The media and opaque governance

Our constitution imposes on our news media the sweet burden of holding the governments accountable to the people. The intention of the framers of the country’s most important legal document is to promote open and transparent government. This does not come easily to developing countries, including ours. They would rather be opaque than transparent. The […]

Our constitution imposes on our news media the sweet burden of holding the governments accountable to the people. The intention of the framers of the country’s most important legal document is to promote open and transparent government. This does not come easily to developing countries, including ours. They would rather be opaque than transparent.
The record of our news media in discharging this burden has been scrappy at best. They do not seem to care enough and thus condemn us to living in blissful ignorance of what our governments are doing, how they are doing them and why they doing them. Not to worry. I can see the rainbow of hope on the horizon.
In the last two or three months, the Daily Trust titles have taken on the mantle of a welcome leadership role in the crusade for open government. The newspapers are showing some robust evidence of their commitment to the discharge of this critical constitutional responsibility of holding the government accountable to the people. It is my hope that they will inspire our other news media to join in the crusade and expand the frontiers of transparent government and free us from ignorance. An opaque government is deleterious to the health of democracy. Take my word for it. I heartily commend the Trust titles.
The Trust newspapers are in effect pioneering a media crusade on open and transparent government. I know this is a tough task. I know the journey is long but the newspapers have taken the first step.  Every journey, no matter how long it might be, begins with the first step.
The Trust newspapers have been nosing around, asking and seeking answers to some simple but critical questions about what the federal and the state governments do with the public funds at their disposal. An important aspect of this enquiry is to address the seemingly innocuous question: are the governments serving the people transparently? I think the constitutional provision under reference empowers the news media to force governments to live up to the democratic ideal of governments being open and transparent.
No easy task. Breaking down the barriers of opaque governance is no cricket. It is hard work. The guardian angels of government secrets seem impregnable. Some newspapers feel intimidated by them. Some try to peer into the dark recesses of governance only to butt their heads against the walk. They give up. The Trust newspapers arm themselves with that piece of legislation that no government is comfortable with – the Freedom of Information Act. This is not a stroll through the woods either. This is the law that compels governments to open their books to enquiries by their citizens. By the nature of its work, the media use this law, not necessarily to dig up dirt but more importantly to dig up facts.
On May 24, the Trust newspaper published a front page story, giving us some surprising details of how our legislators have turned themselves into princes. The state governments spend, on the average, six billion Naira on luxury SUV and other state of the art cars for them annually. So far, the honourable members in Kaduna, Niger, Kano, Imo, Sokoto, Jigawa, Kogi, Lagos, Sokoto, Kwara, Benue, Cross River and Katsina states are cruising around in these state of the art vehicles. Each of these cost a piddling N20 million.
What really is this madness about? Do state of the art vehicles aid law-making? I cannot see any evidence of that. Our legislators generally have a poor record of law-making. Yet, see how much we pay on luxury vehicles alone to massage their ego. Perhaps, it does not matter that much that states that cannot attend to the basic obligation of paying their civil servants prefer to keep the law-makers in the laps of luxury. Yes, we do hear of civil servants not being paid for months. We do not hear of legislators not being paid their generous salaries and allowances. Tells all you need to know about our skewered sense of priorities.
Education is the key to modern development. Our country has more universities, public, parochial and private, than the rest of the African countries put together. On the face of it, therefore, Nigeria is the leading light in educational development on the continent. Sadly, the truth is less palatable. Check out the Trust newspaper issue of June 3.
According to the newspaper, Nigeria spends only eight per cent of its annual budget on education. This pittance is far below the UNESCO bench mark on educational expenditure. In its wisdom UNESCO puts the bench mark at 26 per cent.
Here is a telling evidence from the Trust newspaper to show that other African countries take the development of their education much more seriously than ours. Ghana spends 30 per cent of its annual budget on education; Cote d’Ivoire, 30 per cent; South Africa, 25.8 per cent, Uganda,27 per cent and Kenya, 23 per cent. Where is Nigeria in the league of educationally progressive African states? We plant universities and other degree awarding institution in all corners and crannies of this country but our educational development actually blows in the wind.
Here is another instance that our governments pay lip service to the health of their citizens. In its issue of June 20, the Trust newspaper opened the can of worms here. Federal and state budget for health for this fiscal year is a seemingly healthy N499 billion. Impressive on the face of it. But dig a little deeper and you arrive at this: this generous vote amounts to only four per cent of the budget for health.
The African Union bench mark is 15 per cent. Here again, our country is lagging far behind other African countries some of which have since met their millennium development goals in the area of health. The world is faced today with serious health challenges as never before. Surely, our leaders cannot afford to be blissfully ignorance of this.
Why are the federal and state governments more or less toying with our health and well being? The rich troop to India in search of better health care for themselves and their families. For every rich man who goes to India, there are thousands who, in desperation, put their lives in the hands of quacks and local herbalists. Of course, this beloved country of ours is immune to shame and embarrassment. The paradox of our development is that we seem to be developing backwards. This is not the natural order of development among human beings.
Let me point out at this stage that isolated stories of government perfidy do not necessarily amount to a crusade. The Trust newspapers must be prepared for the next stage that would really turn these stories into a crusade for good governance and transparent government. That stage would require sustained publications to shame the government to wake up to its basic responsibilities and obligations to its citizens. The crusade must force it to act and to be seen to be acting to remedy the situation it faces.
For instance, the newspaper detailed the salaries and allowances of state legislators and contrasted them with what the Revenue Mobilisation and Fiscal Commission stipulates as salaries and allowances for public officers. The law-makers at all levels simply ignored the commission and fixed their own jumbo allowances. This, certainly, is not right. Our law does not permit legislators to fix their own salaries and allowances. This is the responsibility of the fiscal commission. We must aim at restoring sanity here as a first step towards ending the waste and the want that now characterise the management of our dwindling financial resources.