By Hon. Aliu Asipita Abdulmuluku
asipitamuluku25@gmail.com
“Society is not built by individual morality but by the institutionalization of our collective morality and evolved values.. our political culture must shift at an individual level from those that seem to subjugate or demean the people as paupers to those values that see them as humans deserving of human dignity. That we shouldn’t view them deserving of our pity but of their share of quality life offered by the potential of our common wealth that should be centrally pulled and deployed for their good.”
Quite often, we have become inundated with the terms “empowerment programs or initiatives” from our political office holders, public servants or would-be political aspirants.
They range from State Governors, Senators, Members of House of Representatives, State Houses of Assembly, all the way to Chairmen and Ministers or Commissioners of the Federal and State governments.
We would often hear of “empowerment, empowerment, empowerment” as if that’s a core government policy approach that fixes any deeply rooted socio-economic problem.
Let us proceed on a critical analysis of this phenomenon that has become common place across the country.
A cursory intellectual look at what these initiatives often project as solutions to the people’s challenges, show that they are nothing but quick fixes to the underlying economic realities that make our people so needy to the point of seeking empowerment in the first place.
We distribute food items, sowing machines, wrappers, wheelbarrows, electrical equipment, appliances, motorcycles and tricycles, and sometimes, albeit rarely, motor vehicles to those seen as very loyal and sometimes dangerous.
Not that these items do not have their place of importance in the daily lives of the people who receive them, nor do they not ease their pains and those of their children in some ways, but the question remains: do these approaches actually solve anything or fix the real economic challenges that require systematic government thinking, approach, and intelligent economic policy planning, implementation and deployment of resources?
A market survey of prices of these items shows that they often run into millions and sometimes billions of naira –money that could have been better deployed intelligently, across board, to achieve results that align with the central policy directions of the government of the day or national developmental plans.
And exactly this is the crux of this article or enquiry.
How our public servants, political or aspiring leaders come to command such level of resources in the first place should be a question that intrigues our minds.
How come we have utilized public resources into these areas whereas such were meant to be centrally available for deployment, after comprehensive plans of human capital development and capital projects that bear more impact on the economic realities and upward social mobility of the people?
Beyond statutory emoluments and allowances of public servants or public office holders — which comprise basic public office holder salaries and allowances –, we have devised ways and means to divert public resources in the name of other allowances and constituency projects.
The methods include contracts converting and third-party biddings via proxies and cronies.
Such system where lawmakers and non-executive public office holders command such humongous resources poses a threat to both governance and national security.
One needs to interrogate these issues critically to understand the relationship between these. I will proceed to explain.
THREAT TO GOVERNANCE
For governance to be effective, coherence in policy planning, accumulation and intelligent deployment of resources are key.
In a situation where the common pull of resources is so divested into the pockets of diverse political actors who are not guided as to what and how these monies should be spent or marshalled, one only has a situation where reckless spending is the order of the day.
Even the supposed empowerment programs often pointed to, achieve nothing as these are only political patronage seen by the beneficiaries as spoils from their loyalties to the leaders.
There must be a centralized pull and deployment of resources at the executive levels of the Federal, State and Local Governments for cogent achievement of developmental agendas and plans.
These three are the constitutional tiers mandated to plan and deploy resources effectively for both economic and political emancipation and advancement of the nation and citizenry.
For individuals who have no function in these constitutional capacities to routinely dole out cash and materials to the people in public in some Robinhood-style of politics, is demeaning of the concept of bringing the dividends of democracy to our people.
This public dance of distribution of items has come to subjugate our people to the proverbial levels of “picking the crumbs from the king’s table.”
To all intents and purposes, that isn’t the fundamental objective of governance or democracy.
It is demeaning and dehumanizing to our people.
Interestingly, while these leaders understand the meaning and power shrouded in this demeaning subjugation, the poor citizens thus reduced, often have no understanding of this power dynamics at play. They are pawns and chickens being thrown crumbs. Classical Stalin chicken postulations.
Democracy and egalitarian governance seek and demand better for the dignity of the people.
THREAT TO NATIONAL SECURITY
It is no longer news that democracy allows for or accommodates combative or bitter vocal contestation of power.
The reason these so-called empowerment programmes have been the bane of our democratic experiment, is the basis of this piece.
Those in non-executive positions have cornered so much resources to the extent that they have the capacity to threaten the common peace of the majority or the common interest of those currently in power through violence orchestrated by violent groups, via media subterfuge or other fifth columnists embedded deep in government and the security architecture, simply because they have mobilized huge resources through a short stint in public office, either as legislators or executors of delegated authority as Ministers, Commissioners or heads of Agencies.
They soon wield enormous resources and power to the extent that they sometimes threaten our common security as a people and society. It is no gainsaying the fact that we can trail our current insecurity realities partly to this causative factor: the unhealthy accumulation of state resources by persons who are bent on contesting power by all means possible, even if it means making the nation ungovernable.
It all comes to one reason: they command enormous resources they cornered while in certain offices or positions. This in particular threatens our fragile communities and national security.
While we grew up knowing empowerment to be synonymous with genuine philanthropists and private individuals, it is today more ascribed to politicians currently in office or out of office, who have intentions to run for office, than the philanthropists who popularized the very word ‘EMPOWERMENT’.
Beyond the analysis, it is a basic economic constant that resources are infinitely scarce, even where they are deemed enormous.
To that intent and purpose, every society, wealthy or poor, must orchestrate a system that collects resources into a common administrative pool, does intelligent planning and deployment of these resources to ensure planned policies and program implementation which guarantee trickle-down or ripple effects that actually have impacts on the short, medium to long-term economic advancement of the people and society.
The continued unorganized and haphazard dissipation of the common wealth as empowerment, and which breeds cult-followership of a leader, creating power centers that actually do little to improve the quality of life, only reduces the administration or governance of the state and the nation to a huge joke.
These monies should be used to plan qualitative education, expand greater teachers’ capabilities and skillset advancement for the youthful demographic of our population.
These monies should be used to build better looking hospitals, with greater capacities and equipment as well as better skills training for critical health personnel with their welfare needs being met, to ensure they remain within the nation without industrial actions or the urge to seek greener pasture abroad.
Mind you, these are critical resources for our infrastructure renewal drive that should top our policy conversations as we head to reach the dizzying 250 million population growth mark in the next five to 10 years.
Thus, presently, we should be worried. And deeply so as a people.
SOLUTIONS
Society is not built by individual morality but by the institutionalization of our collective morality and evolved values. This is the essence of governance.
While the Communist or Chinese/Russian models or even the Arab monarchical governance typologies innately allow the planning and administration of governance and resources from the centre downwards, it is slightly diverse and pluralistic in classical democratic experiment.
But varients have evolved for us to copy. We must begin by brokering this conversation which this piece seeks to do.
We must question the constitutional roles of our public office holders and demand that they function within that scope. For those whose constitutional mandate doesn’t include executive powers for projects and programs, we must abide by the relevant laws and status stricto senso.
We must build a legislative culture that respects the functional separation of power in this regard.
We must then proceed to reduce or prevent the devolution or dissipation of monies to such public offices that have no executive powers.
If need be, we should pursue constitutional interpretations in this regards in the Courts of the land for the interest of public law and good governance.
Beyond these, our political culture must shift at an individual level from those that seem to subjugate or demean the people as paupers to those values that see them as humans deserving of human dignity.
We shouldn’t view them as deserving of our pity but of their share of quality life offered by the potential of our commonwealth that should be centrally pooled and deployed for their good.
And to the people, beyond the wanton poverty and destitution they have been consigned to, we must begin to demand for better deals from our political and public leaders not just in terms of empowerment but in tangible plans that transcend our immediate stomach infrastructure to the medium and long-term issues that border on our collective existence and those of our children.
The elite and educated amongst the citizenry must be the guide of the masses in developing this probing culture. It’s the only way to build a governance culture that serves the people and doesn’t turn leaders into cult-personalities that the people are apronstringed to for the former’s selfish and perpetual usage.
To us all committed to the patriotic growth of our nation and the egalitarian emancipation of our people, this is to you.
God bless the Federal Republic of Nigeria. Amin.
