Follow Us on Google
…Says no to regions, LG autonomy
…Wants states to create LGAs, welfare state
By Chidi Obineche
Chief Olorunfunmi Bashorun was 22 years of age and was working at the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN when Nigeria attained independence in 1960. He retired as a director of the bank and later became the Secretary to the Lagos State Government, during the second republic. He was also the pioneer chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP in Lagos state. He reminisces on the independence of Nigeria in 1960, the journey to nationhood, hopes and impediments, as well as the clamour for restructuring. Excerpts.
Can you remember any special event in 1960 that actually excited you?
Well as a small boy, when the Queen did not come in 1953 when she was installed, and she honoured many of our traditional rulers and leaders, I was not happy, I mean it was a lady that came to represent the Queen in 1960 and that one really excited me, that a lady not even a man came to lower the flag and that was what we saw. If you want to test people when they come for interview, give them test to sing the national anthem, we are not singing the National anthem, it’s only the music and everybody would stand erect. The moment you refuse to sing, you are not standing to respect the national anthem. That day, the music of the national anthem was played in our own tone and we are still changing our own to another one. It was not the one that was played at that time for Princess Margaret in 1960.
How was the atmosphere in Nigeria?
The issue of election that Chief Awolowo lost was still there, Balewa was a leader, they accommodated all these small differences. The three leaders were there, when Awo was the official Leader of the Opposition in the federal parliament to the Balewa government. What I noticed was that on that day, they said he tied a bandage on his hand, because he didn’t want to shake hands with Balewa. I said no, I didn’t know what that means. But they were all there to honour her and celebrate what they had worked hard for, that is; independence for Nigeria. In their graves today, they should be happy, that Nigeria has not broken into pieces, Chief Awolowo always said that Nigeria is an expression, Cautiously, we came together. That we have come together, we should not break, it is better to remain, as one. Every one of us has a benefit, the comparative advantage tells us by economics.
It’s there in Nigeria. Anybody who says one is bad and the other is good should always consider that everybody has something to give and the three have something to give. Awolowo was a planner and the man in the North was having grip on the people and Zik was speaking his big English, so the country’s changed considerably, I think, one is happier, at my age , I think we have made progress. We have not done the best ooo, but we have made progress and we should celebrate and thank God.
That means Nigeria is not still a toddler at the age of 57?
It’s a good development for Nigeria.
The memorandum I submitted to the APC committee, is about eight or nine subjects, but in this interview, I’m having with you, I want to treat three or four of them. The first one is the devolution of power. Devolution of power is the talk of the town, everybody in the north, south.
It was reviewed in a committee two days ago, and they believe in the devolution of power. This is not the first time everybody is talking about it, I think we should be serious about it. Devolution of power is surrendering some of the powers and the functions in the Exclusive list, to the Concurrent list to enable the state and by extension the Local governments to have more functions. From my own record here, the first thing I want in the Concurrent list is Bankruptcy and Insurgency. The new one that I have added is that the National Assembly may make laws for the federation with respect to registration of voters, to complement that of the federal and not for the almighty federal, solely. Then, we should have generation, transmission and distribution of electricity within the states. It should be in the Concurrent list and it’s new. Thirdly, the fingerprint identification and criminal records, ,labour, industrial relations, conditions, safety and welfare of labour, industrial dispute, prescribing a minimum wage should also be moved from the Exclusive list.You would recall in those days when Chief Obafemi Awolowo was in the west, he introduced binding minimum wage, which was double the amount paid to workers of the same level. It was woes and cries all over, but he maintained it and succeeded because the law was not against it. All this issues of you fixing N18,000 as minimum wage for somebody in Lagos and for somebody in Kebbi, or somebody in Nasarawa, or somebody in Ebonyi states can’t work. I won’t talk about the oil rich states. The thing has to be a localized thing. The state governments should be able to fix it according to their revenue base. N18,000 minimum wage is nothing in Lagos, but N18,000 spread evenly across all the states as minimum wage is unrealistic. Even some states are not paying the N18,000 as low as it is.So it’s good to put it in the Concurrent list. Then, those taken from the Exclusive list like promotion and exhibition of tourists traffic, traffic on federal trunk roads should go to the Concurrent list. That’s all about devolution of power.When you add them to the Concurrent list,it means more work for the states than Local governments, then when you come to revenue allocation, that has to be adjusted upwards for the states and local governments and downwards for the federal government that has shredded some loads.
Regionalism is the next one . In a paper I wrote in 2000, the position I took in 2000 has not changed. There should be no regionalism. For the purpose of doing better things for the country where you have to appoint a governor for the regions,or administrators, as the Patriots then were saying; giving administrators for states is overloading the system and when you have found those things for those units of government, they all go with legislature, executive, judiciary, etcetera and plenty of human capital to be deployed and by extention plenty of money to spend. Then the statutory states structure today, let’s start from North-west. I don’t think the man at Sokoto or Kebbi, the man at Zamfara,would want to come and report to Kaduna, because that is what it means.We in Lagos for instance, we would not like to go and report to Ibadan neither would those people in Ogun state. When you go to the East, you want those in Abakaliki now to come and report to Enugu, or Benin to go and report to Port Harcourt, North East to report to Maiduguri, then North-central to go and report to Jos. So if this is what is intended, it must not be done, it can’t work. Regionalism should hold, but the six geopolitical zones should be legalized to continue as the administrative units for the purpose of sharing things or recognizing those who belong in the state, and what belongs to those units. That’s for regionalism .looking at local governments, there are two issues in local governments; the first one is; should the present arrangement for increment of Local governments remain?
And should local governments continue with the way it is now? When states create local governments, they have to carry the decision of the House of Assembly to Abuja for confirmation by the National Assembly. Note; section 7 (1) of the constitution, the superegos for now, of the Local government system in Nigeria, let me quickly state that it is very clear, the provision is so clear that one does not require, section 7 (1). The system of Local governments by democratically elected local government councils is under this constitution guaranteed; and accordingly, the government of every state shall be subject to section 8 of this constitution. That is where the problem is. That is the section that makes them to carry what they come up with to Abuja to ensure their existence under a law. That is how some Assemblies provide for the establishment, structure, composition, finance and functions of such councils. The functions are stated in section 24 of the current constitution. So if we want the Local government system to function well, then we should allow states to create them as provided in this constitution. Some say local government is not a tier, there is nothing like that. My argument is; if it is not a tier, federal is first tier, there are a couple of provisions in the constitution on how to run the federal tier, state is the second tier, there are couple of provisions in the constitution on how to run the state tier. Where are the provisions to run Local governments? So they should not be referred to as non tier.
When we got our independence, it was not a sub tier .So having said that, my own submission is that; certain sections of the constitution, which I don’t want to go into now, should be amended to return local governments to states. Let the state, any state that says it wants to create local governments create any number it wants. But the parameter used for sharing money for the Local governments remains unchanged. Unfortunately, many people believe that the more the number of Local governments, the more in the sharing of revenue, no!. It is not so. Oshogbo that has 30 Local governments, how much does it get as compared to Lagos and others with lower local governments? if you go to the Revenue Allocation Board, you would see the sharing formula. Lagos state got N6 billion last month for its local governments, Osun got iN 623 million. So it’s not the number that counts. Even Kano that has 44 local governments got less than Lagos that has 20. There are parameters.
So what is the first parameter?
The first is the population; the second is the IGR( Internally Generated Revenue) performance. The third one is land spread, the fourth one, I can’t remember that now. But when you get to section 1 (62) of the constitution, it is there. So it’s not the number of Local governments that decides the amount a state gets. if you decide to create 100 Local governments, those parameters won’t give you the money. It is now left for you. So why are we bothering ourselves? if the number of local governments created does not determine the quantum of revenue allocation , why not let the states create whatever they want and then share it among whatever number they have, and the constitution is clear and section 1 (62), made it clear that the states shall give a percentage of its own revenue to the Local governments. They don’t do it. The second one, the House of Assembly shall make a law on how to share whatever that has been dropped from the federal allocation, most states don’t have this law.
Why are the states not complying with the constitutional provision?
The steps to be taken in remitting Local governments matter to states, in accordance with section 7 of the constitution is stated. The second one is the so called autonomy. Autonomy in most cases is tied to federal allocations. They say whenever the federal allocation arrives and that’s what is in the constitution, it is dropped to the state government and to be shared among the local governments or what they call ‘Joint Account and Allocation committee’. They say, instead of going back, most states pass the money for other events. The law should take its course if anyone does that. The law should take its course and deal with such things, but in some states and I want to mention Lagos. For a long time, if you live here, have you ever heard that our Local governments workers are going on strike? Or primary school teachers? No.
Why?
When the allocation arrives, before sharing at all, whatever is the quantum that is expected, they meet the demands in terms of salary and other things for local governments and it is set aside; provisions for primary school teachers, set aside, other miscellaneous sub- heads set aside before the state allocates to them their money for the month for its other duties and that is what has been happening here. This for instance is the final allocation after those deductions and I have a copy of one of the allocations ( waves it)where all this things are deducted first, this is the final page, thee are pages where up to pensions allowance, pensions provisions are deducted from the allocation, like the entire N6 billion, is not released to the 20 local government. Take for instance, whatever federal gives you from the allocation is shared among the six local governments that we have. But before giving it to any of the local governments, the salary of teachers, allowances and money for their pensions are taken off. That is; let others do it, the same way, instead of shouting autonomy for Local governments. Unfortunately, there is nothing like autonomy for local governments. If state governments tamper with funds of Local government, the law should take its course. We should not be wasting time.The Assembly is there. Where I am worried,is that the Assembly has all the opportunities to monitor and know if local government funds are not disseminated properly, but most of them are not doing these functions. They say oversight functions, but they come to local governments to monitor what they are doing in local governments but they do other things which compromise their position. This is unfortunate and if they hear it, they would say that man is talking jargon, I’m talking critically; that’s the truth. Even when they summon the Local governments to the House for anything, they do other things. It’s because they are not thorough in what is called the monitoring or oversight. So the autonomy should wait.I would say inject human capital from the states. Those who are not too qualified , they force them to Local governments.You find them in the Councils, they call them the Council Engineer, some of them are just technical officers, some of them cannot even read drawings, but that’s what you have in most local governments and that has to be shoved off before we talk of autonomy. The law that states the State government should release that part of the percentage is not there, I am recommending, that whoever is implementing that section of the constitution, it should be 10%. You cannot believe it, as far back as 1979-83, Jakande was giving 10%, to local governments, but he would insist that before he released the 10%, come and show me what you want to do with it.He would have to approve that project, then he would release it. There is nothing wrong in doing so now. I was even surprised that two days ago, I read that 36 state Houses of Assembly speakers met and supported autonomy for local governments. I believe our own speaker, (Lagos) is not involved, because the position of Lagos state here in terms of autonomy for Local government is negative.Did he not consult before he went to join them to approve of the autonomy for Local governments? That is our speaker, I believe he probably did not consult. When the Local government is deleted from the constitution, all federally allocated revenue should be distributed among the federating units on the basis of the equality of states and population, so that is already assessed. It is more than that in section 1. The third one is, sharing of revenue. Revenue allocation with percentages and all the rest of it.I want to leave that but I believe that in this country today, devolution should be based on “cut your coat according to cloth”. You cannot have a Local government chairman based in Gombe earning the same salary with the chairman in city hall or in Apapa. Come to state levels, you cannot have a governor in Taraba and expect him to earn the same remuneration as the governor in Lagos. The governor in Lagos from IGR alone is aiming at N30billion per month. if the man at Taraba gets N2billion per month, he would celebrate, why should they be having the same salary? And when it comes to federal allocation, Lagos got N6billion, a state in the South-west got N653million, that is less than 10% of what Lagos got. Kano got even less than Lagos. In the same way, it’s not right for the governors to earn the same thing.That’s an area, where the Revenue Allocation Mobilisation and Fiscal Commission which is federal should work on. I recall the time in the public sector, we did studies on personnel based on duties they were performing. Let me take Lagos as example. The intensity of infrastructure and problems in Lagos, when you compute it into units, you cannot compare the problems the man is facing in Lagos with the man in even Kwara state? Why should the man who supervises that enormity of function have the same salary and office pecks with that of the governor of Kogi state. The same thing with even the assemblies. So let us have revenue mobilisation for states, let the federal one remain, and they should sit down, do close study on functions and fix salaries.You would find out that everybody would be happier, when you do it that way.
You were around in 1960, how was the independence atmosphere like?
Well we had leaders with all their voices who were committed to having a Nigeria, despite the differences between Azikiwe and the three others including Awolowo. Despite the differences, we were at one level asking for independence and the learders with their regions’ committed to a better Nigerias. It’s a picture that would get everybody on their feet. Nobody was in doubt, I was a small boy of 22, but had already started working then.
As at that time, I was more than two years old at the Central Bank of Nigeria, I started at the age of 20 plus, plus two months, in January 1959, was the time I started work at Central bank, so I understood a number of things. Fortunately, I think in 1959 was the time Chief Awolowo launched his auto biography, at least everybody had to pick on somebody, I picked from him, the way and how he got there, after he was stopped and he was able to break through his head and tore the mask. There at Central bank, I did my banking exams, I did my internship, I did my B.Sc. in the University of Lagos before I left the service of Central bank and they are at the foundation which has helped to build me up till today. So Nigerians should thank our founding fathers, they did well and they should develop optimism, some people made it by attitude. But my life attitude; everything I say is I want to be optimistic, even if I am facing herculean task, I still believe there are some high hopes. With what Nigeria is facing today, during the war, when the war started, I was on the job, I know what happened in 1967, but it has become history today and from 1967 till today, Nigeria has made a lot of progress, now there are things I can use to do anything, when you begin to think of different things that has happened to Nigeria, I don’t think we have gone backwards. See the technology, of transferring money to many 20 people within 15minutes and you have done it.
Any regrets so far?
People say we are still small in comparison with the US. How can you to talk of US? US has 50 states and they started with 13 before they got to 50. They have been developing continuously and I forgot to mention that when I was talking about cut your coat according to cloth. In the US, salaries of governors are not the same, I did a research there and the highest paid governor is in California. Why California governor earns $220,000 in a year, the governors of Arkansas earns $80,000.
Our governors here don’t depend on their salaries?
There?
