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The fault is not in our stars

Corruption has become pervasive in Nigeria. What the country loses to corruption annually must be over and above the national budget. We must come to…

Corruption has become pervasive in Nigeria. What the country loses to corruption annually must be over and above the national budget. We must come to terms with the fact that the perpetrators are but Nigerians, the limited arrests, prosecution and punishment notwithstanding. Nigerians are of this earth. None is born and bred in heaven. Nigerians are not angels. Likewise, no Nigerian was and is brought up and trained by angels.  

So, Nigerians are not close to saints.  Nigerians eat, excrete, fall sick and have a propensity to be greedy. From a cursory observation, those that have been put in positions of trust have only proved to possess infinite elasticity for greed. No economist has successfully come up with the greed elasticity quotient of public officers in Nigeria.  

The Nigerian state thinks otherwise. Nigerians become angels and saints once they become high-level public officers. Therefore, governors, including the Central Bank governor, ministers and Accountant General of the Federation (AGF) are infallible angels and saints. In any of these posts, humans become super mortals devoid of human frailties and greed. This must have informed the adoption of the Treasury Single Account (TSA), sink and hook, as provided by the World Bank or its allies. The TSA centralises the storage and control of national resources in the Central Bank of Nigeria and the office of the AGF.

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It took the tango between the Academic Staff Union of Universities and the federal government to expose the fact that the government never did the integrity test of the software, particularly of the Integrated Payroll and Personnel Information System, before adoption. The TSA created the circumstance for the apex bank to take on retail banking services for all federal agencies and institutions. This is a recipe for corruption.  

The recent news oozing out of the CBN has certainly demystified the notion of super Nigerians in high positions.  The ocular proofs abound.  It seems that those charged with the responsibility of counting our money are over-helping themselves to it without due process or our permission. Yet, the assumed superhumans are destroying our institutions.  

The first is that Nigeria is inside out upside down with respect to values and ideas. The country is empty and bereft of resource management ideas. We had all the liberty to ensure the apex bank does not take on retail banking roles. We ignored it and mindlessly adopted the TSA. Now there are multiples of accounts, some allegedly undeclared or unknown to the three arms of government. These need to be tackled. 

The second is that the treasury system has faded away. By implication, such books as General Order (GO) and Financial Instruction (FI) have virtually been abandoned. These books have become more of civil service promotion examination textbooks rather than guides to financial and administrative procedures and practices. With this, public financial and administrative processes are nothing but kwamachala (messing up). Because things have become so bad, top civil servants, who should guide civil service practices and processes from the top, cannot spot the difference! 

Thirdly, the civil service has become too weak and bastardised to stand up for rules and procedures. The prevailing job insecurity in the civil service has cut the knees of civil servants to be able to refuse their super-ordinates on matters of rules and procedure. The superior officials take extremely bad advantage of this to satisfy their kleptomaniac tendencies. Because ‘oga’ has done it, the boys do their own and worse than oga has done.

The checks and balances that give civil servants the self-confidence to religiously uphold the GO and FI above individual interests have all gone into thin air. The civil service needs re-engineering. 

Finally, I should say Nigeria has refused to be independent. Nigeria remains subservient to the dictates of international agencies. Otherwise, how did we come to adopt the TSA without a reflection on its suitability to our national goals and objectives?  All data on Nigeria are obtainable from these agencies.

As of now, if one seeks to know the population of Nigeria, and Nigeria’s total export in tons and barrels, the best bet is to call the World Bank or the IMF. Likewise, to know the number of housing units, toilets per thousand and even open defecation fields, simply reach out to the United Nations Habitat. Shamefully absurd.  

No doubt, Nigeria’s dependency on external agencies for policies has terribly jeopardised the citizens’ dreams of the good life. The burden of straightening things out rests with us citizens and the incoming government. The outgoing should be allowed to go. 

We must assert our independence and strive to be ourselves. Let us use our brains to determine what we want. It is only thus we can generate policies that are relevant to our situations.  

Critically, we must acknowledge the fact that the Central Bank is not a commercial bank. When it takes on retail banking functions, we are certainly routed for financial and economic disaster. We gain nothing from frustrating Chief Executive Officers of Ministries, Departments and Agencies. The CEOs are responsible enough to be subjected to the laws of the land including the GO and FI. Release their budgetary allocations to them for spending, managing and accounting. Any defaulting CEO should be liable and accountable. The judiciary, legislature and executive must agree to decentralise corruption.  

Re-engineering the civil service from its foundation to give it a new orientation and enhanced job security should be of high priority.

We need to restore the professional skills, knowledge, dignity and confidence of civil servants as the basis for upholding rules and regulations above all interests. The earlier we move in these directions the better. A stitch in time saves nine. 

 

Yunusa is the Executive Director, Socioeconomic and Environmental Advocacy Centre, Zaria

 

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