Guardian

POPULAR sovereignty, which stipulates, first, that people are the source of any and all governmental powers, and secondly, governmental powers are exercised only with the consent of the governed, is a fundamental principle of democratic governance. In the context of a federal system, popular sovereignty is constitutionally divided between a central authority (federal) and constituent units (states).

For us in Nigeria, this is supposedly the guiding philosophy today. As a nation, with all the imperfections, we have been a democracy since 1999 and perhaps since 1967, we have practised federalism with so much distortions and aberrations. Combinations of imperfections associated with democratic governance, distortions and aberrations related to our federal system of governments have reduced democratic governance, especially at state levels in Nigeria into an empty vocation that means very little to Nigerian people.

A major reflection of the distortions and aberrations of our federalism is reflected in our nationally perverted notion of revenue sharing with very little concern about how it is generated or contributions of constituent units. Largely informed by powers to make laws not necessarily informed by any rational economic parameter, the Federal Government legislated to itself 52.68 per cent of Nigeria’s revenue. State governments have 26.72 per cent and local governments 20.60 per cent. What informs the logic of this sharing formula? Is it based on contributions to the process of revenue mobilization?

Certainly, there will be some forms of justifications. They don’t have to be logical or rational. They are predominantly a reflection of crude power play. Largely because it has resulted in short changing Nigerians, the perception is that governments, at all levels, are today our main problem. The fact of short changing Nigerians is largely on account of diminished responsibilities of our governments to discharge basic functions of service delivery including opening up access for Nigerians to participate in the process of revenue generation. Therefore, the reality of oil revenue generation is unfortunately that of monumental fraud, corruption and shoddy deals driven almost exclusively by the Federal Government.

Given the huge resources involved, the functions of governments as facilitators of economic activities in the country are virtually suspended. By the accounts of Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Nigeria has earned N8.875 trillion between 2002 and 2006. This has shot to N8.878 trillion for 2011 alone and in 2012, N8.117 trillion. Based on this revenue reality, on monthly basis, Nigerian Federal Government takes over N200 billion, the 36 state governments receives about N100 billion and our 774 local governments receive less than N100 billion. With this, our governments have no incentive to stimulate economic activities.

As much as governments are our problem, given the huge resources at their disposal, they are also a necessary evil. Why is this so? How did we find ourselves in this bad situation? Answers to these simple questions could be traced to our national headcount. They could also be easily clustered based on our ethno-religious diversity. Not even our so-called party system could change or alter this fact. If anything, it is more likely to entrench it. Depending on the audience and environment, the perspective of a PDP politician may be the same with that of an opposition politician. Objectivity would be difficult to discern. It is simply a reflection of our national paradox; one that promotes biased and convenient interpretation of governments and their responsibilities.

The result is that although under a democratic system of government and operating in a country blessed in every respect, human and natural resources, our citizens are poor. The fact of our citizens’ poor conditions is reflected in rising levels of poverty and unemployment. Contrasted against the background of geometric rise in oil revenue, poverty has increased from 54 per cent in 1999 to 69 per cent today. Unemployment rate has risen from about 17.5 per cent in 1999 to 24 per cent today.

Sadly, our partisan configuration has not been able to define and delineate our poverty and unemployment profiles. This practically means that our parties are completely blind to human development challenges, which produces a situation whereby high poverty and unemployment situations are also the characteristics of states controlled by non-PDP governments – governments controlled by opposition parties.

For instance, assessing profiles of the 11 state governments controlled by Nigerian opposition parties – ACN, ANPP, CPC and Okorocha-led APGA based on National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) 2010 Harmonized National Living Standard Survey (HNLSS) and NBS National Unemployment Report, it gives a worrisome pattern, hardly progressive. Out of the 11 state governments, six were reported with poverty incidence higher than the national average of 69 per cent. These are Edo (72.5 per cent), Nasarawa (71.7 per cent), Ogun (69.0 per cent), Yobe (79.6 per cent) and Zamfara (80.2 per cent). This means that some of our ‘progressive’ state governments contributed significantly to high levels of poverty in the country on account of inability to stimulate economic activities in their states. In fact, only Osun has been reported with poverty incidence of less than 50 per cent. Reported to have 47.5 per cent, it means that Osun is the only state with less than half of its citizens in poverty. Things being equal therefore, access to jobs and opportunities could be adjudged to be relatively easier in Osun.

Related to issue of poverty is that of unemployment. And like the case of poverty, six out of our 11 ‘progressive’ states were reported by NBS with unemployment rates higher than the national average of 24 per cent. These are Borno (29.1 per cent), Edo (35.2 per cent), Imo (26.1 per cent), Nasarawa (36.5 per cent), Yobe (35.6 per cent) and Zamfara (42.6 per cent). Again, Osun was reported with the best record of 3.0 per cent unemployment rate. In other words, with such low unemployment rate and less than half of its citizens in poverty, Osun could be rightly described as the most employment and people friendly state in the country.

What this means is that, with reference to both poverty and unemployment, the claim to being progressives by most of our 11 ‘progressive’ state governments could be contested. There may be the temptation to dismiss the NBS report as inaccurate. The source of inaccuracy can hardly be linked to political motive and to that extent therefore the report could have some legitimacy. The second plank of argument could be the fact of some of the state governments being young and therefore may just have inherited the high levels of poverty from preceding governments. Related to this second factor is the third consideration focusing on the level to which state governments’ policies could be responsible to high levels of poverty and unemployment. In which case the dispute might not be about the legitimacy of the existence of high poverty and unemployment rates but simply about how much responsibility should our 11 ‘progressive’ state governments take?

Issues or responsibility calls to question the extent to which our parties as represented by the opposition have directed the policy orientations of governments they produced. The truth is that issues of directing policy orientations of governments produced by our parties are not a consideration. And since it is not a consideration, question of monitoring and directing resources towards common goal will just be academic exercise.

Part of the problems that may undermine the capacity of our 11 ‘progressive’ state governments to drive human development agenda capable of reducing poverty and unemployment is the bandwagon culture mainly on account of huge oil revenue. It needs to be emphatically highlighted that the huge oil revenue is the main source of the distortions and aberrations related to our brand of federalism, which are traceable to our experiences under military rule. To be precise, under military rule, functions of governments related with providing services to the people became a subject of benevolent disposition of military leaders. It was not about discharging constitutional responsibilities but a measure of the kindness of military leaders. On account of this even basic function such as payment of salaries to government workers became a source of official propaganda acknowledging the ‘good work’ of military rulers.

• To be continued tomorrow.

• Lukman wrote this as an open memo to Nigerian opposition politicians.