There is an urgent vacancy in Nigeria for a new breed of government officials and lawmakers, those needed to move this country forward. Without the emergence of such public officers, this country will continue on this dance of impunity and disdain for the people that have characterised our national life.
The qualifications needed to belong to this group are the attributes found in Honourable Touma Njai, who represents the Banjul South Constituency in the National Assembly of The Gambia. She is currently ashamed to belong to that August Assembly. Nigeria, Africa, and indeed, the rest of the world, especially the developing world, need more people like her because our countries would be better off with government officials and lawmakers who, like Njai, are ashamed of the misdeeds of their group.
Honourable Njai is ashamed to be called a member of the Assembly because the House has taken more than is due to its members, and that is deepening the misery of the Gambians. Njai expresses so much pain at the elevation of injustice that has become part of the National Assembly as it has of ours here, at all levels.
Her contributions to the debate on The Gambia’s 2022/23 budget session, which have since gone viral, followed the presentation of the country’s 2023 earlier this month.
Njai’s speech has presented her as a voice of hope for Africa’s poor who, ironically, are being made poorer by the institutions of the state that were created for their good and welfare. Her 10-minute speech should become part of the oath of office and code of ethics for government officials as well as legislators as they assume office.
Her statement is a treatise of sorts on everything that is wrong with our polity as a nation, and by extension, as a continent. What she has seen has convinced her of the saying that when you are a politician (probably she meant a politician in government), “your skin starts shining”. She has started to believe this observation because it is true, she said. Even in our dear country Nigeria, one of the first things you notice when people are appointed to government offices is that their lifestyles change dramatically; indeed, their skins begin to shine so much that it has no bearing on the social and economic realities on ground.
We need members in both chambers of our National Assembly and at the 36 State Houses of Assembly across the land, who would say, like Njai, that “I took an oath, Hon. Speaker, to serve and to give back to society, not to enrich myself. And even if I go to the constitution, it says we should not deliberately enrich ourselves. Increasing our salaries is deliberately enriching ourselves and that is embarrassing.”
This lone female defender of the people challenged the minister and the speaker of the assembly, vehemently denouncing a salary increment for the members of the August House. The Speaker, she noted and stoutly opposed, had his salary increased by about 137 percent, from GD658,000 (about $10,707) to D1,560, 000 (about $25,386.50).
The Honourable member’s response to this deserves a place in history. It touches the heart and raises a question as to why our case in Nigeria is so bad.
“I gave myself for service. I did not give myself to the poor people to feed me and my family. When I saw this I felt embarrassed. I did not want to come to this budget session because I said to myself there is no need because we are just sharing the cake in our pockets, going home feeding ourselves.”
Do we have men and women who are in government to serve and not to be served? Do we have men and women whose consciences still get pricked by the evil going on right under their watch, including the privations so glaring? Do we have people who feel sorry and ashamed for the evil they have allowed or permitted to come upon the nation because of their actions or inaction? Are there leaders whose consciences are disturbed by the fact that budgets made for the people are not made to benefit them? Where are they?
The Gambian legislator was not yet done. She denounced the bogus responsibility allowance, residential allowance, and the robing allowance given to the representative of the people.
The Gambia is a very small country, with a population of roughly 2.5 million people. Its economy is equally small, with a GPD size estimated to be between $6b and $9b, with per capita income but at about $836 by the World Bank. Of course, from the size of the budget ($576.24m), it’s easy to visualise how big the economy would be. The country’s currency, the Dalasi, depreciated from about D51.40 to a dollar on November 29, 2021, to a current rate of D61.45.
Njai, the true Speaker for the common man, lamented that as much as GMD6 (roughly 17 percent of the entire national budget) was allocated to the legislators’ salaries alone. The National Assembly is made up of 58 members, with 53 of them elected, while five are appointed by the President.
These kinds of misplaced allocations are more significant when looked at in the context of the sources of funding in African countries.
The Minister of Finance had informed the Assembly that the budget estimates included budget support amounting to D2.77b, up from D1.07b in the current budget. He announced that the bulk of the support would come from the World Bank ($20 million), the European Union ($13 million), AFD ($2 million) and the African Development Bank ($7 million).
Rather than continuing with this lopsided resource allocation, the People’s Speaker argued that more resources should be channelled to where they are needed: education for young men and women, and the health sector.
So, going forward, government officials and lawmakers must decide whose interest they are in office to serve: theirs or the people’s. The time for that decision has come.
