It's the continuing saga of " money talks, bullshit walks"
This part two, complementary to "Subsidy, deregulation, liberalization: Nigerian English's
Most Abused Terms " is less philosophical, more hard-hitting and direct; I'm personally incensed
by what I read and so I entertain no hope that Ogbeni Kadiri will have something to say that will
put everybody in their proper place...
Without a doubt, after all the pre-election's anti-corruption preamble, Prof Kperogi and his Nigerian
People would like to see President Muhammadu Buhari live up to all the talk, take over from Uruguay's
President Jose Mujica who with his Spartan lifestyle currently occupies the throne in the Guinness Book
of Records, as "the world's poorest president" - a title that has less to do with conspicuous consumption
or corruption, and all to do with a contrite heart and the beatitude on spiritual poverty :
"blessed are the poor in spirit – for theirs is the Kingdom of heaven".
According to the Torah, a King should not have too many horses...( which would lead him back to Egypt.)
In the guidance provided by Islam there's the ideal of the Bayt al-mâl – a consciousness of "the people's
treasury"
which I believe should guide any Muslim leader of Nigeria...
Before he was democratically elected president, Muhammadu Buhari himself had been presented to the
Nigerian public as a man who led a "Spartan lifestyle" - like Mahatma Gandhi, which is all the more reason
why the evidence that Prof Kperogi presents against him - of "needlessly and avoidably drains our national
resources" is astonishing , although , on the other hand, even in the days of austerity for
the shuffering and shmiling masses these are some of the fundamental sweets of office that accrue to the
title "President of Nigeria!" - a position that's several degrees more elevated and should be even more austere
than that of any state governor. I say this with reference to Rivers State Governor Chief Melford Okilo who
according to the newspapers then - in 1981 – when the Naira was enjoying equal rights with the
British £ Sterling (when one Naira was equal to £1) he had allegedly used 800,000 Naira of his state's capital/
the Rivers State funds, to bury his mother and his response to his critics was the chilling rhetorical,
" So you don't want me to honour my Mother?"
Maybe because of the sentiments expressed in Prince Nico Mbarga's Sweet Mother, nobody insisted on further
taking him to task by disputing what to a poor man's eyes was the exorbitance of the simple funeral expenses.
Very often, whether power speaks rhetorically or not there are few who have the temerity or "the liver" to speak
truth to power - as when the late Colonel Gaddafi assembled his people and told them that he had heard a rumour
flying around that his mother was a Jewess and that if anybody among those assembled before him thought that
that this was true then he/ or she should put his hand up…
It could be argued that just because there is a temporary recession in the country doesn't mean that Mr. President
has to give up some of the usual dignified, luxuriousness living that goes with the office and if President Buhari
and his Merry Men were to forgo the various items listed by Professor Kperogi, it wouldn't make an awful lot of
difference to the poor man's life either.
Billions of Naira sounds like loads of money, but last week when I checked,
300,000 Naira was the equivalent of 12, 598 Swedish Kronor...
On Saturday, 28 May 2016 13:27:36 UTC+2, Farooq A. Kperogi wrote:
By Farooq A. Kperogi, Ph.D.
Twitter:@farooqkperogi
The poor in Nigeria are being denuded of all subsidies that subside their existential pains. This year, it started with petrol, then moved to fertilizer. We don't know what is next. But I think it's time we changed the conversation. Let's turn our gaze to the walloping subsidies that pay for the hedonism of Nigeria's notoriously self-indulgent elite, shall we?
We are told that subsidies for the poor have to go because Nigeria is broke and because the administration of subsidies is riddled with corruption. (And I thought the reason President Buhari was elected—and former President Jonathan was rejected at the polls— was because Buhari vowed to fight corruption so that it doesn't interfere with the dispensation of help to people who need it).
Well, if Nigeria is broke why is the construction of a helipad in Daura one of President Buhari's major projects? No one seems to know precisely how much it would cost to build it (estimates vary from N2 million to tens of millions of naira), but what we do know so far is that N60 million has already been paid as compensation to people whose land will be used for the project, according to the Daily Trust of September 21, 2015 .
Given that the helipad will become useless the moment Buhari's tenure expires, this doesn't strike me as a wise investment during this difficult financial time when the poor are stripped of subsidies and called upon to "sacrifice."
Let's not even talk of the presidential air fleet that needlessly and avoidably drains our national resources. According to a November 17, 2015 statement from the presidency, there are currently 10 aircraft in the presidential fleet, and they cost the nation more than 2 billion naira to maintain in just 6 months.
America, which is way wealthier than Nigeria and which gives all manner of subsidies to its poor, has only two aircraft in its presidential fleet. The British Prime Minister has no dedicated fleet of aircraft. It was announced only last year that a plane would be bought for the Prime Minister at the cost of $15 million. That's about how much it cost to maintain Nigeria's presidential fleet between May and November last year, according to the presidency.
In the new budget President Buhari just signed, nearly 4 billion naira has been allocated for "annual routine maintenance of villa facilities by [Julius Berger Nigeria]." The medical center in the Villa will be maintained with N3.89 billion. But this excludes drugs. Within this budget year, more than N200 million has been allocated to buy drugs for the State House clinic. Never mind that the president actually goes to London for his medical needs.
In February this year when he went to London for a routine medical check-up, he told Nigerians in the UK that he had been using his UK doctors "since 1978 when I was in Petroleum." So over 4 billion naira has been allocated for a medical facility in the presidential villa that the president may not even use, yet the poor are told to "sacrifice" because the country is "broke."
But that's not all. N387 million has been budgeted for "general renovation of the guest house" in the presidential villa, N254million for "renovation work on 8 No. Blocks of 16 No. 2 bedroom flats at State House security quarters, Asokoro," N115 for "wildlife conservation," N322,421,971 to link cable to the "driver's rest room at Villa Admin," N213,873,953 to link cable "from Guest House No. 9 Generator House to gate," N114,967,140 for the President's "food stuff/catering materials supplies," N16,683,193 for the Vice President's "food stuff/catering materials supplies," etc. There are many more puzzlingly wasteful expenditures that I have no space to highlight here. (Follow this link to read the budget for yourself.
Now compare this to America, the world's wealthiest nation. American presidents pay for their own food from their pocket. As Gary Walters, a former White House Chief of Staff, told the (London) Guardian, "All those things that are personal in nature that we all pay for, the first family pays for."
"It's just the tradition that it's continued on through time that the president will pay for their own food and, I guess, if they needed something for the house that was personal. Toothpaste, cologne or whatever," William Bushong, a White House historian, told the Guardian.
Wife of President Ronald Reagan was shocked when she discovered that she and her husband had to pay for all of their personal needs. "Nobody had told us that the president and his wife are charged for every meal, as well as for such incidentals as dry cleaning, toothpaste and other toiletries," she was reported to have said in 1981, according to the Guardian.
If the world's wealthiest country doesn't subsidize the personal expenditures of its first families, why do Nigerian budgets earmark billions for the convenience of the first family but talk of "sacrifice" and being "broke" when it comes to giving subsidies to the poor?
The Presidency isn't the only usurper of subsidies, of course. The crooked and ineffectual National Assembly got a lump sum of N115 Billion in the current budget. There is no breakdown on how this money will be spent.
A recent Daily Trust investigation also showed that "State governments are spending billions on luxury cars for members of their House of Assemblies" even though several of them haven't paid salaries to their workers for nearly a year. And we learned that Buhari caved in to petrol price increase because of the pressure that was brought to bear on him by state governors who want more money to steal.
Private sector operators (the second layer of my concentric circle) get their own subsidies, too. Apart from the oil cartel that perennially swindles Nigeria with impunity, a recent Senate investigation has uncovered a N447 billion import waiver scam to private sector fat cats from 2011 to 2015. It's just a tip of the iceberg.
Nigeria's subsidy regime is a classic case of taking coals to Newcastle, that is, giving assistance to people who don't need it and depriving it of people who desperately need it to survive. But I know there are many poor and not so poor Nigerians who will die defending the subsidies for the rich and opposing subsidies for the poor. Such people deserve our pity.
But let's say this: If members of the Nigeria political class are serious about "sacrificing," in light of the fact that the country is "broke," let's get rid of everyone's subsidies. It was Mahatma Gandhi who once said, "The world has enough for everyone's need, but not enough for everyone's greed." We are broke not because of the need of the poor but because of the greed of the rich.
Related Articles:
Farooq A. Kperogi, Ph.D.Journalism & Emerging Media
School of Communication & Media
Kennesaw State University
402 Bartow Avenue, MD 2207Social Science Building 22 Room 5092Kennesaw, Georgia, USA 30144
Cell: (+1) 404-573-9697
Personal website: www.farooqkperogi.comTwitter: @farooqkperogAuthor of Glocal English: The Changing Face and Forms of Nigerian English in a Global World
"The nice thing about pessimism is that you are constantly being either proven right or pleasantly surprised." G. F. Will
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