Notching Up On Governance In The States

Generally speaking, it takes a scandal for states and local governments to appear on the national discourse map, and even then fleetingly. Reflecting the vertical geography of power in an over-centralised federation, attention is customarily directed to the biggest league, namely, the Federal Government. Yet, there are several reasons why we should take more interest in the way in which the states are governed, or misgoverned. Consider, for example, that several states in Nigeria harbour more people than some countries on the European continent, qualifying them, therefore, to be treated as important political entities in their own rights. Also, is there not something inherently wrong about seeking to govern a sprawling federation like ours, from just one central point in an age where small is still beautiful?

If we get governance at the state and local government levels right, it will have multiplier effects on the centre, apart from reducing the feeling that the Federal Government is all that counts. Conversely, this columnist does not believe that any real, lasting change is possible if our subnational governments remain as poorly governed, with a few exceptions, as they have been over a long period. For example, very little conversation attended the allegation made recently by the Rivers State Commissioner for Information, Tam George, that N82m was spent by the Rotimi Amaechi administration to organise the 80th birthday dinner for the Nobel laureate, Prof. Wole Soyinka. Although George unwisely directed his inquiry at Soyinka, who was not expected to know how much was spent to honour him, not being a government official, the fact remains that the public is not the wiser for all the fever of words. It should still be interesting to know exactly how much was spent on an event which Soyinka himself had slyly alluded to as “opportunistic flavouring” by the Rivers State Government. It is unlikely that Soyinka, a lifelong campaigner for justice and accountable governance, will consider such an investigation disrespectful of his person as implied by the Rivers State All Progressives Congress which actually “apologised” to Soyinka. I hate to believe, that the progressive movement in Nigeria or the rump of it that survives is so impoverished that it cannot make a public gesture that demonstrates that it takes seriously the level of morality that it demands of others.

Worthy of mention, with regard to the poor level of governance in the states is the current controversy over the request of the Governor of Cross River State, Prof. Ben Ayade, to the state House of Assembly, to approve for him, 30 new advisers, in addition to the 35 earlier approved for him. Ayade’s request is totally out of sync with the austere times as it is insensitive to the national pulse. It may surprise observers however, that several other state governors engage in the outrageous duplication of offices even as they call on citizens to tighten their belts.

It is a popularly held view that the current protracted default of salaries, in many states, came about as a result of the crash of oil prices. When you inspect further however, you will discover that the downturn which warranted a bailout by the Federal Government, merely accentuated a trend that has been with us all along. Even in rosier times, several states around the country routinely defaulted on the salaries of workers, especially teachers. One of the culprits in this regard is Benue State, where chronic non-payment of salaries exists side by side with ongoing investigation of a former governor who is being prosecuted for payment into his private account of N3.2bn of state funds. Check out the oil producing states, whose opulent governors are often referred to as oil Sheiks in the manner of Arab rulers, and see how much real development has taken place. One of the gripping tragedies of the Nigerian narrative is that after six years of rule by a South-South President, and billions of naira of enhanced allocation to the oil producing states, the Niger Delta region has very little to show for it.

Why do the states remain a Pandora’s Box of failed governance? Part of the answer is in the persistence of unaccountable one-man rule in what is supposed to be a democracy. The one man, here, is of course, the governor who is the lone star in the firmament. Surrounded by a panoply of aides and overlapping appointees, all at public expense, he has at his beck and call, a rubber stamp legislature, which can be manipulated, or induced to pass any bill, however outrageous. The governor also surrounded by a pliant civil society makes it very plain that his word is law. It was in this context that various state legislatures which are merely echo chambers of the governors approved very strange lifelong retirement benefits for state governors.

Except for a few honourable cases, mediocrity and mendacity characterise governance in the states, to the extent that the attention of the civil society is riveted on an often incompetent or tyrannical centre. Indeed, it has been the case that underperforming governors successfully divert attention from their states by focusing in long public speeches on corruption and incompetence at the centre. Another dimension of the problem is what Adebayo Williams in a recent insightful essay described as the “Adedibu syndrome” of governance. This boils down, Williams argues, to a money-sharing arrangement among warlords, leaving very little with which to prosecute development.

Germane too, is the fact that our allocative federalism fixed in a monocultural strait jacket perpetuates states trapped in the unedifying circumstance of committing a high proportion of their allocation to paying salaries. If the states had imaginative leaders, and robust think tanks, they would long have explored alternatives to the oil rent economy. However, this did not happen before the ongoing crisis resulted in the phenomenon of states on life support. The situation in our states and local governments contrasts with what one finds around the globe, where the most exciting governance initiatives, occur, not at the centre, but at the subnational levels. Canada is an example of a federation where the provinces engage in competitive delivery of services. The Province of Alberta is frequently rated as taking the cake because of its record in bringing welfare benefits in such areas as housing subsidies, transport, security, and education to its citizens. This kind of thing occurred in Nigeria in the 50s and 60s, when strong personalities like Obafemi Awolowo, Ahmadu Bello, and Nnamdi Azikiwe backed by efficient institutions turned their regions into centres of excellence, envied by the centre.

What then is the way out? There is first, the necessity often argued in this column, for a restructuring of the country in order to make it so federal that it will empower the states. Second, states in contiguous areas should explore the benefits of economies of scale in order to overcome the restrictions imposed on them by geography and artificial boundaries. Third, the civil society, the media especially, should focus more in a new model of participatory governance on the mechanisms through which the states are being underdeveloped.

Finally, the more backward states, in governance terms, should learn from the examples and stimuli of a few faster paced states.