Hats in the ring!

As 2021 ends and the nation continues to survive in utter chaos beyond anybody’s worst nightmare, Nigerians will give thanks for surviving murderous kidnappers, highway bandits,  insurgents and a collapsing economy. While the majority has no money to take a break, travel and relax with their families, the political class has no such constraints. They are up and doing again campaigning for party nomination as 2023 presidential candidate. As has always been the case, meetings are currently being held in which the nation’s future will be decided behind closed doors.

All sorts of yesterday’s men, even under the guise of a new “Third Force” are putting forward their names and throwing their hats into the ring. One thing they all have in common is a belief that the current administration has failed in its most basic duties of maintaining law and order, as well as providing decent public services and economic security. Supporters of prospective candidates are once again promoting them as “messiahs” who can magically solve the nation’s problems. This they did successfully in 2015 by repackaging a military despot unfamiliar with socio-economics and sold him to the nation. The end result was easily predictable. To be fair, President Buhari neither pretended to be nor announced himself to be, a messiah. Even though his home state, Katsina is now beset by insecurity, poverty and killings, there is no reason to believe that he has not done his best and it is left to history to judge whether or not it was good enough.

Every nation’s level of development is a function of its leader’s sincere commitment to the economic progress of society. The experience of Nigerians since 1999 shows quite clearly that the current crop of political leaders lack either the capacity or the willingness to effect the changes necessary to fast-track development. Under their watch, Nigerians have become systematically impoverished through massive treasury looting and all manner of ill-motivated, poorly thought out economic policies. There is no denying that nations grow or stagnate in accordance with the vision, capacity and humanity of leadership. Developed nations are products of painstaking planning and leadership devoid of corruption, nepotism and anti-democratic delinquency, while under-developed nations like Nigeria are products of the opposite. It’s clear that there is nothing that can be done to rectify the situation in the little time before the next presidential elections and it’s of utmost importance to determine the reasons why this administration failed to galvanise patriotism and progress since 2015. Nigerians deserve much better and there must be agreement on what the next president must do or not do irrespective of his ethnicity or religion. Anyone putting their hat into the ring should be able to explain how he intends to find a permanent solution to three glaring failures of this administration in terms of insecurity, corruption and the economy. Insecurity in terms of banditry and highway robbery has become so bad that a well known travel agency called Wakanow is advertising their ability to rent out a “full escort team” comprising 1 Hilux Van, 2 MOPOL officers, and 1 driver to rich travellers willing to risk their life on the road. As for insurgency, it’s clear that the Nigerian Armed forces are handicapped in operational capability and without expert foreign assistance, the situation will probably deteriorate further. As for fighting corruption, this administration has inexplicably proved itself incapable of exerting financial control over public funds.  A report by the Office of the Auditor-General of the Federation entitled “Non-compliance /Internal Control Weakness Issues in Ministries, Departments and Agencies of the Federal Government of Nigeria for the year ended December 31st, 2019” indicted 37 Ministries Departments and Agencies (MDA’s) for “irregular payments” running into billions. The report indicted the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development for failing to account for extra-budgetary contractual liability totaling over N48 billion. The Auditor-General pointed out that Paragraph 2906 (ii) of the Financial Regulations stipulates that “..all procurement plans must be supported by prior budgetary appropriation as proof of availability of funds”. In other words, money should only be paid out if provided for in the annual estimates, and no monies should be spent on any purpose for which it was not provided. The report also indicted the Code of Conduct Tribunal (CCT) and the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) for irregularities in payments/expenditures and unexecuted projects and not being able to provide any documents to justify expenditures. This is in total contravention of paragraph 603(I) of the Financial Regulations, which state clearly that “all vouchers shall contain full particulars of each service such as dates, numbers, quantities, distances and rates, so as to enable them to be checked without reference to any other documents..”

According to the Auditor-General of the Federation, the failure to disclose the identities of the individuals who benefitted from numerous transactions “leaves room for diversion and misapplication of public funds”. These quite simple standards for dealing with public money have been ignored by an administration, which prefers to endlessly borrow rather than plug the monumental leakages. As a result, from a debt profile of $10 billion in 2015, they have amassed debts of $33 billion! As for the economy, perhaps the parting gift from this administration will be to bring about economic chaos with the removal of the corruption-laden “fuel subsidy”.

However, Nigerians are unlikely to get the type of leadership they need and urgently long for because political parties don’t have manifestos that their candidates must abide by and party primaries are compromised to ensure that only old money-bag die-hards can succeed in getting the nomination. There is no doubt that it is in the interests of Nigerian powerbrokers to intentionally overlook competence as a key factor in selecting leadership. In 2023, voters will not be able to choose the best candidate for the post of president, rather they will be forced to decide who is the least objectionable between those who threw their hats into the ring.