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| Governor Fashola of Lagos State |
On 28th May 2015, we
issued a public statement titled: “Out-going Governors & Democratic
Governance Accountability In Nigeria: Time For Stock Taking”. The
referenced publication of Intersociety became imperative on
account of the age-long failure of various democratic tiers and arms of
government in Nigeria to give detailed and satisfactory accounts of their
governance particularly towards the end of their democratic tenures. This had
made art of governance in Nigeria roguery, shapeless and directionless.
We also did say in the publication
that consumption has overshadowed the legendary service to
humanity concept of democratic governance in Nigeria. The referenced
publication of ours further divided the governance accountability
into credit and deficit democratic accountabilities; with the
latter being governance rested on armchair, status quo and loan-based
governance resulting in huge public debts channeled into unproductive
sectors as well as huge civil workforce pay arrears and sorry state of public
infrastructures and social services.
On the hand, credit governance
accountability is governance rested on turnaround of public
infrastructures and social services derived from creative and innovative
governance. Its ingredients involve non loan massive mobilization of financial
resources and human services, robust engagement of local and international
private sectors for the purpose of industrialization, wealth and job creation;
robust relationship with international development and donor agencies. At the
State level, a robust relationship is required between the affected State and the
federal government with its strategic ministries, parastatals and departments.
Other factors that bring about credit
governance accountability are accountability in government and cutting
costs of governance, workers’ welfare and job satisfaction, massive provision
of public infrastructures like roads, bridges, sporting facilities, health and
educational structures, and decentralization of government infrastructures and
social services. The credit governance accountability usually
ends with quantum of verifiable achievements and intangible achievements like
human development and public security and safety. Its cash reserves and liquid
investments always surpass its outstanding public debts. It must be a capital
oriented and not a recurrent oriented government. In all
these, the only State to have achieved this rare foot in Nigeria in the past
fifteen years of the country’s democratic governance is Anambra State as at
March 2014.
Response
Of The Government Of Lagos State:
It gladdens our heart to observe that the Government of Lagos State under
outgoing Governor Babatunde Fashola has responded to our public call as
contained in the referenced statement of 26th April 2015. On 1st
May 2015; three days after the referenced statement of ours was released, the outgoing
Government of Lagos State led by Mr. Babatunde Raji Fashola, SAN,
organized a media briefing and presented its account of governance in the past
eight years. According to the State’s Commissioner for Economic Planning &
Budget, Mr. Ben Akabueze, the outgoing Government of Lagos State had in the
past eight years (May 2007 –May 2015) generated a total of N2. 433 trillion
($12B) and spent a total of N2.749 trillion ($13.7B) in its governance of the
State.
Of the N2.433 trillion generated,
N1.4 trillion is said to have come from its internally generated revenues
(IGRs) with the remaining N1.033 trillion generated from its statutory federal
allocations, donor agencies and counterpart funds. Lagos State is the richest
IGR State in Nigeria with average generation of N22billion monthly. It is also
the most indebted State in Nigeria owing officially N512 billion ($2.5B) and
unofficially about N600 billion in local and international debts. Its
unofficial debts of about N600 billion stems from the fact that its local debts
profile has not been updated by the Debts Management Office (DMO) since January
2014; a period of a year and six months or 18 months.
Also, out of the N2.433 trillion
generated and N2.749 trillion spent in the past eight years by the State under
reference, only N1.132 trillion was spent on the execution of 8, 961 certified
public projects/programs and of this, education and health got paltry 14.09% and
7.66% respectively. This is far below the UNESCO’s 26% advisory benchmark for
budgetary funding of public education and health in the developing countries.
The breakdown further shows that of the N2.749 trillion spent, N1.617 trillion
likely went into recurrent expenditures and other non capital expenditures. The
referenced State Government also said that it attracted N15.13 billion and
N27.24 billion respectively from donor agencies and counter-part funds in the
past eight years.
Further analysis of the governance
accountability as publicly presented by the outgoing Government of
Lagos State clearly indicates that a total of N316 billion ($1.6 billion) was
borrowed as loans in the past eight years by outgoing Governor Babatunde Raji
Fashola, while the outstanding balance of over N200 billion was incurred by the
former Bola Tinubu’s administration (1999-2007) as well as other previous
administrations in the State. Our arriving at the foregoing submission stems
from the fact that when the N2.433 trillion generated in eight years is
deducted from N2.749 trillion spent in the same period, a deficit (loan) of
N316 billion occurs. During the public presentation of the referenced
governance accountability of the outgoing Government of Lagos State, no details
of channelization of the huge debts and their output or gains or losses were
provided. There is also no public disclosure of any functional State industry
or other huge profit and job yielding public investments where the loans were
channeled into.
Why Lagos
Huge Debts Are Criminal Borrowings:
Lagos State has one of the smallest landmasses in Nigeria measuring 4,211
square kilometers as against Anambra’s 4,611 square kilometers. The State is
also the most urbanized State in Nigeria having experienced development as the
country’s second pioneer capital as far back as 154 years ago (1861) till 1991.
It is densely populated and is the most populated city in Africa with over
fifteen million residents. Provision of public infrastructures and social
services in the State is shared in three folds: State Government, Federal
Government and local and international private sectors through corporate
partnerships and funding. For instance, there are road projects executed singly
or jointly by the likes of First Bank, Fidelity Bank and Zenith Banks and
handed over to the State or done in association with the Lagos State
Government; likewise hospital and educational institutions built and maintained
by missionaries and other private bodies.
The grand import of the foregoing is
that Lagos State Government is supposed to be a maintenance government
and not a construction government. The State also has no reason
to be enmeshed in serial borrowings. This is more so when modern industrial
policies of governments are private sector driven with governments playing
regulatory and security guarantor roles for private sector to thrive. In the
world over, private sector is the largest creator and employer of wealth and
labour. Borrowing is bad but if it must be done; then it must be
channeled into tangibly productive sector capable of repaying the loans
borrowed within a stipulated time frame. It is democratically tabooed for a
State Government to secure local or foreign loans for the purpose of payment of
its workers’ wages or for the purpose of defraying or offsetting its overheads
or allowances of its political office holders.
It is also wrong and condemnable for
the outgoing Government of Lagos State to have borrowed for the purpose of
resuscitating or upgrading public primary and post primary schools in the
State. By the provisions of the Universal Basic Education (UBE), schooling in
Nigeria, from the Primary School to the junior Secondary School (JSS3) is
freely provided substantially, if not wholly by the Federal Government. The
primary and secondary school education sub sector lacks the capacity to
generate funds for the purpose of repaying the loans borrowed for its
operations. Besides that, thousands of public and missionary primary and
secondary schools in Anambra State under the immediate past administration were
renovated, rebuilt, built and upgraded without borrowing a dime locally or
internationally. Most of the funds used in this regard came from donor agencies
and development partners through strategic partnership.
The
Missing Points: Apart from loopholes inherent in
the governance accountability presentation by the outgoing Government of Lagos
State as they concern reasons, uses, gains and losses of the huge
loans under reference, there are several missing points arising from the
governance stewardship presentation.1.Lagosians and Nigerians must be told by
the outgoing Government of Lagos State the total cash and other liquid
investments of the State in the past eight years. For instance, are there
State’s investments in the Orient Petroleum PLC in Anambra State, etc and how
much, if any, is being left in the State coffers? 2. Lagosians and Nigerians
must be told the total arrears owed to contractors, if any, for the State
contracts certified done and completed. 3. Lagosians and Nigerians must be told
how much arrears owed the State’s retired and serving workforces as they
concern their retirement gratuities, salaries, pensions and other workers’
benefits. 4. Lagosians and Nigerians must be told the total amount of severance
packages or pay designated for the outgoing elected and appointed
public office holders in Lagos State including the outgoing Governor and his
Deputy.
5. Lagosians and Nigerians must be
told how much the outgoing Government of Lagos State spent every month as its wage
bill. That is to say how much did the State spend monthly in its
workers’ salaries, pensions, allowances and overheads of its government
machineries and personnel including the governor and his deputy’s security
votes all in the past eight years? 6. How many kilometers of roads, bridges and
railways were constructed and completed in the past eight years as well as
their costs? How many were built and funded by corporate bodies? 7. What about
hospitals, schools, housing, etc? 8. What is the worth of direct foreign
investments attracted to the State, if any, in the past eight years?
Commendation: The attempt made by the outgoing Government of Lagos State
at presenting its account of stewardship is very commendable particularly in
this era of institutionalization of governance roguery in Nigeria. Presentation
of governance accountability for public view and criticism is a fundamental
hallmark of democratic establishment. It also gives a firm direction and a hope
for the succeeding or incoming government and those that elected it. Outgoing
Governor Babatunde Fashola is also called upon to critically address the missing
points highlighted above as a matter of public importance and
gubernatorial excellence. The referenced outgoing Governor himself also owes
Lagosians and Nigerians a moral and constitutional duty of declaring his assets
and cash worth publicly as he leaves office on 29th May 2015. He
should not only make them public, but also publish them side by side with his
2007 pre gubernatorial assets and cash worth declaration.
Condemnation: The outgoing Government of Lagos State also deserves
condemnation particularly for borrowing unjustifiably a whopping sum of N316
billion in the past eight years. It remains our irrevocable position that
the Government of Lagos State under Mr. Babatunde Raji Fashola, SAN, has no
reason whatsoever to enmesh his State in serial borrowings to the extent of
incurring N316 billion out of the State’s official total debts of N512 billion.
If a State like Anambra State between March 2006 and March 2014 could refuse to
borrow a dime; and yet it came out at the end transformed beyond imagination,
with billions of cash left in its coffers; why should the Nigeria’s center
of excellent go borrowing? Lagos State ought to be the Nigeria’s
biggest lending State and not the country’s current biggest borrowing State.
The express import of the outgoing Fashola’s governance accountability
presentation, which authenticity is yet to be dually verified, is that it
is a government with deficit accountability and governance; by
generating in eight years N2.433 trillion and spending in eight years N2.749
trillion.
Why Other
Outgoing Political Officers Must Go The Way Of Anambra & Lagos States: We still insist that other outgoing governors and elected
political officers including outgoing President Goodluck Jonathan and the
headships of State and Federal Legislative Houses should prepare and publicly
present their accounts of leadership. At the level of the National Assembly,
Nigerians must be put in the public knowledge of how many public interest and
social service oriented bills were passed and assented to in the past eight or
four years. Letting the Nigerian public into the quality or otherwise of the
passed bills is also extremely important. What about the anomalies inherent in
the Constitution including its ouster clauses and other bodies of law in
Nigeria including the Criminal Code, the Penal Code, the Criminal Procedure
Code, the Criminal Procedure Act, the Prisons Act, the Police Act, the Private
Guard Act, the National Open University Act, to mention a few? Who is
responsible for the archaic nature of these laws and whose duty is it to
upgrade them to the international best standards? Have they been upgraded?
How many sub regional, regional and
international rights and humanitarian treaties ratified by Nigeria have been
domestically codified by the National Assembly in accordance with Section 12 of
the Constitution? Are there laws that needed to be passed following mounting
challenges of modern technologies and harmful human environmental activities,
which have not been created and passed by the National Assembly? Are the prosecutorial
and penalty provisions in Nigeria’s anti graft and other criminal laws
qualitative and stringent enough to secure speedy convictions and deterrent
from repeat and fresh commissions?
Signed:
(a) Emeka
Umeagbalasi, B.Sc. (Hons) Criminology & Security Studies
Board Chairman,
International Society for Civil Liberties & the Rule of Law
+2348174090052
(b) Uzochukwu
Oguejiofor-Nwonu, Esq., LLB, BL
Head, Campaign &
Publicity Department
(c) Chiugo
Onwuatuegwu, Esq., LLB, BL
Head, Democracy
& Good Governance Program
(d) Obianuju
Igboeli, Esq., LLB, BL
Head, Civil Liberties
& Rule of Law Program
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