Balarabe Musa and restructuring
Former Kaduna State Governor Alhaji Balarabe Musa is a man who deserves respect and whose opinions should not be sniffed at. This isn’t because he was a resounding success as a governor, but because unlike the majority of those occupying high political office today, he stood up to be counted when it mattered most. In […]
Former Kaduna State Governor Alhaji Balarabe Musa is a man who deserves respect and whose opinions should not be sniffed at. This isn’t because he was a resounding success as a governor, but because unlike the majority of those occupying high political office today, he stood up to be counted when it mattered most. In the dark days of Sani Abacha regime Balarabe Musa put his life on the line for democracy. I first met him in Lion Building the former headquarters of the Nigerian Police Force in Lagos when pro-democracy activists were being arrested.
Lion building is an administrative complex which doesn’t contain detention cells so he was kept in an office on the top floor along with other National Democratic Coalition (NADECO) heavyweights; Chief Anthony Enahoro, Bola Ige, Segun Osoba, David Jang, and Dan Suleiman. Being responsible for bringing them their daily meals I was the one person allowed to see them. Moloney Street where Lion building is situated is a busy part of Lagos. After a few days, I was so distraught at seeing these old men suffering with no beds to sleep on that I pleaded with them to look out of the window and see the people they are suffering for going about their own business. I asked them who or what they were fighting for? Balarabe Musa replied me “young man (I was over 40 at the time!) our struggle is not for today but for the future greatness of the nation”.
Tragically twenty years later, the struggle to make Nigeria great still continues. Alhaji Balarabe Musa’s latest contribution to the struggle is to throw his weight behind the clamour for restructuring. In a message to the 18th Annual Convocation of the Igbo Youths Movement (IYM) held in Enugu he said our nation would remain in arrested development until it was restructured to achieve true federalism. He proposed the six geo-political zones as the federating units. There is no disputing that Nigeria has an over-bloated, overly expensive and inefficient government structure which urgently needs to be made cheaper and more efficient. In answer to questions on how Nigeria can get out of its financial quagmire the highly respected financial analyst Bismark Rewane told a Channels Television interviewer that reducing the cost of governance was paramount. He pointed out that the former Western Region which expanded all the way from Ibadan to the river Niger achieved all its developmental strides governed by a Prime Minister, one House of Assembly, and nine Ministers.
Today the same area is divided into Oyo, Ekiti, Ondo, Osun, Ogun, Edo and Delta states each of which has its own Governor, House of Assembly, and at least thirty Commissioners and Special Advisers! Nowadays government seemingly exists solely for the benefit of its employees. Regrettably it has become more expensive while having negligible impact upon people’s lives in terms of service provision. Less than 2% of our population are involved in politics or employed in the civil service, yet their salaries and allowances take up more than half our budgets at federal, state, and local government levels. No one can argue against the necessity for political re-structuring in order to reduce the cost of governance and free funds for developmental purposes. However, restructuring in itself won’t make government more efficient in service delivery.
The much bigger problem is the calibre of individuals who now occupy our political space. For example, will political restructuring change the fact that Abacha’s son despite his father’s well-documented crimes against the nation moves about majestically and even considers himself a fit and proper person to govern his state? Will it change the fact that James Ibori is set to be given a “hero’s welcome” when he returns from imprisonment in the UK for fraud? Or will it change the fact that Alamesiegha was given a Presidential pardon after looting Bayelsa treasury and becoming a fugitive from justice? Nigeria’s problems are rooted in non-adherence to any known political philosophy by political parties; astronomical levels of corruption in State Executives; non-performance of State Houses of Assembly; officially sanctioned treasury looting in the National Assembly; failure to honour negotiated agreements with trade unions; a failed education system; a shambolic health system; dilapidated infrastructure; and our disgracefully unhygienic environment.
The solutions to these problems lie in good governance not political restructuring. The real restructuring required is financial rather than political. Money must be taken from federal and state governments and given to local governments. Dividing the nation into six zones may simply replicate federal government inefficiency and provide opportunity for massive corruption. At the appropriate time, political restructuring should be supported if only because it should lead to a cheaper form of government. However, such restructuring will only beneficial when the more important task of sanitising public administration has been completed. President Muhammad Buhari has got it right. Without first winning the war against corruption, and injecting a sense of selfless service into government appointments, all talk of political restructuring is an unnecessary diversion.