"It could be a more prosperous economy where oil did what it's done in Norway and lift the whole economy up, because its well used. The strategy has been to use the oil rigs to benefit a minority. They don't believe in growth for all"-Professor Sir Paul Collier. Photo: Google Images.
Nigeria,being a heterogeneous society, the benefits of oil accrue only to people in power. No transparency, No accountability, No plans for modernity, No incentive to invest in the country's future. Nigeria is the largest and richest economy in Africa , but despite having large resources of oil and gas millions of its citizens are poor. In our last blog entry we talked about how wealth in natural resources in ethnically diverse society induce Autocracy. Never has the totalitarian devastation of a country been so prominent than in this regime. The whole place is in flames-abuse of power, division, police state, routinised terror, selective justice, mass murder, dissent clampdown, corruption, mass unemployment, gross poverty, etc. Nigeria is ranked last on 152 countries commitment to reduce inequality. Nigeria also ranks second worst electric supply nation, etc. There is limited support for Entrepreneurship and human empowerment. The population is growing astronomically with poor economic infrastructural investment to support this demographic trend, just exorbitant salaries of the executive and the legislature including untraceable security votes. A new global report says Nigeria has overtaken India in poverty. Read More: http://www.theleadprojectfoundation.com/2018/01/autocracy-vs-democracy-what-we-now-know.html Today there is remarkable gain in price of oil, how that helps to improve the welfare of ordinary people remains the unanswered question. There is no accountability. There is high level of conspiracy and corruption taking place, and less incentive to build inclusiveness and invest for the future. They are simply interested in the next election as they control the security and election institutions. According to Professor Sir Paul Collier, The power holders do not believe in modernity and do not believe in growth for all. ''Repression is very easy''. No one can challenge the power holders or bring them to account. Till date the government has monopoly of the oil industry and oil blocks are owned by few powerful individuals resisting reforms. We have embedded the oil price chart on our blog for people to follow trends in global oil prices. So where is the change coming from? Oil funds the next election, and there is not proper checks and balances.. First, Nigeria is not a homogeneous society, and there is no shared identity, unlike Norway which is a homogeneous society that has built trust in the society and uses the dividend of oil to invest in the future. In Nigeria power holders invest in security to thwart accountability. The country has to address the issue of 'power-balance', which restructuring of the current political structure offers, sadly they are playing political football with the much needed restructuring debate, despite using this policy to win elections in 2015. In Nigeria, it has become the survival of the fittest where the strongest uses the benefit of oil to do as it pleases them, instead of the provision of public services including infrastructure for the future, and bullies anyone who questions their authority. There is this 95%/5% development policy devised by the politicians depending on how each region votes for politicians in general elections. Voting pattern, has also become a determinant for public services provided by the government. Provision of public services is a priviledge not citizens right. The government invests in unproductive projects including medical and education tourism, private jets, funding of religious activities, traditional rulers ,etc, and bribe other people including community and opinion leaders in a position to demand accountability with political appointments into unproductive agencies. Some of the agencies do not add value to the economy. So the national budget is used to fund exorbitant salaries of the executive and legislators, unproductive workforce for electoral gains. A civil society group working on Social Accountability in Nigeria, Budget IT confirmed that about 43% of the capital projects have no impact on Nigerians. A whole lot has gone wrong. In this dispensation, the President is also the Petroleum Minister, the Chief of Staff is also the Executive Director of the Nigeria National Petroleum Commission(NNPC), his kinsmen is the boss of the NNPC, so it's a difficult situation for checks and balances. All the security service chiefs are his kinsmen.This adds to the national mistrust having failed to adhere to constitutional federal character to guarantee equity.
The National Assembly has raised several issues of non-compliance and massive scale of corruption in the management of the country's oil resources including a recent case of subsidy abuse by the management of NNPC. Subsidy exists without appropriation by the legislators, etc.
Similarly some state governors especially the South-East and South-South Governors have also raised concerns about non-disclosure and remittance of revenue from gains in oil prices in budgeting. According to the governors,'' allocations from the federation accounts do not seem to reflect the increase of crude-oil production and increase in oil prices''. They also accused the Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation; NNPC of fraudlent subsidy payment. In their words: "the NNPC was fraudlently doubling the nation's daily petrol consumption from about 30 million litres to 60 million litres , and called for a thorough probe of oil subsidy payments from 2015 till date"; The SUN , 17 May 2018. The opposition parties have, also accused the government of massive fraud in the management of oil resources. The local refineries are not functional and there is reluctance to invest in local refineries to benefit ordinary people. The government still imports petroleum products from overseas, because it favours them as they have monopoly of the oil industry. At the local level, the state governors are some of the richest in the country as they simply depend on monthly allocation from the centre. They also do not diversify nor bother about modernity as it's easier, cheaper and better to wait for easy monthly allocation funds. The states suffer in this regard leading to under investment and under-development. To the governors the status-quo is the best option. At the end of their two-term tenure they buldozze their way to the National Assembly as Senators to enjoy new benefits in addition to their retirement benefits in the various states they served, while ensuring that their relatives take over their former positions as new governors. The local government areas which are meant to be independent as the third tier of government are, also hijacked by the governors appointing their friends and families and associates as caretakers of the third tier of government thereby killing development at the local areas, causing mass unemployment, and emigration from the rural areas to the urban areas. There is remarkable thug business in the oil communities competing for the control of corporate social responsibility investments, often funded by the politicians. The legislators are also not accountable to their constituents. They enjoy some of the best wages least expected of an African economy. Most people don't seem to know about their constituency funds and how much that is collected by their representatives on their behalf. They are only aware of publicised occasional direct poverty alleviation projects including hair-clippers, hair dryers, wheel- barrows, motorcycles, etc donated to constituents as public relation campaigns. Some only visit their constituencies when the next election is round the corner, so citizen engagement is only limited to elections often characterised by vote buying. Our findings show that ordinary people will only benefit from the gains of oil if the current political structure is restructured to free up resources concentrated at the centre to create more opportunities at the state and local levels. The current political structure is one major reason for the curse of oil in Nigeria as it's designed to serve the interest of the few. Only the powerful enjoy the benefits of oil in Nigeria, because they have the guns and there is no sign that they will yield to change, too soon..
The federal system of governance in Nigeria has failed to provide the basic welfare for all citizens instead uses the benefit of oil to invest in security, partonage politics and the next election to maintain the status-quo- 'conspiracy, corruption , business as usual'. The future demands change.
Read More: http://www.zurumnewsdigest.com/2017/03/go-on-with-one-nigeria-2-use-huge-oil.html
Uche Okeke is a Social Entrepreneur, the Founder of The LEAD Project Foundation.
"While oil may be a cause of corruption and unaccountable government in many countries, Norway has been able to set aside its resource wealth to invest in the countries future. "
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