Leaving it as you met it

Nigeria’s new rulers at the Federal and state levels are supposed to be the change agents lined up for the equivalent of a world war. Right now the change warriors are lying quietly in their trenches while their mortal enemies—rot, decay, oil theft, insurgency, impunity, mismanagement, ordinary stealing, bloated bureaucracy, kidnapping, fuel shortage, power cuts, […]

Nigeria’s new rulers at the Federal and state levels are supposed to be the change agents lined up for the equivalent of a world war. Right now the change warriors are lying quietly in their trenches while their mortal enemies—rot, decay, oil theft, insurgency, impunity, mismanagement, ordinary stealing, bloated bureaucracy, kidnapping, fuel shortage, power cuts, unemployment, potholed roads and dilapidated schools—are also lying quietly in their trenches. We are still expecting the storm after the calm. 
Much has been said about the slow take-off of the Buhari federal administration. This has had an infectious effect on the state governments, most of which still do not have commissioners or other key officials. Fewer still are those that have spelt out their governance programs and outlined their priority areas, the key antidote to distraction and late reawakening in governance.
Most probably, they are overwhelmed by the empty coffers they found on the ground when they were expecting to inherit soaked treasuries. We have already heard many complaints about empty treasuries. The latest one was from Katsina State Governor Aminu Bello Masari. He said at the weekend that he inherited an empty treasury with a N42 billion debt, including N6.2 billion local government staff’s gratuity and N3.2 billion state civil servants’ gratuity. Masari also said under his predecessor, N11 billion was stolen from local governments within 30 months.  Before Masari, there was Nyesom Wike. The Rivers State Governor said contrary to claims that former governor Rotimi Amaechi left behind N7 billion in the coffers, he inherited an empty state treasury on May 29.  He also said, “The state’s FAAC account as at May 29 was in debit. That was the briefing I received from the Accountant-General.”
Bauchi State Governor Mohammed Abdullahi Abubakar also said his administration inherited an empty treasury. He said shortly after he was sworn in that “the state treasury is completely empty.” Then there was President Buhari, who told State House correspondents during a maiden meeting last month that, “I hope we are starting gradually. Treasury is virtually empty and debts running into millions of dollars. The fact that state workers and even federal workers have not been paid their salaries is such a disgrace for Nigeria.”
Cross River State governor, Professor Ben Ayade however put the matter delicately when reporters asked him if he inherited an empty treasury. The question was not unreasonable because some state and local government workers were not paid for months but Ayade was not about to stab his predecessor and benefactor in the back. So he said, “I inherited a state with great potentials. I did not inherit an empty treasury. After all, I don’t measure the wealth of a nation by the naira and kobo in its account. I inherited a state that has a lot of mineral resources that can be converted into wealth. I met a state that people are willing to contribute to and turn its misfortune to fortune.”
All the talk about empty treasuries reminds me of Brigadier John Atom Kpera, military governor of Benue State in 1984-5. In September 1985 new military governors appointed by the Babangida regime were taking over all over the country and each outgoing governor was making public the amount of money he was leaving behind in the treasury. When it was Kpera’s turn to hand over to his successor Group Captain David Jang he said, “I am leaving the treasury as I met it.” Newspaper readers in those days understood what he meant. Under the previous civilian regime of Governor Aper Aku, teachers in Benue State were not paid for eleven months. Our concern today is that the rulers who are inheriting empty and heavily indebted treasuries should not leave them as they met them four or eight years from now.
Now, I saw an interesting perspective in a newspaper advert placed by former Katsina State Governor Ibrahim Shema in response to the allegation by Masari that he left behind a debt of $78 million. His defence was that yes indeed, he left behind such a loan but that it was not acquired during his term in office. Shema implied in his defence that the huge foreign loan was acquired under previous Governor Umaru Yar’adua or even under the state’s earlier military governors. Now, I know that debt repayment is not a sweet experience even at the personal level, but I am amazed that all a governor did was to roll over an inherited debt straight through his eight years’ tenure without clearing or even reducing it. He carried the Kpera Formula too far, in my opinion.
Leaving behind a treasury as you met it looks bad enough but some of our rulers are threatening to leave behind a treasury in a condition worse than they met it. The ruler that readily comes to mind is Osun State Governor Rauf Aregbesola. Osun gets rave mention in the media these days for piling up many months’ unpaid workers’ salaries. From the explanation that Aregbesola offered during a Ramadan lecture in Abuja last month, the problem could get much worse before it ever gets better. The governor reeled out figures that add up to a classic case of bankruptcy. He said Osun State used to get N4.6 billion from the Federation Account every month, that it has a monthly wage bill of N3.6 billion but that since last year its Federation Account allocation has dropped to N2.6 billion a month. He said for many months he borrowed money from banks to pay salaries but at some point the banks stopped lending to him. In my village, when a person reaches a stage where creditors stop lending money to him he is called turun bashi. That roughly means Greece-like chronic debtor.
Many questions arise from Aregbesola’s figures. Number one, if the Federation Account allocation was below the wage bill, why couldn’t the state government step up internal revenue generation to make up the difference? Number two, even if you can’t pay salaries every month since the money you got from Abuja was a billion short of your wage bill, why couldn’t you pay a month’s salary every two months? At least that’s better than going without pay since December. Thirdly and most critically, what did you do about the wage bill? To seek to maintain a wage bill perpetually above your earnings is the perfect recipe for bankruptcy. The Federal Government cannot continue to bail out the states for ever.
Yet another problem reared its ugly head when Daily Trust on Sunday reported last week that banks were seizing the bailout funds that some state governments got from the Federal Government. Chairman of the Nigeria Governors Forum Governor Abdulaziz Yari later confirmed it, saying some states were already in arrears of debt service so the banks grabbed whatever entered the account.
It looks like some rulers are on course to mete out the Kpera Formula or worse to their state coffers. My advice is that every ruler should work out his program of rule as early as possible. If you don’t have a program we wouldn’t even know how to assess you at the end of your tenure. That is even the smaller part of the problem; the bigger one is that if you don’t have a program, your time will be filled by visitors, local and foreign trips, endless invitations to marriages, birthdays, seminars, book launches, appeal funds, opening ceremonies, product launches as well as by lobbyists, groups appealing for donations and businessmen submitting self-serving proposals.
Before you know it your time will be up and your best defence when you are leaving behind an empty treasury is, “I am leaving it as I met it.”