Buhari’s $2.6bn severance package?

How and then in our everyday lives, we all experience what in good old-fashioned journalism is called a hunch, or a gut feeling when the reporter is one hundred per cent sure he’s got the right story or the right angle to it, even when he doesn’t yet have all the facts. That’s what I felt when I first read about the $800 million loan taken from the World Bank by the federal government for subsidy removal. It is what I felt also when I read about the $1.87 billion (N869 billion) bill census coming up early next month by the same government.

These two sums add up to a whopping $2.6 billion and I could not help but wonder how much of all this money will actually go into providing the services claimed for them. My gut tells me that, for a government should by now be deep into preparing or fine-tuning its handover notes, a sizable chunk of these monies would more likely end up as informal severance packages for the officials of the outgoing government, rather than for subsidy or a proper head count as claimed by the government. As a hunch, I cannot prove this, but I can defend it.

Because it is more immediate and rather more outrageous, let us start with the Census 2023 bill of N869 billion ($1.87 billion). About 12 months ago I wrote in support of the idea of holding a census in the same year as the election, that is, this year. Then, the argument was that it is possible, even desirable to conduct the census this year, since the National Population Commission (NPC) already has ample experience of doing censuses in this country and would not be starting from scratch. Indeed, the NPC’s Enumeration Areas (EAs) across the country are the sampling basis of almost all national surveys conducted by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) and the foundation of the polling units by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).

And in any case, it is the same Nigerians captured in INEC’s Voter Register—95 million or so at the last count—that would also be counted in a census, only larger. So I was convinced, at the time, that holding both the census and the election in the same year should not necessarily be a problem from a theoretical or practical point of view, since both the INEC and the NPC do more or less the same things, if differently. More importantly, I thought it would be helpful for any incoming government to arrive office with a fresh dataset about Nigeria and Nigerians of the size and quality usually captured in a census.

None of these was an argument for a nearly $2 billion dollar check, however. Nor is it now. The idea that it would cost Nigeria the equivalent of $1.87 billion dollars to conduct a census is not only preposterous but almost criminal, and should be considered only as such. I don’t know exactly how much it will cost Nigeria to do a census this year or next. But I am confident that a bill of N869 billion for it is absolutely crazy, regardless of who pays for it or whatever benefits the data will have. Just about 10 years ago, a former head of the NPC was removed from office for among other things, precisely because Nigerians thought his bill of N600 billion for the census was too outrageous even by the usually outlandish standards of public procurement in Nigeria, and I cannot help but wonder why President Buhari would accept this bill as presented.

My point is that the mere acceptance of this amount as the cost of the census, as announced by the Minister of State for Finance, Budget and National Planning, Mr Clem Agba last month, is a problem, even before we go into the feasibility of it holding next month as the government still insists, or at least intends. India, for example, has a population that is seven times that of Nigeria, at 1.4 billion people. Its budget for the 2021 Census, now rescheduled to 2023 due to COVID-19, was $470 million, less than one-quarter of NPC’s budget for Nigeria.

Brazil and Indonesia both have a similar population size as Nigeria. Brazil spent $450 million for its census last year. Indonesia, a country with thousands of islands, spent about $300 million for the same exercise in 2020. Like India has pledged to do later this year, both Brazil and Indonesia used varying degrees of what Nigeria’s NPC has called “digital census”.

How can Nigeria’s census cost four times more than each of these countries that are larger than Nigeria in population, and with more difficult and varied geographical terrains? Perhaps some officials have their fat severance packages in mind. This is the only context in which a bill of $1.87 billion makes sense to me.

Then, there is the important matter of whether the NPC can accomplish the Census before the end of this administration barely six weeks from now. The answer is a straightforward no. If the NPC has done anything significant towards conducting the census in the 12 months since I last wrote on this issue, then most Nigerians are not aware of it. And if most Nigerians are not aware, then it is as good as saying they have not done much, for, in a census, everybody must be counted, and therefore, everybody must be aware of all the processes before the actual counting begins.

The NPC claims to have conducted a pilot census already and that it has recruited its ad hoc enumerators, and done some geo-informatics data capturing. But it is also true that millions and millions of Nigerians still know almost next to nothing about the census or their roles in it. That reason alone is enough to conclude that any date for the census this year is simply infeasible.

This brings us to the most important question of all: why should a government that is leaving office in the next few weeks insist of engaging on something as serious as a census?

The Buhari administration’s argument that the pandemic hampered its preparations towards conducting the census earlier is acceptable, as many countries have been similarly affected. But given that the past year and half has literally been wasted doing nothing about it, there is now no justification for the government to insist on doing it before it leaves office, except of course, as my gut tells me, the justification tilts more towards personal severance pay than public service, as is the case with the unacceptable cost of it.

This is what connects the census with the $800 million World Bank loan for subsidy removal. Both are impractical for the government to accomplish before it leaves office. Therefore, it lacks the legitimacy to even try to accomplish them. This is not just about this government leaving a mess of a census and subsidy policy for the next government to deal with, which is true enough.

The core argument is about legitimacy. And for emphasis, the Buhari government lacks the legitimacy to engage in such far-reaching and costly policy actions with only six weeks to leave office. No one has the legitimacy to spend $2.6 billion on behalf of 200 million people in six weeks, unless they are thinking only of their own severance packages.

And that, we must resist.