of change for Nigeria in motion.
This is more so because in Nigeria,
governance only goes on for a little more than two of the four years of
an administration’s term. By the two and half years mark, permutations
and scheming for the next election start to take over and governance is
left to suffer. That is one reason why there is no time to waste in
public office in Nigeria.
The President and his All Progressives
Congress have tried to assure the citizens that work is going and that
Nigerians do not seem to realise that because of the extent of the “rot”
of the 16 years of the governance of Nigeria by the Peoples Democratic
Party.
As a result, they have argued, this
administration has been busy dismantling the mountains of impunity and
misgovernance, especially of the immediate past administration of
President Goodluck Jonathan. Except that we have had more verbiage than
actual evidence about that.
But that is beside the point, what a lot
of those critical of this administration think is that the PDP and its
members may truly have packed Nigeria into a coffin while the country
still has some life, but it is now in the hands of the APC to nail that
coffin or fling it open and give the country a new lease of life. And
the gesture, one way or the other, deserves some urgency.
One of the things this government is
expected to have accomplished in the past four months is to have
cultivated the National Assembly and got the best out of it while
everyone is still feeling fresh from the elections. Truth be told, no
matter how much the executive arm tries in a presidential system of
government, frostiness in its relations with the legislature is as sure
as night and day.
As a result, democratic governments are ideally
expected to exploit the first few moments in their administration to get
the best from the legislature before vested interests creep in. This
administration has not only lost that opportunity, the chance that it
would ever take advantage of its party’s majority in the legislature
gradually evaporates like water in the sun.
I also imagined that the administration
would take advantage of the adulation that heralded it to take tough but
necessary decisions in the interest of the country. One of such is the
termination of the subsidy regime on petrol.
At the end of June, 2015, The PUNCH reported
that the Federal Government incurred the sum of N56.784bn in petrol
subsidy arrears in Buhari’s first months. Quoting data from the
Petroleum Products Pricing Regulatory Agency’s website, the report said
that the country took petrol subsidy arrears to the tune of N47.32 per
day on one litre of petrol. And at the beginning of this week, reports
indicated that the sum may have hit the N500bn mark!
Yet, the President is said to find no
justification for the removal of subsidy on petrol in spite of counsel
from experts including the Group Managing Director of the Nigerian
National Petroleum Corporation, Dr. Ibe Kachikwu, which he recently
appointed.
Apart from the trillions of naira that
the country will continue to spend on subsidy, the President seems not
to realise that challenges like sabotage, vandalism, corruption and
mismanagement attend this subsidy regime.
For as long as petrol sells
cheaper here than in other countries on the borders of Nigeria for
instance, oil theft is not likely to stop and depending on the character
of superintendents over relevant agencies to solve the problems is not
unsustainable. Reforming procedures is absolutely more effective than
the replacement of personnel, a point that I am not sure the President
takes seriously.
But then, it would be unfair not to see
the President’s point of view concerning the removal of subsidy. Aside
from insisting that corruption and a few other things account for the
problems in the oil and gas sector, the President is averse to subsidy
removal because of the effect that it would have on the personal economy
of the common man.
Speaking after receiving a briefing from
the Ministry of Petroleum Resources, the NNPC and other agencies in the
oil sector in July, Buhari was quoted as saying that “When you touch the
price of petroleum products that has the effect of triggering price
rises on transport, food and rents. That is for those who earn salaries,
but there are many who are jobless and will be affected by it.” That is
quite considerate of the President but I do not know how far populism
takes a government that promised to reform a country where compromise
thrives.
It is in the same breath that I do not
understand this week’s exemption of the NNPC and 12 other agencies from
operating the Treasury Single Account which Buhari ordered last August.
This flip-flop is pathetic because the NNPC, given several allegations
of misapplication and misappropriation of national revenue, inspired the
idea of the TSA in the first instance. So, was this idea not
well-thought out from the outset?
Another important task before this
government is the reform of the civil service. This should not be
restricted to just merging Ministries, Departments and Agencies but must
address the overblown size of the service, reduce, if not totally
eradicate, redundancies and reposition it for efficient delivery. But
will the government be willing to go this stretch? Will it realise that
laying off excess weight is not necessarily anti-people provided those
affected get their entitlements promptly and receive capacity building
support for productive entrepreneurial opportunities?
Of course, government will face a lot of
opposition if it contemplates this proposition but so is the essence of
change. I recall the hostilities between President Olusegun Obasanjo’s
government and the Adams Oshiomhole-led Nigeria Labour Congress on the
imperatives of reforming the Pensions regime in Nigeria. The same can
also be said of what the Jonathan administration faced with the National
Union of Electricity Employees. A government interested in reform must
be visionary and dogged in the pursuit of its vision.
The change that Nigerians voted for is
one meant to recreate a society blessed with all the ingredients of
growth and reverse the stymied potential of an abundantly endowed
country.
In the pursuit of that, the people being
emotional and desirous of instant gratification may abandon the
government and criticise it or hate it but even then, a volte-face will
be no option for the government.
Let the APC be advised that not even the
prospect of losing the 2019 elections should make it abandon the promise
that it made to Nigerians. No matter what the people say, nothing,
other than an error fatal to the end goal should make the government
waiver in the determination to turn this country around. It is desirable
that the administration regularly converses with the people in the
execution of its plan, but no opposition should be strong enough to
terminate well-thought out reform initiatives from which the country
will ultimately benefit.
Article originally appeared in Punch
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