What Are The Governors Doing With The Palliatives?

By Rotimi Fasan

At the end of July this year, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu said in a nationwide broadcast that Nigeria had been able to save well over a trillion naira following the removal of subsidy on petrol. This was money that would, otherwise, have gone into the dark hole into which the fuel subsidy went. I think it’s fair to say, in the wake of the unbearable suffering Nigerians have been passing through since the end of May that some kind of support (read subsidy) was being enjoyed by Nigerians.

It was just that the effect of it was very minimal compared to the amount we are told went into sustaining the oil subsidy bogey. The best part of the subsidy money went into the pockets and bank accounts of shadowy players in the oil sector, including oil marketers that are too quick to make Nigerians groan by their Shylock-like ways. 

They are always happy to remind Nigerians that removing oil subsidy is unachievable given our present realities while simultaneously warning of imminent increment in the price of petrol per litre. For a while now they’ve been telling those who care to listen that anything less than N800 per litre of oil is unrealistic and would be ultimately ruinous to the ongoing deregulation of the downstream of the oil sector. They are never as happy as when Nigerians are struggling to buy the so-called subsidised oil at cut-throat prices at fuel stations that shut down their stations within minutes of any oil price cut. Then would they tell everyone that they are yet to finish sale of their old stock. 

With the savings made from discontinuing its payment of oil subsidy, the Tinubu administration has been able to increase the amount of monthly accruable to each state of our skewed federation. While Abuja has itself not been very specific about the actual percentage of increment that has been made to the monthly allocation to the states and has urged them to increase salaries as part of measures to ameliorate the effect of the subsidy removal, the belief out there is that the increment couldn’t be less than a 100 per cent. 

Nigerians outside government circle didn’t know of this until the likes of Gbenga Daniel, a former governor of Ogun State and a serving senator in the current senate, spilled the beans. Daniel had shortly before that revelation about the increased revenue to the states told Nigerians that he had not been collecting pension and other benefits due to him as a former governor. This was unlike many other of his colleagues in the National Assembly who, as former governors or public officers, continue to enjoy the full complements of the perks specially packaged for them as ex-this and ex-that in addition to the perks of their current positions. 

The National Assembly has become something of a retirement home for many former governors. Godswill Akpabio, the current President of the Nigerian Senate, is a former governor as was his penultimate predecessor, Bukola Saraki. The former governors have become such formidable bloc in the National Assembly as to be able to constitute a challenge to any Senate President that dares not to reckon with them. 

They were among the earliest callers on the president, himself a former governor, in courtesy as an ‘ex-officio member’ of their ‘national caucus’. It was from among this class of big-men Nigerians that Daniel emerged to deny any part in the greed of Nigerian leaders, who enjoy benefits from multiple sources as former public office holders, at a time when the vast majority of the people are living from hand to mouth under the crippling effect of the removal of subsidy on petrol. 

While state governors have been very silent about whatever they may be getting as benefits for their states as a consequence of the removal of subsidy, Nigerians themselves have not helped matters by their fixation on what Tinubu and the government he heads are doing about food inflation and the astronomical increase in services and goods. When Nigerians ask questions about what the government of the day has been doing or not doing about the unbearable state of the Nigerian economy, they seem to be wilfully blind to the activities of the state governors.

It’s as if, despite all that has been poured into the coffers of the states and the Federal Capital Territory, FCT, governors and the FCT Minister have no role to play in bringing succour to Nigerians at these unprecedently hard times. Yet, it is these governors, the FCT Minister and their local government counterparts that are best placed to address the immediate concerns of Nigerians about the state of the economy and its dangerous effects on their overall wellbeing. 

Perhaps critics of Abuja may wish to tell us which of the states Bola Tinubu governs at present or which local government allocation he controls? It’s the governors who control the purse in their states as well as help themselves to the till of the local governments despite the best effort of the Muhammadu Buhari administration to free the local governments from the apron strings of the governors with regards to the monthly allocation to the states. But as Nigerians continue to focus all their attention on Tinubu for both good and terribly flawed political reasons, so will they continue to allow the governors to continue to sit on huge sums of money they are not accounting to anyone. 

It’s about time attention is directed at them. They have to let Nigerians know what their plans are to end the misery in which most citizens in their states presently wallow, beginning with full disclosures of what they have so far done with the N5 billion given them as oil subsidy removal palliatives. Where is the money? Where are the hundreds of thousands bags of fertilizers and maize? 

Who is hoarding them for the next round of political campaigns? While some states have acknowledged taking delivery of the billions of naira, others are claiming they have only taken delivery of parts of the palliatives, while yet others have simply chosen to be silent, neither confirming nor denying taking delivery of the palliatives. This is both criminal and inhuman.

Abuja has a responsibility to put out a full account of what has been disbursed to the different states and local governments in the country if they are sincere about what they claim they have provided by way of palliatives to the states and the FCT. There is no room or justification for any shadow-boxing at this moment. Nothing but full disclosure would do. Nigerians are passing through some of the worst times of their lives and silence from any government quarter can’t be golden at this point.

*Fasan is a commentator on public issues