Given the charming disposition, body language and warm smiles on our President‘s face as he receives reports from Federal Permanent Secretaries delegations in Abuja recently, there is no doubt that he is more at ease with civil servants in governance than politicians. That to me is an obvious fact and has nothing to do with the fact that he has not chosen his cabinet yet. Given his background and the fact that he served as a military head of state before you can say that is to be expected.
For a man with a proven reputation for integrity you can even concede that given the financial mess he found on the ground on being elected he would rather know the true state of affairs from the Permanent Secretaries who as the Chief Administrative Officers in the Ministries are also the bona fide Chief Executive Officers in our public service. The danger however is that this same set of Permanent Secretaries served the last government that looted our treasury very diligently and cannot like Pontius Pilate was their hands clean of the looting and rape of our economy which the last administration did so maliciously and majestically. Even with great impunity as if tomorrow will never come and detection of such abysmal crimes will never arise.
My contention here is that transparency is an inherent part of the fight against corruption and the present bunch of Permanent Secretaries are just incapable of it. Their reports should ipso facto be taken with a pinch of salt by the president as they cannot claim ignorance of the various breaches of due processes that resulted in the abysmal looting of our treasury. This has so much astounded and astonished the president that he had to cry out on the magnitude of the embezzlement for all Nigerians to know and to assure them that he will not do much else until the culprits have been apprehended and brought to book. A decision which has the approbation of all Nigerians except the looters, their cronies, stooges and beneficiaries of their atrocities.
Ironically and unbelievably, a public servant like these permanent secretaries blazed a trail on transparency in public service in Nigeria this last week and that person is a Nigerian. That person is Amina Zakari the Acting Chairman of INEC, a lady after my heart, with no romance intended, but who by her revelations on the last 2015 elections was a lesson in vintage transparency of the type our president should look out for and reward in his lofty and famous tussle with corruption in our polity. Zakari, under attack by the opposition PDP not to be confirmed as INEC boss for being purportedly a relation of the president went about her duty with great aplomb and candor. She announced that as at now even after the last 2015 elections, 10 m voters cards have not been collected by registered voters. Which confirms that INEC disenfranchised 10 m Nigerians for no just cause even after the postponement and the Jega affirmed state of readiness. This fact was never revealed by her former boss and her known penchant for truth and frankness must have dissuaded her former boss from recommending her as his successor, as he chose someone else before the president announced Zakari’s name and Jega’s choice had to go into limbo.
Now Zakari has defined her relationship with the president and debunked the in law issue. She even announced that some 44, 000 voters cards were not delivered at all. That to me is transparency in the face of all odds and regardless of whose ox is gored including herself as INEC boss. It is such a person that all Nigerians should wish to conduct elections knowing that she will say the truth on the state of readiness to conduct a free and fair elections and receive wide credibility in saying so. That really is the catalyst for a real democracy as elections are the engine room of any viable and vibrant democracy.
Transparency was on display too at our legislature this last week but it was of a very disturbing type. The news was that our Senators and Representatives have shared N12.9bn in two months whereas they have not passed any bill since they opened shop on June 9 and shocked the nation and the majority party in the nation and legislature with a bizarre leadership election which the Police has now confirmed was enacted with bent house rules. According to media reports the 109 Senators got N 36.4 m each and the 360 members of the House of Representatives got N25m each. While one can commend the legislators for being transparent in making their allowances and emoluments public one cannot but recoil in disgust and annoyance at the huge amount the legislators are paying themselves. It is even more odious to recall that they have rejected a plea by a Committee they set up in house to review these same emoluments down wards. This is a legislature that over the years have acquired the dubious reputation of holding the executive by the jugular over its constitutional duty of approving the budget. The Nigerian legislature is noted for asking the executive to jack up its budget to accommodate the allowances of legislators and add it to the budget before approving. Whereas the duty of a worthwhile and really honorable house is to cut national and budget costs to have a productive and salutary deficit. I am sure that when the budget is presented the legislators will still repeat the same chicanery in spite of what they have done just two months into their tenure.
It is necessary to let the legislators know that they are the elected representatives of the Nigerian nation and people to whom they are accountable every time and day and not just at election time. Nigerians are hurting and are pained by the huge and unrealistic amounts our legislators are paying themselves as if they live on the moon and are not fellow Nigerians like those unfortunate enough to have elected them but whose trust they have now betrayed by the amounts they are paying themselves for elective offices.
They should know that they do not live in a vacuum and that their present disposition is bound to have serious repercussion given the present socio economic living conditions of those who elected them which are quite harrowing as most live on subsistence level. Meaning most Nigerians live from hand to mouth and cannot comprehend why those they have just elected can be earning over N20m in just two months after being elected to make laws which they have not found time to make. Certainly the legislators need to know that with such emoluments in the midst of so much suffering they are virtually getting away with murder. For how long they can do that is a matter of conjecture and I will illustrate from a childhood cartoon, with what a Red Indian Chief told an American Officer in charge of the Indian Reservation Camp where the Officer was stealing the meat meant for the Indians and giving them rotten meat instead. The Indian Chief told the officer named Lang. ‘Believe me Lang, my patience grows thin. This rotten carrion I will not give to a dog. If my people should rise against you in their anger, it were better that you and your kind had never been born. ‘A word I think is enough for the wise on this high legislators allowances and emoluments. Again, long live the Federal Republic of Nigeria.
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