By Polycarp Onwubiko
Hypocritical posturing has marked the administration of President Tinubu, just like his predecessor, Buhari, during his tenure. His so-called "National Social Investment Programme Agency" (NSIPA) was fraught with mindless sleaze and open theft of public funds entrusted to the clearly unnecessary agency.
According to reports, the
anti-graft agency, EFCC, recovered a whopping N38.8 billion from the alleged
N448.8 billion stolen by the management of the agency. Due to a deliberate
failure to listen to the nationwide clarion calls for the restructuring of
governance to reinvent realistic principles of the federal system of
government, President Tinubu has persisted with the utterly despicable and
dysfunctional structure, encouraging grand larceny in the Ministry of
Humanitarian Affairs despite the embarrassing situation led by the incumbent
Minister. He has made a budgetary provision of N532 billion for the year 2024.
To say that Nigeria is reeling
under a curse might be stating the obvious. Despite the marvelous job done by
Stephen Oronsaye in the report on the scrapping and merger of many redundant
MDAs, the brazen-faced dictator, President Buhari, dumped the report. This
report could have sanitized governance in Nigeria, especially at the federal
level, which had bitten off more than it could chew by establishing humongous
MDAs where many have proven to be conduits for the theft of public funds.
In sane and sanitized
governance structures, especially in federations worldwide, programs to address
poverty and the miserable conditions of the downtrodden fall within the
constitutional jurisdiction of subnational governments. All these useless MDAs
are deliberately created to justify the surplus monthly statutory allocation to
the federal government at the expense of state governments.
Since the statutory allocation
is excessive, it became a sort of bazaar for the ministers, permanent
secretaries, and heads of the MDAs to scramble for public funds entrusted to their
care while crafting ways to manipulate audit personnel and even the probing
eyes of the 'angels' from the anti-graft agency, EFCC, and the Code of Conduct
Bureau.
Since the fight against
corruption is hypocritical, it was not surprising that the current head of the
Humanitarian Affairs Ministry would be found in a terrible mess. Trust public
servants; they are always on hand to goad the head of the office to 'find your
way' and make as much as you can before the term of your office is over. In
other words, public servants do not care about drawing the attention of the
head of the office to the provisions of the Financial Instructions (FI) and the
Public Service Rules (PSR) because they would "pick the crumbs that fell
from the master's table."
Apologies for the country, as
petty-minded public commentators had advised the federal government under
President Tinubu to reform the Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs. That is
outright madness and rubbish. The proper thing is for Tinubu, if he is indeed
serious about transforming governance, to close the Humanitarian Affairs
Ministry and start implementing the Stephen Oronsaye Report on the scrapping
and merger of many MDAs.
For instance, the issue of
poverty reduction should be within the constitutional jurisdiction of the
subnational government—the State, which controls the local government council,
as is the practice in federations worldwide. There are only two tiers of government
in federations, not three.
When the Oronsaye Report is implemented, there
should be a review of statutory allocation, whereby state governments will have
over 70 percent of the monthly statutory allocation to tackle roads
rehabilitation, healthcare, education (including tertiary institutions), and to
have more funds to explore and exploit the vast natural resources within their
respective jurisdictions to create enormous wealth and massive employment.
This is the essence, core, and
substance of restructuring the lopsided federation to restore realistic
principles of the federal system of government, as practiced worldwide. Unless
President Tinubu does that, he will be fumbling and gambling in the name of
presiding over a heterogeneous society that needs a federal system of
government with inexorable principles.
Talking about insecurity
ravaging the entire country while the centralized security architecture is in
place is absolute absurdity and bunkum. Tinubu must abandon whatever 'covenant'
he signed with the "Northern Political Emirates Establishment and
Caliphate Colonialists" and convoke a National Conference of ethnic
nationalities to negotiate and fashion a People's Constitution. He should
consign into the scrap heap of history the contraption referred to as the 1999
Constitution imposed by the military regime controlled by the Northern
Political Emirates Establishment and Caliphate Colonialists.
Polycarp Onwubiko, Public Policy Analyst
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