Over rating the Presidency? - F. J. Fwa

as forwarded

OVER RATING THE PRESIDENCY?

 There is an interesting interview which ThisDay had with the Minister of Works, Babatunde Fashola. 

 Sulaiman Ibrahim Jalo, one of the most consistent defender of PMB who doesn’t take any criticism of his mentor lightly copied the said interview to reinforce his position that PMB should be exonerated from some of the failures of his government.

The main thrust of the argument of Fashola is that we are demanding too much from Mr President. Let me quote the relevant portion of the interview: “Those of you who manage public communication must bring back home where the real issues are. We have the impression that our president is all powerful, go and read the constitution. We are conflicting his duties with his powers… He has powers to confirm, to appoint... that but he is not that powerful. Somebody who can’t pass his budget of his own…. So the presidency is overrated... But again, I tell you, we should focus more on the sub national level, there is where the game is. People don’t seem to understand that it is the state that run the federal government...” 

 As usual, my highly respected elder, Gen Danladi M Zakari who is the forefront of giving excuses for failures of this regime and sees me as an interloper, did not waste time to mention me to comment on this which he sees as exonerating PMB from blame. “Fenny, you must read this. We are confused about the locus of the problem. Some people had never thought of inquiry into the activities of the other tiers of government other than PMB.” 

 Honestly, the interview of the minister and subsequent comment  are so laughable. Let me address some of salient issues so that the general public are not hoodwinked.

 It is a fallacious statement to say our president is not powerful. In fact, is one of the most powerful presidents in the world. When we talk about American president being the most powerful, it on the global stage, but internally, it’s not like that because they practice true federalism, where states are autonomous. They generate their income and disburse them. These are awesome power of the Nigerian president.

 While the states are autonomous in revenue generation as obtainable in America, it is not the case here. The state have to go to the centre to collect their monthly allocation and look at how it's skewed in favour of federal government. The revenue allocation formula: FG: 52.68%, States: 26.72%, local governments 20.60%.

The balance of the percentage goes to federal government for ecological fund and special projects. In fact, this is the money accrued from oil, tax. There are monies accrued to federal government that are not appropriated to federation account. NPA, NIMASA generated funds in millions of dollars that are spent by federal government. There is revenue from central bank, TETFUND, and others that if all are pulled together are in excess of what the federal government gets from federation. In fact, some of them,  the federal government illegally shortchanged the state Governments. For instance, the funds from corrupt politicians which are supposed to be taken to federation account are appropriated by the federal government! It is from such humungous amounts that federal government gives largesse to other tiers of government. For instance, the Federal Government gave N6.25b to Katsina for ranching. Yet, some people want us to believe the Federal Government is not powerful. One of the primarily reasons a government is powerful is because of resources.

  Today, China is powerful because it is very rich. Despite the power of Russia before it has been dwarfed by China because of abundant resources of China and very soon it will surpass America. Presently US is indebted to China to the tune of $1.1 trillion! 

  Let us look at the constitution and you will know the awesome powers of Mr President. The legislative lists in the constitution provide for the distribution of powers. The exclusive legislative lists is assigned to the federal government; the concurrent legislative list is assigned to both the federal and state governments, while the residual legislative list is assigned to states. Note the awesome powers of the FGN. Exclusive legislative list has 68 items while the concurrent legislative list has 12 items. The residual legislative list has 8 items. The third tier, i.e, local governments have none. They are left at the mercy of the state. 

 I don’t know whether it’s wrong to hold the Federal Government accountable on issues that are its responsibilities in the exclusive list. Six items in exclusive list that I have bern holding government accountable.

 One security. All the security agencies are under the federal government, including the civil defence. The Governor being the chief security officer of the state cannot direct any security operation in the state without due clearance from the federal government security agencies who receive orders from Abuja.

 Secondly, the presidency promised to diversify the economy through the exploitation of the vast mineral resources of the country. This is correct posture because it’s in exclusive legislative list. More than 6 years gone nothing has been done in this regard and you want us to hold state governments responsible? 

 Thirdly, the upstream and downstream sectors of oil development is under the federal government not state or local government. We have been promised that new refineries will be built to stop the importation of refined oil thereby stopping the humungous amount spent on oil subsidies. Not a single refinery has been built, even the new ones a humungous sum of N90b was spent on their repairs are still comatose. Nobody has been punished or money recovered from this mind boggling fraud. Who is to be blamed? 

 Fourthly, Let us look at agriculture, it’s in the concurrent list. Fully aware that the federal and state governments are responsible for its growth. I have thrice written there must be synergy between the two tiers of government. In fact, I did call for the establishment of agricultural development forum where the Minister of Agriculture with all the commissioners of Agriculture in each state are to work out a template for the agricultural development of the country. Items to be put in front burner are one that FAO had recommended that developing nations should set aside 20% of their budget be channeled for agricultural production. Two, all states should work on agricultural production in crops that they have comparative advantages. Reports of this forum will be submitted to meeting of the President and the Governors where they will fund the collective projects and ensure their meticulously implementation. Up to now, this has not been done and I have held the states and federal government responsible for the hunger and starvation in the country.

 Fifthly, construction of roads and other infrastructures except railway are in the concurrent list. Well, I have on some occasions commended the federal government for its critical intervention in construction of roads. Its efforts in working tremendously on Second Niger Bridge and other trunk A roads have received our commendation. The commendation is more vociferous on the reconstruction of rail line, particularly the completed Lagos- Ibadan rail line and ongoing Lagos- Kano rail line.

 Six, who is responsible for monetary policy of the country? The states or the federal government? Everybody knows that CBN is responsible for monetary policies and CBN is under the Federal Government. This regime met Naira 160/1$. Today is N570/$1. It’s is therefore the responsibility of FGN to find solution to this mindboggling problem.

 There are several issues but let us end with this issue of marginalization. One is not just making noise but this is captured in the constitution “the government of the federation or any of its agencies and the conduct its affairs shall be carried out in such a manner as to reflect the federal character of Nigeria and the need to promote national unity…..thereby ensuring that there shall be no predominance of persons from few states or from a few ethnic or other sectional groups in that government or any of its agencies.” 

 I have made my positions severally on lopsidedness in appointments in government and its agencies that I’m beginning to sound like a cracked record. Gen Zakari has been avoiding political appointments but concentrating on staff in the federal service which clearly shows a wide gap to the advantage of the South. This has a lot do with the disadvantage of the north in the education because of the South had benefit from western education for more than 30years before we started having access to western education. Even at that the Federal Character Commission has ensured that recruitment service is strictly on quota basis and not on merit which is to the advantage of north despite that the gap has not been bridged.

 What I don’t like in this discourse is giving excuses for none performance. Let us juxtaposed how the Americans do theirs. By May of this year, the job rating of Biden was up by 61%, but today his job rating has dropped to 38%. Two reasons are attributed to this drastic decline, one is his handling of withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan and two his handling of Coronavirus. The problems associated with the withdrawal of troops was because the Afghan soldiers couldn’t hold on and surrendered easily. Americans don’t care whether the Afghan soldiers were ineffective, what is important to them is Biden showed incompetence in the withdrawal process. Now you expect the Americans to sympathise with the president because of mutations of the Coronavirus? This was not man made. Now, the worse problem confronting Biden on COVID-19 is one about 50% the republicans are not coming for vaccinations. Two, some Governors like that of Florida refused to enforce mask mandate. In some states, children are not brought up for vaccination. Now, these are not problems created by Biden. Americans don’t care. All that we know is he must find solutions to these problems as the president.

 One of the impression being created is like we just targeted this regime for crucification which is totally false. Just like other regimes before this I have praised them where they did well and criticize them when I think they aired.

 When OBJ was in power, he did well in some areas like GSM, exiting as from foreign debts of $31b which through shrewd negotiation got $18b debt forgiveness while we paid $13. Established excess crude account, leaving a whopping sum of $22b which was squandered by GEJ and buried by this regime. He established anti-corruption agencies and more than any regime, high profile government officials were jailed. But failed to make the refineries work thereby engaging in massive importation of oil to curb scarcity. He failed to lift agriculture and solid mineral production. His most despicable act was trying to foist third term on the nation which was resisted. 

 Late Umaru Yar’ Adua will be remembered for being the only president up to date that declared his assets publicly to demonstrate his incorruptibility. He dealt decisively with militants by bombing their enclaves and when they surrendered, he introduced amnesty. If he had stayed longer he would have dealt decisively with BH because he apprehended their leaders and was about to swoop on his followers but became ill. His successor unfortunately used kid gloves to deal with them that was why they become emboldened. He inherited an ailing banking sector which would have gone bankrupt, but got a competent CBN Governor who used unique financial engineering not only to save the banks from going under, but also saved the depositors money. His only draw bank was revoking the sales of refineries which were money guzzling and were insolvent. 

 Then came Jonathan Goodluck who established more universities and was the champion of the almajiris by building special schools which were never used. His stellar achievement was presiding over an election where he lost and not only congratulating the leader but refused to go to court to challenge the results. But he was not decisive in dealing with security threats, especially BH. His regime was also infested with a lot of corruption.

 It has always been by stance to put regimes and on scale in order to assess them. Where one feels there are errors, we point them for correction and not for destruction. But some people are still bent on we are wrong in all the issues we raised on leadership. Nobody is perfect. I have tested power before as Acting Traditional rulers for five years and those who were critical of my policies were more than those who praised me. My advice: let us help in pointing errors in governance for purpose of our leaders to govern us well. To always live in self denial and giving excuses for leaders is a disservice to governance. My humble view. I may be wrong.

NB

 This piece is lengthy because I want to keep it for records. Any time I’m being challenged on critical review of government policies, I will just copy the relevant paragraphs and paste.