By
Tunde Abatan
The Oxford Advanced Learners Dictionary defines Governance as, “the action or manner of governing a state, organization, etc.”
In other words, governance means the style, firm and content of the process which brings about governance itself. The outcome of the process or processes adopted is what informs it’s description or perception by the organization or people being governed.
Good Governance in general terms relate to the ability to allow the process have a positive impact on the lives of members of an organization or community and people being governed.
Failure by a governing process, system or leadership to perform to expectation has been figuratively termed bad governance the direct opposite of which is Good governance.
Nigeria in her sixty four years of independence has gone through sixteen Presidents/head of state both in military and civilian garments.
Since he came into the saddle of leadership, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has been confronted with inherited state failures of his predecessors. Such is the enormity of the problems that drastic steps taken to reposition the country so far and in spite of temporal gains, however well intentioned, are now being used to measure his capacity to satisfy the people. Today, he is not a man or President to envy by a citizenry desirous of quick results and improvement in their living condition.
Since Good Governance is a template that has over the years disappeared from the lips and song of Nigerians, you can’t but have pity for a Leader Who asked not to be pitied. Yet he thrust forward his chest to carry the burdens of pains and anguish, Nigerians are feeling as a result of his well intentioned policy to change Nigeria’s governance narratives.
In this light, there is need for a deliberate attempt by the government and the society to situate the roles and performances of the three tiers of government so as to know which harm of government has failed the citizenry at any point in time.
In other words, there is need for people to know the roles of the nearest tier of government to them and how to hold them or the people at the helm of affairs responsible for any misgovernance; failure or success as the case maybe.
It is worthy of note that the need to situate office and role in this dispensation and thereafter is informed by the obvious tendency on the part of each or all of the tiers of government to pass the buck as to who is responsible for failure at any point in time which is always noticeable when there is social crisis as the country is going through now.
It is also important to point out that the failure of the organs of government over the years has necessitated the people to apportion blame of misgovernance.
In this regard, we can easily excuse the fact that the military interregnum of the first thirteen years from 1966-1979 and the second coming from 1983 to 1999 has changed the psyche of the people since military government operates a unitary system as akin to their command structure. In other words citizen always look up to the head of the military government at the centre is the root cause of the apparent tension, frustration and discomfiture in the society or misgovernance as the case may be.
Today, 25 years after the return to democracy or civilian rules to say, the general belief in the polity is that all policies or inactions are caused by the national leadership or the President.
This is wrong in a kind of Federation which though Unitary in nature still gives unlimited powers to the different tiers like the state governments which made up the country.
The only snag is that until the recent Supreme Court judgement which gave full financial autonomy to the local governments, the provision of State/Local government Joint account in Section7 of the Constitution has placed the finances of the local government which is the third-tier of government to the whims and caprice of state governors. To make matter worst the constitution also made it possible for Governors to remove council chairmen at their whims and caprices.
When the new government led by President Bola Tinubu took the oath of office on May 29, 2023, the monthly take home of the three tiers of government. Federal, state and local governments were in the neighbourhood of N1 billion accruing to the Federation account.
With the removal of subsidy on petroleum products on his first day in office the monthly allocation to the three tiers of government had a significant improvement 39.9 percent.
For instance in July 2023, barely two months after the new government came in, the total money shared by the Federation Account Allocation Committee, FAAC was N966.11 billion naira distributed among the Federal, 36 states and 774 local governments.
In July this year exactly twelve months after the above allocation, the monthly allocation went up by over N1.36 trillion from the initial N966.11 billion shared at the same time in the previous year. This new figure represents an increase of 34.6 percent over the previous year.
This means in effect that the different tiers of government have had more allocations to share from the Federation account more than they previously did twelve months before.
This naturally translates to the fact that they have more money to spend to improve the lives of the people, translating to good governance.
The amount of money disbursed through the Federation account is different from the monthly income generated by the various tiers through taxes, levies and other income as per their rights under the 1999 Constitution.
During this period under review none of the tiers has increased the monthly salary paid to their workers to justify any excuse for none performance.
On the part of the Federal Government it is on record that a sum of N5 billion each was disbursed to all the 36 states in the country by the Federal Government to cushion the effect of the withdrawal of fuel subsidy.
This amount ordinarily should be a soothing balm by the state government on the people pending the time of the long term measures like provision of Compressed Natural Gas, CNG, buses for transportation and supply of food from the strategic grain reserves of the Federal Government to the states who are also expected to distribute same among all their local governments.
We also have to note that the three tiers of government and the Federal Capital Territory, it means the leadership have not make any sacrifice which the generality of the common masses have had to make to survive the economic policies imposed on the people by the new government.
While the salaries and allowances of the organised labour force and civil servants have not increased until July this year, which falls into the period under review, the emolument of the leadership in the various arms like the executive-the President, Governors and National and state houses of assembly members have not been reduced to show empathy and leadership by those in position of power and privileged office holders.
This, to me, is what good governance is all about.
Good governance means the leadership too is involved in the efforts to govern the country during the trying times. This could be evidenced and appreciated through visible sacrifices at their levels not living an ostentatious life style like our legislators at both state and federal levels which is at variance with responsive leadership. On this score members of the assemblies have not shown any level of remorse or sacrifice instead still came out to justify humongous salaries and out of this world allowances all in the name of making themselves comfortable.
It is quite evident that Nigeria has ever gone though this economic stress not even during the thirty months civil war period until the government decided to impose food blockade to pressurise the seceding region to end the war.
Responsibility of each tier of government: Another area which needed to be sorted out and impressed on the generality of the people is the area of responsibility of each elected or appointed public office holder. This issue has really affected the public perception of their leaders and in this regard failed to hold them responsible.
As published above, each of the three tiers are allocated money from the common purse.
In this regard since we have a President who presides over the general affairs of the country in spite of the exclusive list, his responsibility stops with guarantee in safety, economic policies, foreign relations, armed forces and bilateral relations, which could even be amended when the country decides to practise true federalism as obtained during the first republic. In other words, day to day living of the citizens of each of the thirty six states and the Federal Capital Territory should be the concern of their state governors and administrator as the case is with the Federal Capital Territory. It is only in a country like ours that citizens lay blame their inability to feed on the President who is far removed from the grassroots.
Governors of each of the 36 states in Nigeria owe it a primary duty to feed their citizens and provide health services education as commensurate with their income.
It remains an aberration for the federal system as ours to legislate on exclusive authority over Education such as it could not have been the case on Agriculture and health services.
Governors have the responsibility to give above services toothier people who in turn have the right to ask question and not lay the blame on the doors of the Federal Government.
In the same vein, local government chairmen have their statutory roles to play as the health of each of the local government in each state is by inference the health of the state in question.
This is why the granting of local autonomy to the councils is a master stroke which also confers onerous responsibility on the local councils to provide commensurate governance social services to the people at the grassroots.
With the clear autonomy given to each local council, one would expect civil society organisation, non -government organisations to shift focus on ensuring elected councillors; chairmen and state governors provide services to their people as guarantee statutorily and not expect a Federal Government far removed from the states to attend to their basic needs.
The organisations should also serve as whistle blowers for effective governance at all levels as inability of the country to move forward is based on lack of accountability at all levels of government.
As things stand today in Nigeria lack of accountability at the three tiers has produced a negative effect on all levels of governance and the result is that the image of the country remains that of a poor country in spite of its natural endowment which are not used for the benefit of the citizenry.
If the three tiers have had significant improvement in federal allocations since last years, beside whatever each tier can generate locally, there is no basis for the grinding poverty we have all over the country now.
It is a direct result of abandoning of responsibility by all tiers to the people.
Citizens at all levels should begin to hold various governments responsible and ask questions for this is the only way to ensure that elected or and appointed public officers live according to their oath of office and discharge their duties failure which should have repercussions at the face of the law and during election period. Without accountability there cannot be responsibility by public office holders and those charged to implement and interpret the law for the good of all.
Good governance in any clime is not served on a platter of gold but by the vigilance of the citizenry at all times and ensuring that there are consequences for all irresponsible actions by elected and appointed pubic officers.
