UNDERSTANDING THE CONCEPT OF RESTRUCTURING: A PROFESSIONAL PERSPECTIVE (PART-FOUR)
UNDERSTANDING THE CONCEPT OF RESTRUCTURING: A PROFESSIONAL PERSPECTIVE
(PART-FOUR)
By:
Nurudeen Dauda
July 5, 2017.
nurudeendauda24@yahoo.com.
nurudeendauda24@gmail.com
nurudeendauda.blogspot.com
You may recall that in part one of this write ups as I mentioned I intend to present the South-South, South-East, South-West, and some Professionals views or understanding on “Restructuring”. However, you may also remember that I argue that the issue of “Restructuring” has little or place among the most Northern Political elite. The idea of “Restructuring” by some professionals cum politicians from across all the Six-Geo-Political Zones in the country is about reducing the country’s political structures or offices in order to REDUCE COST OF GOVERNANCE.
Many of them have been advocating for “Lean Government” also known as “Small Government” which means having few Ministries, Agencies, Parastatas, Departments and officials etc, to be appointed in order to reduce cost of governance. The supporters of this view which are predominantly from the efficiency/effectiveness oriented line of thought cut across all the six Geo-Political Zones, but in my observation they are predominantly from the southern part of the country.
Accordingly too, many of the promoters/supporters of these view believe that we have too much “political structures” in the country which are consuming a lot of resources by doing little or nothing and for that we will hardly develop. They often put forward arguments that we are spending too much on recurrent expenditure as against capital expenditure. For instance, for many years about 85% of our federal and states budgets go to “recurrent expenditures” due to too many “political” and “administrative” structures.
Nigeria has 36 states, 774 local Governments, 109 Senators, 360 Federal House of Representative members, 978 State House of Assembly members, an average of 36 Federal ministers, with presidential advisers, the Senate President and his deputy have 112 and 60 advisers , the Speaker of House of Reps and his deputy have 170 and 58 advisers, the 109 Senators have 545 legislative aids all paid by the government(5 aids for each) and the 360 House of Represent members have 1,800 legislative aids all paid by the government (5 aids for each member), state commissioners, advisers to the state Governors, as well as councilors depending on the state.
Nigeria is just about 180million but had at a time in the past about 42 ministers.
America with about 300million population as well as richer than us has only 20 ministers, and United Kingdom has about 15 ministers which must be parliamentarians. Nigeria has over 900, Ministries, Departments, Agencies, and Parastatas (MDAs).
“…Nigeria has about 36 states, India, has 30 states… In india the largest state, Utapradesh, has about 120miliion people and the smallest state in the North –East can range between 20million,but most of them are in the middle of 50 to 80 million people…” –Former deputy Chairman of the Indian Planning Commission, Mr Montek Singh Ahluwalia (Daily Trust: March 31,2016:p.19).
The promoters of small government argued that our political offices are too much for the country to bear the expensive. Huge resources are used in sustaining few individuals instead of the larger majority. That is why recurrent budget is very high instead of capital budget which is for projects; such as: Roads, schools, and hospitals etc.
The Emir of Kano once said: “Nigeria doesn’t need 36 governors” He made the comments on Thursday, March 10, 2016, while speaking at the inaugural lecture of the Awujale of Ijebuland, Sikiru Adetona in Lagos. Emir Sanusi also described the current system of government being practiced in Nigeria as wasteful. “You sometimes wonder if anyone needs to tell any group of persons that you don’t need 36 governors, 36 deputy governors, each with commissioners, special advisers, a president, his vice, 36 ministers,” Sanusi said.
“Simple arithmetic would tell that if you have this structure, you are, first of all, doomed to spend 80 per cent to 90 per cent of your earnings in maintaining these public officers.“This is really is a big problem in Nigeria. I remember as the CBN governor when I raised the point that 80 per cent of government revenue was being used to maintain 1million public officers, leaving 20 per cent for over 160 million Nigerians, my state governor reacted by saying the federal government was planning to recruit more people.
In another forum the Emir said: “The bloated size of governments at different levels of Nigeria’s political system is unsustainable, and the country urgently needs restructuring to make any appreciable development, the Emir of Kano, Lamido Sanusi, said Thursday”
“Mr. Sanusi, who was speaking at the inaugural lecture and launching of a N250 million endowment fund for the Oba Sikiru Adetona Professorial Chair in Governance, Department of Political Science, Olabisi Onabanjo University, Ago-Iwoye, Ogun State, said it should be obvious to everyone that the country can no longer afford to maintain the number of political office holders in the country, especially in the face of current economic downturn”.
“Kano State today is much smaller than Kano emirate, because there are two other emirates in Dutse and Ringim which were carved out from what was the Kano emirate just to create a new state. There are two governors in Kano and Jigawa, two deputy governors, maybe 40 members of the House of Assembly, 40 commissioners and advisers, 70 local governments, chairman and councillors but for nine years, Governor Audu Bako with nine commissioners, one governor and nine commissioner managed the entire territory and they were doing much better services than we are doing now. Is it not time to face reality?” Emir Sanusi said.
Governor Mallam Nasir El-Rufa’I had long ago held this idea for Small government where he once said in paper he presented thus: “Comparative Costs of Governance: At the comparative level, very few countries match the high cost of general administration in Nigeria. The United States, the largest economy in the world, with a GDP of some US$ 15 trillion has a federal cabinet not exceeding 20, less than half of that of Nigeria. The cost of general administration represents less than 10% of the federal budget of the USA. Contrast that with the figures in Nigeria ranging from at best 55% to as much as 75% of the budget, we are now witnessing. The estimated proportion of general administration to GDP adding up federal, state and LG expenditures is over 20% of GDP..."
"...A state in the north I visited recently spent 85% of its total revenues on the running cost of the government. How can that state develop? …The rich countries spend an average of 10% of their budgets and/or GDP on the general administration of their countries. China and India have the largest bureaucracies in the world. But their average annual expenditure on general administration is only about 12% of GDP, and that is considered high, but at least the results are showing - these are the fastest growing economies in the world that have lifted hundreds of millions of people out of poverty in the last decade…” NASIR AHMAD EL-RUFAI, OFR, THURSDAY, 22ND SEPTEMBER, 2011.
Senator Shehu Sani on restructuring Nigeria once said: “…if we are serious about economic reorganization of Nigeria, we must take the bull by the horn and move towards reorganization of the country. We don’t need 36 states, we need six states. Let’s the geo-political zones serve as states. We don’t need states that will come to Abuja every month and collect money to go back. We need states that will be able to generate money and be viable to contribute to the central. We also don’t need two parliaments, because what is happing now, with the number of Senators and member of House of Representatives, when a motion or Bill is raised in the House of Representatives, it is also raised in the Senate. So you will see duplication of functions and then you will have large number political elites that need to be serviced by the economy of the state..."
"....We are 170 million people and if China can have 19 provinces with a population of almost, 1.5 billion people, then Nigeria with a population 170 million people are having 36 states, and it is not sustainable. All persons with political ambition should swallow it. North-Western state should have its capital in Kaduna, North-Eastern state should have its capital in Maiduguri, and North central state should have its capital in Lokoja, South-Eastern state should have its capital in Enugu, and South-South have its capital in Portharcourt. If we work on this, we will be saving a lot of money and we will end this dependency syndrome...”-Senator Shehu Sani, (Leadership Sunday: March 27, 2016:p.21).
Although the above mentioned persons are Northerners their views have been expresses by a lot of professionals especially from the southern part of the country. In my view cost of governance remains a very big problem in the country. This idea of cost cutting is a good idea in my view but is very difficult to achieve given the complex nature of our constitution.
Is it possible to collapse the 36 states into 6 states? Is it possible to have the Senate or House Reps Scrapped? Is there anybody under the 1999 constitution that can collapse our present structures? Is it good for the country? Can we have a consensus on this issue cross board?
May God bless Nigeria!