Earlier this week, Nigeria’s President and Commander-In-Chief of the Armed Forces, Bola Tinubu, walked another bold path that his predecessors rarely trod. With bold and audacious strut, Mr President commanded that the comatose OROSANYE REPORT fashioned out to cut to size costs of running the machinery of government must be jolted back to life. Immediately I heard this announcement, the words spoken by former US President Ronald Reagan during his inauguration on January 20, 1981, swiftly roused me out of snooze. Below were the words of the “Gipper:”
“In this present crisis, government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem. From time to time, we’ve been tempted to believe that society has become too complex to be managed by self-rule, that government by an elite group is superior to government for, by, and of the people. So, as we begin, let us take inventory. We are a nation that has a government – not the other way around. And this makes us special among the nations of the earth. Our government has no power except that granted it by the people. It is time to check and reverse the growth of government, which shows signs of having grown beyond the consent of the governed.”
What Reagan abhorred and railed against in 1981 is what our own Tinubu masterfully mimics in 2024. BIG AND BLOATED SIZE OF GOVERNMENT, an innate way of life of politicians and civil servants whose hearts pant after freebie gold and funny money, is a beast that Tinubu now wants to beat down. And he must. However, lovers of this beast; and beneficiaries of wanton waste in government loathe this move.
What does having a big government mean? Big government is a term referring to the government or the public sector that is considered excessively large or unconstitutionally involved in certain areas of public policy or the private sector. It was the same beast that former President Goodluck Jonathan couldn’t stand when he was in charge as Commander-In-Chief. On August 18, 2011, Jonathan set up a panel, otherwise known as the Presidential Committee on Restructuring and Rationalisation of Federal Government Parastatals, Commissions and Agencies, headed by Mr Steve Oronsaye, former Head of the Civil Service of the Federation.
He charged the panel to take a hard look at the federal bureaucracy with a view to pruning it for greater efficiency and effectiveness, cutting down on waste by cutting costs and constructing a leaner and more functional bureaucracy. About seven months later, Oronsaye submitted an 800-page report which recommended the abolition and/or merger of 102 government agencies and parastatals to reduce the cost of governance. The panel identified a whopping 541 government parastatals, commissions, and agencies – both statutory and non-statutory – and recommended a reduction in the number of statutory agencies from 263 to 161; 38 agencies were recommended for abolition, 52 for merger, and 14 to revert to departments in existing ministries.
What happened after the submission of the report? Nothing except for the bureaucratic setting up of other committees to look into what the original committee had taken seven months to put together. Behind closed doors, cruel and powerful Nigerians resisted the revolution. The report went into the intensive-care unit of political handwringing. In 2014, about a year before Jonathan was done presiding over Nigeria, a Government White Paper was submitted; and it reportedly rejected almost 80 per cent of Oronsaye’s recommendations! Even at that, no step was taken by the Jonathan administration to implement the limited recommendations that it accepted. Jonathan lifted no finger to implement even the tiny shreds in the White Paper. A president may truly be in authority, but there are men behind the scenes who are in power. Mean men in power who meant not well for Nigeria stifled the sane move.
This week, Tinubu’s Special Adviser on Policy Coordination, Mrs Hadiza Bala-Usman, conveyed this message of cutting government to size by carrying out the mergers, eliminations, and relocations of ministries and agencies within a 12-week timeframe. Already in subterranean and hushed stratagem and maniacal maneuvering, some Nigerians benefitting from the big, bloated size of our government are already fighting against the impending cuts, subsumption, and mergers of these agencies and parastatals. This fight will be bloody. But must Nigeria continue down this pathetic path of robbing Peter (the people) to pay Paul (government thieves)? Friends, Nigeria is a complicated species. And Nigerians are the reasons for Nigeria’s many hydra-headed problems.
Please follow me as I break down what many fear losing if Tinubu’s plan to cut government down to size see the light of day:
About 102 Boards will be eliminated. Each board has at LEAST six members totaling 612 people. Every four years, these 612 members automatically receive brand new high-end vehicles in the league of Toyota Prados, minimum.
These 612 members are scheduled to hold four statutory meetings per year including other numerous committee meetings. At least each of these boards holds a statutory meeting in what he called ‘exotic’ locations outside of Nigeria like Dubai, Kigali, London, South Africa which are often their favorite meeting venues.
Each board member gets to nominate at least a contractor who collects a ‘juicy’ contract at least once a year. What qualifies as ‘juicy’ contracts must have a value of at least 1billion Naira. Through these boards alone, a whopping sum of 600bn is splurged every year on contracts.
While sitting, these members collect various allowances, stipends, airfare refunds, hotel accommodation in five-star hotels around the world.
In some agencies, board expenditure makes up a sizable proportion of the agencies’ running cost. From these slush funds, board members live large with friends and families.
These, and maybe some more out there are what human drainpipes of big government fear losing. Do you wonder why poor people in Nigeria get the short end of the stick as they are stampeded to death trying to get a bowl of rice to feed their families? You wonder why a bag of cement is now N11,000 and life is tough for many today in Nigeria? It is because of these ogres called “OGAS” at the top who are draining our patrimonies. Mr President, LET’S BEAT DOWN THIS BEAST!
As I conclude these thoughts, I swing back again to former US President Reagan. He once called the government bureau “the nearest thing to eternal life we’ll ever see on this earth. No government voluntarily reduces itself in size. Government programs when launched never disappear.” What Reagan alluded to must sound off as a warning to Tinubu. Without adequate and appropriate alternate equal compensations, it is tough scrapping government agencies when they already have life. The political truth is that occupiers and runners of these agencies are men and women who have helped install every president, including Tinubu. How happy they will be when they suddenly become unemployed and unemployable, and what planned political reprisals they’ll launch are what we will wait to find out.
Goodluck Jonathan ordered the implementation of the Orosanye report; but faceless powerful men snoozed it. Muhammadu Buhari gave the same marching order; devourers of government resources silenced it. Now President Tinubu has given the same command. Will this most recent command see the light of day; or will it go the way of its preceding commands? The structure of our government across all spectra is a baneful, baleful, big, bloated, and brobdingnagian beast that must be beaten down to sane size. If not, Nigeria will continue to struggle where she’s destined to succeed with ease.
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