Bailout or no bailout – that seems to be the questioning hue and cry currently pervading the financial landscape of our nation. What exactly are we bailing out – the enviable national productivity of the nation’s civil servants or funding the bottomless pit of a non-productive template?
Many states and federal civil servants are being owed several months of overdue payments. What has not been highlighted is whether they actually deserve these payments. Have their services to the nation yielded whatever billions have been agreed to be paid to them? This is money that would be borrowed on their behalf and definitely with interest strings attached to repayment.
Even with all these, Governor Abiola Ajimobi of Oyo State on Splash FM in Ibadan was reported to have stated that the amount being earmarked for his state would not be enough. But is the contribution of the Oyo State Civil Service to the state’s revenue coffers able to generate whatever they are receiving monthly from the federal coffers? If not, then Oyo State, with Ibadan as its capital – previously the capital of the economically buoyant old Western Region – is not a viable state. If Oyo State with its historical pedigree, certainly much smaller in size than the Western Region, is not able to stand on its own, then one is safe in concluding that there is no viable state in Nigeria.
I am sure people would mention Lagos and Rivers States. Well, sorry to burst your bubbles, none of them is viable.
Lagos State leads with its ‘centre of excellence’ mantra. Checking Google – import export container ratio Nigeria – displays a different picture that we import 92% containers and export 8%. That 92% comes in through the Lagos ports. The banks lubricate this; the telecoms provide the cable high-speed network connection while the aviation sector provides the hydraulics for fast distribution to all parts of the federation with the Lagos State revenue system living off Nigeria’s import consumption appetite. Only Lagos State is so blessed and is the main reason why it can survive the federal government ‘strangulation’ when push came to shove during the Tinubu-Obasanjo saga. Lagos State, contrary to its slogan hardly contributes to the economic value of Nigeria PLC but to its importation feeding frenzy and it feeds off it.
Rivers State on the other hand does contribute to the Nigerian economy – in fact it is THE main contributor holding up the Nigerian economy. Only problem is, if all foreigners were to abandon ship and cart away all their equipment, we, 160 million plus of us, can hardly get that oil or gas. So whatever shape Rivers State is in is only dependent on magnanimity of the foreigners who still find it worth their while to drill for us. Without them we are nothing as we are dependent on them for our mono-cultural existence.
The current template on which the country is run with the most Honest, Accountable and Transparent (HAT) system would not move the country forward on an exponential scale, diversify our economy in record time nor would it make our citizens suddenly more creative, innovative and productive.
Our reactive-oriented civil service is tailored to only act as a distribution channel for money from Port Harcourt and its environs and contributing nothing of significant value to the growth of the economy. Once that distribution channel dries up, there is nothing to do than to moan and groan under the strains and pains of the pipes not providing the petro-dollars sufficiently enough anymore. Once this non-productive train of activities is extended to the states and local government level, then one begins to get a picture of the wasteful essence of the Civil Service.
For this to change we would have to make two drastic revolutionary moves.
One is making the Civil Service more proactive like bank workers sourcing for business and not closing down businesses except where it is directly injurious to public health. Priority is on making businesses survive and thrive and not taxing the few ones into liquidation. If their remuneration rates are tied to the survival of companies, civil servants would be interested in the sustainability of the private sector and not focussed on welding the draconian stick of shutting down private companies or the bureaucratic paper shuffling of nothing done until ‘what is in it for me?’ has been addressed. No one whose financial fate is tied to the thriving of a business would ever promote its destruction.
The industrial, agricultural, trading and commercial activities of a nation are supposed to be viable enough to fund the public sector. Where they hardly exist and the national economy is public sector-driven provides a classic illustration of our non-productive orientation as a nation as we have been dependent on the sure banker petroleum booty from Port Harcourt which we have been conditioned to expect and simply sign off for. This is exactly why the civil servants can have a non-chalant attitude towards the private sector since its productivity or otherwise has no effect on them.
Making the Civil Service proactive at the federal level is one challenge in itself, to achieve the same at the state and local government level is another challenge of heavenly magnitude. The same proactive orientation needed at the federal level must now be applied to the governors to be more entrepreneurial and extend same to the local government councils and officials – now that, seriously, is new territory that needs to be creatively charted in order to make the rural sector engaged with the wider economy. Without the state government apparatus and local government officials on board, this, my dear readers will just remain a pipe dream.
Now to the other sector that really underpins this acclaimed non-productivity – the education sector. Without beating round the bush, it is the root of our problems. It produces the civil servants from all the universities, pen and paper pushers of no productive or practical value to the wider economy apart from seeking employment in Lagos, Abuja and Port Harcourt. Our university products can only work in the financial, telecoms, tax offices and transport sector in Lagos, the Civil Service and legislative chambers in Abuja and the petroleum sector in Port Harcourt. Outside of these sectors, the only place they can function in is the state’s Civil Service, waiting for contributions from the Abuja control and distribution centre made from Port Harcourt’s petroleum goodies.
To achieve a revolutionary transformation of the education sector would require a budgetary allocation and a radical curriculum overhaul to target the professions that can be of use to the other 33 states so they can contribute to the nation’s economy rather than just be siphoning parasites feeding off the nation.
For now, we are funding a template of the abyss that yields nothing of national meaningful value; only dependent on Niger Delta states in a country of 36-plus-one states. This is what we want to provide more bailout for to cement further a nationally wasteful blueprint.
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