Nigeria’s leadership deficit

This essentially has resulted in the Nigerian populace living in grinding poverty, unemployment; social inequity and ultimately insecurity, which presently has manifested itself in the insurgency that has laid a stranglehold on the north-east region and is threatening the whole country. Decades of anti-people policies and mismanagement of resources has resulted in Nigerians, who should […]

This essentially has resulted in the Nigerian populace living in grinding poverty, unemployment; social inequity and ultimately insecurity, which presently has manifested itself in the insurgency that has laid a stranglehold on the north-east region and is threatening the whole country. Decades of anti-people policies and mismanagement of resources has resulted in Nigerians, who should have no business being poor, ending up in government-induced penury. Successive governments have had similar mindsets in terms of profligacy with state funds and a paucity of economic ideas that has seen them open the doors to all sorts of foreign-packaged economic programmes that have only served to increase the plight of Nigerians.
Global financial institutions that cannot market certain economic programmes in their host countries, have found Nigeria, and many other African states, fertile grounds for such programmes that have in the end served only to further cripple the economy and benefitted only the few who are in position of leadership. Consequently, Nigeria, a country that ought to be a global economic powerhouse, is now tied to the apron string of these London and Wall Street institutions, which has effectively limited our options to explore other economic models such as that of the Asian Tigers.
Consider for instance, the micro-economic variables that control the wealth of nations. Nowhere in Europe or America would you find double digits in interest, inflation and exchange rates. However, here in Nigeria, our economic pundits so much believe in multiple digit rates that the national currency is left floating at triple digit rates. No nation worth its salt leaves its national currency, its national pride, to the vagaries of market forces. As long as these three economic variables are not sincerely and appropriately addressed, Nigerians will continue to wallow in abject poverty and deprivation. And this situation of poverty is all-encompassing, all pervasive, in relative terms, throughout the country. The question is this: what is the Federal Government doing, in concrete terms, to ameliorate the situation, or is it in fact aggravating it by acts of commission or omission?
In 2009, the Federal Government produced what is now known as Poverty Incidence Charts for each of the 36 states of the federation.
They indicate 10 really poor states, 10 reasonably rich states and 16 average earning states. The FCT is not included due to its peculiarities. What is clearly discernible, apart from the glaring imbalance in wealth distribution, is that while the majority of the poor states are in the North, the majority of the rich states are down South. Of course one can also deduce that the poor states are mostly the ones afflicted by calamities such as desert encroachment and the ongoing insurgency. They also tend to have the larger population than the rich states. Now, what a credible leadership, both locally and at the centre, would do with such statistics is to come up with programmes to address these variables. But in Nigeria, since the conduct of the 2006 census, there have been little effort to make maximum utilization of census figures to re-structure wealth distribution in this country.
I am by no means suggesting that some people’s wealth should be appropriated for the benefit of others. What I am trying to point out is that Nigeria’s greatest resource is its manpower. But our population has not been considered in terms of the current revenue sharing formula. In this case, equality of states does not translate to equity among states. People are the most valuable resources of any Nation, because they constitute the primary producers on our God-given land. Therefore, human population should be given special prominence and attention in formulating new revenue allocation formula, in addition to the various states’ poverty indices. More funds should go to states and local governments. Only then would some states be able to contain poverty-motivated insurgencies in the bud. This is in recognition of the fact that allocation of national resources are made to facilitate development and welfare of the people. This will be in conformity with the Fundamental Objectives and Directive Principles of State Policy under section 14(2) of the 1999 Constitution (as amended), which clearly states that the security and welfare of the people is the primary purpose of government.
And when the state fails to manage its resources, as we have seen with the defence budget, the state is left at the mercy of desperate elements like the insurgents and other security threats.
Defence has always had the largest chunk of our national budget and therefore there is no ground to say the military is underfunded and ill-equipped to tackle insecurity. What we have had is a misappropriation and misapplication of funds that has seen service chiefs come into sudden wealth, leaving the Nigeria military poorer and at the mercy of rag-tag insurgents. Unless, such irregularities are addressed, unless credible leadership is provided, whatever billions are procured in loans to fight terror, will end up in some peoples’ pockets while Nigeria and Nigerians are left to suffer for it.

El-Badawy (OFR), mini, is a member of the House of Representatives for Bade and Jakusko constituency