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There is an urgent need for national prayers across all faiths for the deliverance of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Nigeria’s ruling party, from the spirit of wasteful sharing of cash. I guess the Almighty just has to hear those prayers this time because APC and wasteful sharing are becoming inseparable partners. This need arises from the ruling party’s decision to pull out N185 billion from the national treasury and share to states of the federation at N5 billion each, irrespective of the population, as a response to the excruciating pain of the subsidy removal regime, which has seen inflation hit 24.08 percent, as recorded by the Consumer Price Index. This is said to be the highest since September 2005. The subsidy removal regime has also seen reduced economic activities across the country.
There have been conspiracy theories flying around about the actual intendment of the N5b largesse. I do not want to delve into those conspiracy theories and why the President Bola Tinubu administration is playing Santa Clause in August. Everyone knows that Santa comes around in the month of December. But like they say, when Irish eyes are smiling, they are usually up to something.
However, by toeing this sharing line, the Tinubu administration upholds its electoral pledge to continue from where the Muhammadu Buhari government stopped. In other words, the incumbent government is in line to surpass the records of its predecessor in the field of wasteful sharing of financial resources that could positively affect the industrial sector of the failed Nigerian economy as a lifeline. This draws my mind back to 2007/2008 when the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) administration of Umaru Musa Yar’Adua and Goodluck Jonathan approved a contract for the expansion of the Outer Northern Expressway (ONEX) in Abuja, comprising the Airport Road up to Giri junction and Kubwa Express up to Zuba junction and connecting Giri and Zuba. The contract was in the area of N200 billion plus. Opposition elements on APC’s precursor party, Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN), dominated headlines describing the contract as a waste of scarce national resources. They went as far as drawing analytical tables to show how many primary healthcare centres that money would build across Nigeria. Today, all those who say the contract was a waste of money, enjoy the expressways. They now appreciate the value the road expansion has added to the economy of the Federal Capital and, by extension, Nigeria.
In comparison, the PDP, though a bit more conservative, was more purposeful in the management of national resources as far as channelling them to economy-improving purposes was concerned. On the other hand, APC has proven since 2015 that its understanding and practice of welfarism ends with sharing cash to citizens even when it cannot prove the impact of such sharing on the economy. Take a look back to get my meaning. The APC government created the Ministry of Humanitarian Services, which many Nigerians refer to only as the Ministry of Money Sharing, because of its mode of operation which began and ended with sharing cash to Nigerians. The previous administration did not carry out any studies to find the impact of its money-sharing policy on the economy. The Kaduna State governor, Uba Sani, had faulted the sharing of cash by the previous administration as fraudulent. His reason was to the effect that, as chairman of the Banking Committee of the Senate, he was privy to information about the banking population of rural communities in the North, which he said lacked banking services. Besides Uba Sani, many people in the South waited till the end of the life of the administration to receive alerts for the purported cash transfers. They got none. As evidenced by lived reality, many rural communities in the southern part of Nigeria are also under-banked. The closest they have come to any form of banking is through POS operators.
This situation calls for a thorough audit of the cash transfer policy of the APC government. Buhari’s successor government does not think this is necessary and has as such ignored this need. This leaves many Nigerians with the suspicion that the N5b largesse fits perfectly into conspiracy theories flying around. However, assuming, but not conceding, that the money is actually meant to be physically shared to Nigerians, the fact of questions about the accuracy of data to be used for the exercise put a whole lot of question marks on the intentions of the government in this regard. Otherwise, the total of N185b, shared without regard to the population of the states, is purposefully wasteful and symptomatic of a governmental system that does not know what to do with money.
If, on the other hand, the government indeed understands what it urgently needs to do with money, it would better understand that N185b can float a new national airline that would employ thousands of Nigerians and enhance their capacity to take care of their dependents while at the same time adding value to the airline sector of the Nigerian economy. This N185b could also revive many farm settlements across Nigeria and boost their capacity for job and wealth creation through increased food production and processing for export. With N185b, no fewer than 90 companies with the capacity to engage a lot of workers could be revived and the warehouses that have been converted to churches returned to their original use. The impact on the economy will be more resounding than sharing the money to people. Obinna Iheukwumere wrote in his doctoral thesis at Robert Gordon University that “an average 20,000 to 30,000 bpd (barrels per day) modular refinery is reported to cost between $180 million to $250 million and may take between 12 months to 18 months to build.”
This provides a perspective on what the N185b being currently shared could do to revive the petroleum refining sector and through it grow the economy, make more money for the country and put more people back to work.
The fact here is that sharing cash is not sustainable. It cannot guarantee sustainable development. And it will not encourage economic growth and increased economic activities. Sharing food items to Nigerians, like they are refugees, is also a non-sustainable development practice. Giving fish to a hungry man will not cure his disposition. Putting him in a position to always catch his fish uplifts his living standard and makes him more useful to himself and his family. As it is, the cash and food items that our government shares will soon be exhausted. The question is this: what happens when they are exhausted? The fact that people are stretching out their hands to accept these alms is an indication that those shared during the election campaigns did not change their economic statuses.
