MINIMUM GOVERNMENT
IN KWARA STATE.
AKOGUN IYIOLA OYEDEPO
Sometimes in 1980, after President Shehu Shagari’s hundred days in office and he listed his achievements to include composition of his cabinet, appointment of envoys to foreign embassies, presentation of the yearly budget, inauguration of the National Assembly among others, the late Scholar, philosopher, cerebral journalist and the first Managing Director of The Gurdian Newspaper; Stanley Macebuh, wrote an article with the above heading. It is from that intellectual writer that I borrow the title of this article to analyze the performances of Governor Abdulrazak Abdurrahman, the Governor of Kwara State, 2019 to date. Stanley concluded that the first hundred days of President Shehu Shagari was not inspiring and that if what he listed as achievements were his best in the first hundred days in office; then which President would not have done these, even if a fool? He said that his claims were the minimum a government can do.
The best way to measure the impact of an administration is through the developmental agenda, addressing the real needs of the citizens that could lead to socio/economic development. It is my belief that the best asset in the hand of the government of Kwara State is the almost three million human population of the State. The government can impoverish this population and can make them economically vibrant. Added to human assets are the land, weather, mineral resources and others. To turn all these to assets to address the problems of the people of the State depends largely on the wisdom, knowledge, vision and political will of those in authority.
Majority of the people of Kwara State have been made to focus on the monthly statutory allocations and the borrowing power of government as the sources of wealth available to government. What a perverse thinking! Statutory allocation as far as Kwara State is concerned is an unearned wealth. It is due to Kwara State like others, just by the fact of belonging to the Federation of Nigeria. Whether Kwara people go to sleep, engaged in dancing gyration, sleep in the mosques or churches for thirty days of the month, the money is ours by the right of being part of Nigeria. Statutory allocation is like our share of inheritance in the common patrimony that belong to us in the corporate Nigeria. The way we use it will ensure our growth and development.
Growth is different from development. Growth is akin to biological process of enlargement. When we take balanced diet, we shall grow even if the food is a donation, borrowed or stolen. A beggar, thief, children of the poor on good diet will grow from infancy to adulthood. Now that we are regularly given monthly allocation from Abuja and when that is not enough, we borrow, to build bridges, international Conference Centre, renovation of Kwara Hotel, etc, we are growing but we are not developing. The above projects might induce development but not in the present state. Development on the other hand has much to do with innovation, development of ingenuity, exertion of brain to improve and enlarge often through research, refining and processing. A person that takes loan from the Bank, do appropriate investment will not only grow, but develop. And a man could take a loan, wastes it on conspicuous consumption, he may grow for a time, but can never develop. It is the duty of government through its programs to unleash the creative power of the people in our desire for genuine growth and development. There is the need to examine the impacts of our government on the development of our people. We may be investing all our monies on things that will not ultimately lead to the empowerment of our people and the prosperity of Kwara State. Yet if care is not taken, we may take the shining lights, aesthetic environment and beautiful skyscraper buildings to be our measure of development. They may just be growth without any meaningful impacts on the development capacity of Kwara State.
On the 13th of December 2024, I granted an interview on the Channels, Politics Today and I said that Kwara State is still 80% dependent on Monthly Federal statutory allocation, I stand by the claim. While we have access to the monthly statutory allocation of government through the Federal Ministry of Finance, we cannot say the same of the State’s Internally Generated Revenue. The statutory monthly allocation from 2019 May-November 2024, is the sum of N323,367,641,450.8b. The KWIRS have been too opaque in the areas of internally generated revenue of the government of Kwara State. Perhaps, if this is now made available, we shall be able to judge whether the State can survive even for one month of non-remittance of the statutory allocation or not. Also, in this regard the total monthly commitments of government should also be made available, so as to enable the people to believe that Kwara State could survive non-remittance of statutory allocation in a month. Only this can defeat my claim of 80/20 reliance on State reliance on monthly statutory allocation.
We need the government to give us a better statistic and the ball is in its court. But can the government do this? It is only a secretive government that has much to hide that will not sign into law, Freedom of Information bill. For BudgeIT to have claimed that Kwara State can discharge its obligations without monthly statutory allocations, we need to know what data the government submitted to the BudgeIT before the latter arrived at that conclusion. If this is not done, there could be an insinuation that the endorsement is obtained by fraud. But when we consider the huge amount of money that accrued to government since 2019 May, and compare it with the claimed achievements of government, the status of minimum government in Kwara is established.
While reacting to my Channels interview, government claimed that most of the improvement of the economy of Kwara State came from government’s investment in agriculture, enterprises and services. I hope the government is talking of Kwara-our Kwara. Is there purchase of tractors like we have in Niger State since 2019? Is there fertilizer, chemical and insecticide subsidy scheme for the teeming population of Kwara farmers? How many dams did the government attempt to construct or indeed constructed? What is the volume of seedlings needed by the farmers of Kwara State and what is the volume supplied? How many hectares of land did the government clear for the farmers of Kwara State? Where therefore is the massive investment in agriculture in Kwara State? We need more data on government claimed investments in agriculture.
On health, the governor is eager to talk about renovation of General Hospital Oro. He fails to tell us that Kwara State has 539 government owned hospitals 512 of these are primary health care facilities, while 26 is in the secondary category-general hospitals. How many primary and secondary health institutions including the twenty-six General Hospitals owned by the government of Kwara State have been renovated and equipped with staff and medication since 2019? For example, Kwara State has twenty-six general hospitals, the government renovated about three, and the governor is beating his Chest. What other evidence of minimum government do we require? The Governor’s score card on health, even with the employment of 1,005 health workers is too negligible to be commended for a government now swimming in humongous federal allocation, loans and the yet to be declared IGR. Governor should let us know the real needs of our people in the health sector and we shall compare it to his performance. We need more data.
I talked of mass unemployment, they say through their KWASSIP, they have created many employments. Where is the figure of the employment created with many youths out of work? There is the need to publish the names and other details of the people this government has empowered since 2019. Otherwise, an impression that is already created is that KWASSIP money is a mere political propaganda and a means of pocketing public fund by those in government. And in any case, with the thoughtless Urban Renewal Program, government has killed several businesses. When we therefore compare the numbers of people employed by the government and the numbers of businesses killed with the consequential loss of jobs and livelihood, the conclusion might be that this government has come to inflict lethal pains on the people of this State.
The pedestrian solution to the youths that have taken to alcoholism and drug is to fence business off. No policy to engage those that are turned to miscreants as a result of misgovernment, other than to drive them underground or to some other locations. I was thinking that a proper policing of the corridor of those fenced business places, at Post-Office and along government house to clear them of prostitutes and paraga drinking youths would have been better than fencing and killing businesses. Government Land Use Law is operated with inhuman face. My advice to the governor however is that if he decides to fence the destinies of the people of Kwara State, he should take into consideration the negative reactions of the people later.
They call misplaced priorities like International Conference Centre, renovation of Kwara Hotel, ten floors Revenue House, upgrading of Government House, Garment Industry, etc, modern approach to economic development. Which political economy or the standard economic text books did these people read that have taken economic prosperity out of the REAL NEEDS of the people? When we need food, they give us powder and Vaseline to beautify our hunger famished faces and bodies. When we need mass quality education, they take glory in these occasional flashes of performances by some gifted children in a rotten educational system. We have dilapidated schools without the required numbers of teachers, instruction materials and exposure to trending science and technology. Can these poor children fulfill their potentials in dilapidated, unsafe schools with outdated equipment and teachers that are not well trained? A government that has 333 secondary schools out of which two: Government Day Secondary School Adeta and Ilorin Grammar School were renovated. And a government that has 1,578 public Primary schools and renovated 600 but boasts of huge success. This is minimum achievement. When we need good health, they give us lavender for good odor and that we should come and discuss or watch discussions in a serene environment of international Conference Center. When we need food to stave off hunger and its chain of misery, they give us a beautiful Kwara Hotel to come and admire the joy and revelry of our overfed elites. And those of us that crawl to Kwara Hotel we can behold the beauty of its replica in Dubai. When we need security, they say we should come and watch theater. And since they know that many cannot visit Lagos and Port-Harcourt, the homes of overhead bridges, they have brought this to Ilorin so that hungry people will continue to come and gaze at the bridges evidence of swimming in the ecstasy of urban renewal in the midst of rural poverty and urban slum. Many of these projects on which they claim achievements should be in the hands of skillful private sector with government providing enabling environment. But why will the government not neglect the real needs of the people; it is alienated from the people.
They call themselves road masters singing odes to their self-acclaimed feat in road infrastructural constructions in Kwara State. A good government could have given us the numbers of kilometers of road infrastructural needs of Kwara State. We would therefore not have concluded that an average of one parched road per local government with one coat asphalt overlay is not evidence of minimum government. With the way this regime is dancing on the same spot in the provision of road and water infrastructures, many communities will not know modernity until the created world goes into extinction.
My conclusion is this: with the humongous sum of over N323,367, 263,450.68b Kwara is entitled to far more than what we are given. Secondly, the government should use the resources given to us in Kwara State to empower the people to create wealth, growth and development. Thirdly, the government of Kwara State should face the REAL NEEDS of the people instead of projects of misplaced priorities. With the established humongous government financial exposure and what has been achieved thus far, this is a minimum government. Given the available opportunities anybody in government could have given Kwara what we now have. The verdict is that no special deal.