Daily Independent (Lagos)
Ayo Oyoze Baje
8 July 2009
opinion
Lagos — Money! Money is the curse of man, none greater. That's what wrecks cities, Banishes men from home, Tempts and deludes the most Well-meaning soul, Pointing out the way to infamy And shame. Well, they shall pay for their success.
Creon (Sophocles)
Certainly, the great Greek playwright never had Nigeria in mind when he wrote his epochal plays, under inspiration. That simply goes to show that some literary works are not only prophetic but timeless. Going by the profligate manner public funds have been squandered by our political leaders since independence in 1960 it is hard not to reflect on the above-quoted excerpt. The amount that has reportedly feathered the nests of those vested with the power to dictate our political destinies over the past five decades is estimated at a whopping $500 billion dollars! And as a friend explained recently, that is about six times what was used to rebuild Europe after the horrors of the Second World War.
The grave consequences are the tell-tale woes of decaying infrastructure, failing primary health care delivery, fast crumbling standard of education - all visited on the hapless citizens since the Shehu Shagari-led First Republic. One recollects vividly that the first item on the agenda of our lawmakers then was how to determine the size of their pay packets. But what was considered a jumbo salary package then is now like child's play, compared to the litany of spurious and incredible allowances that constitute perquisites of office for our honourable parliamentarians. That was until the recent slash as announced by the Revenue Mobilisation, Allocation and Fiscal Commission (RMAFC).
Even that came into being courtesy of the ravaging global financial crisis, which incidentally our economic eggheads including erstwhile Central Bank Governor, Chukwuma Soludo, assured Nigerians would not come near our shores. Be that as it may, the chickens have come home to roost. And it has suddenly dawned on our policy makers, who always considered governance as a self-serving jamboree, that the picnic is long over.
With the self-inflicted Niger Delta crisis taking its devastating toll on oil revenue and its fluctuating price in the international market, added to their crippling effects on the mono-product economy, the question was never why but how soon the bubble would burst. Now it has.
President Umaru Yar'Adua and his Deputy, Goodluck Jonathan, are to lose their gratuity of 300 per cent of basic salary. Their hardship (?) allowance is also to be slashed from 50 per cent to 30 per cent. Their gratuity is cancelled because both men are entitled to pension for life, in tandem with Section 85 (5) of the 1999 Constitution. According to RMAFC Chairman, Hamman Tukur, the allowance for each office was considered on its merit. That was before cancelling it outright.
Also affected, and interestingly too, is the number of vehicles attached to some political office holders. That of the Speaker, House of Representatives, has been reduced from seven to six, which means there may be a little less heat generated over the Peugeot Automobile of Nigeria scandal in the not distant future. The Senate President's cars are reduced from eight to six. Which also indicates that he may not be really dissuaded from his anti-democratic call for automatic tickets for serving senators to return to business-as- usual on the platform of the ruling Peoples Democratic Party, PDP.
Lest we forget, the sin-ate-alls (sorry senators') constituency allowance is down from 250 per cent to 125 per cent, while that of their counterparts at the House of Representatives has plummeted from 150 per cent to 75 per cent. Furthermore, accommodation and furniture allowances have also been reduced by over 50 per cent at the third tier of government. The icing on the sweet cake was that such other allowances as entertainment, personal assistant, severance gratuity have all gone into the filthy dustbins of history.
Big kudos must therefore go to President Yar'Adua for taking this bold step, even if inadequate, to save the nation's till from the rampart pillage of fellow Nigerians, all in the name of being our servant-leaders. One only hopes that the draft bill, Certain Public and Judicial Holders Act, would be passed with the speed of light. Or, the same speed with which the lawmakers and their predecessors passed those bills meant to line their pockets.
Let us be reminded that before RMAFC swung its allowance-slashing axe, Mr. President and his deputy had gone home with a recommended annual basic salary of N3,514,705.00 and N3,031,572.50 respectively. Each state governor and his deputy also beamed to the bank with N2, 223,705.00 and 2,312,215.00 respectively. The lawmakers' take home pay was something in between. That was as at February, 2009.
The truth of the matter however, remains that in Nigeria most public office holders earned far much more than as stated from over bloated contract awards, questionable gifts and all the shindig that goes with their offices. Little wonder that some of them, or more so their wives, concubines and overnight political associates, lived big, with outlandish taste for exotic cars and wine. As the unmerited free money got them giddy, some forgot they had any constituency, or allegiance to such, since more of them were 'selected' than elected. Which is why, when Tai Solarin (of blessed memory) once screamed that most office holders ought to be executed along with dare-devil armed robbers for stealing the treasury dry in the 1980s, only the politicians felt insulted.
And that helps me to recall the public attention generated by several of my poems serialized in the Herald for some eight years, from the late 70s to the early 80s. In them, I likened our politicians then to 'the weaverbirds who stripped our family palm tree to bare brooms, and the lusty locusts who pillaged our common harvests. Some were described as the bedbugs who fed fat on our bubbling blood/stirring nightmares in the embrace of vampire nights. Others were compared to the restless rodents who raided our bins and barns to swell their vaults in distant lands. Yet, I painted the rest as the vagrant vultures who hid their choicest eggs but left ours to the dogs of death.
If these poems were considered too harsh for our politicians in the Second Republic, have those in the Third and Forth Republics fared any better? The answer is obvious. There has been a gradual but determined slide in the quality of all the institutions that bind us together as a nation. From the family unit, through the educational, religious, health and manufacturing institutions, it has been one seemingly irreversible drift to a state of anomie. Surely, we cannot go on this way.
For once, Nigerians of all shades and colours must be taught to earn every kobo they have and spend. Governance must not be seen as the easiest avenue to easy wealth, exacerbating the "do-or-die" spirit to acquire political power by all hideous means. For some of us, law making should be a part-time job with allowances slashed to the barest minimum. The bottom line is that there is too much money at all tiers of government and that is responsible for the political brigandage that makes our votes to count for nothing.
Be the first to Write a Comment!
Copyright © 2009 Daily Independent. All rights reserved. Distributed by AllAfrica Global Media (allAfrica.com). To contact the copyright holder directly for corrections — or for permission to republish or make other authorized use of this material, click here.
AllAfrica aggregates and indexes content from over 125 African news organizations, plus more than 200 other sources, who are responsible for their own reporting and views. Articles and commentaries that identify allAfrica.com as the publisher are produced or commissioned by AllAfrica.
