Nigeria’s Budgets In Recent Times…Just A Talk Show?

Nigeria’s Trillion Naira Budgets…Plenty Money, No Development

Prince Charles Dickson
Jos, Plateau Nigeria

With nostalgia I recall those past when the budgets of this nation used to be read on the 1^st of January, although it was the military and one could not say much in the positives, yet there was much to take home with. First, Nigerians could say that they were waiting for the budget; there was a semblance of sanity, despite all the thesis of the opposite school.

However, this is not my take, my take stems from our democratic experience, one which has since approximately 12 or so budgets including the supplementary and what have we. The bitter truth being that one cannot hold on to a 15% compliance of these budgets.

Interestingly all these budgets have come with one cliché or the other, Budget of reconstruction, infrastructure, change, hope, and many more. Infact I recall reading somewhere that this one is the poor man’s’ budget or was it the last one.

Before I go far, I want to say without fear or any contradiction that in the last few years as a nation despite all the complexities of a budgetary office and the experts that are part of it. This nation has not been run by the budget.

The progress that Nigeria has made as a result of compliance to its annual budget cannot be ascertained especially during the last eight years. Each yearly budget has come with more delusion for the ordinary Nigerian. All the noise of macroeconomic policies, reforms and the usual economic jargons has been at most a sing song in the ears of the experts, a dance in the pages of newspapers, but the reality still walks in broad daylight as poverty, depravation and a stagnant nation that can show very little in terms of progress.

Painfully those that we have entrusted leadership into their hands tell us that we have made considerable progress. And to think of it, who says that we have not from the era of very few billions, infact I recall the budget of both Kano and Lagos still being short of a million. But these days we are in the era of trillions.

Without sounding broken, I beg for contrary opinion, have we not made more money in the last eight years than in our total existence as a nation…that is if we are a nation, are we not poorer for it? I asked the other day, what value are these monies, from federation account, excess crude account, ETF, PTF, Ecological Fund, Derivation Fund that has turned to Depravation fund.’

Many States have passed the trillion mark in these eight years through all sorts of revenue and budgets but absolutely nothing in terms of development. A friend even remarked we don’t see any more elephant projects like it used to be in the past, that way we could justify the monies. Unlike now a State records a motor park, poultry, cutting of grass in the government house as part of its success with all the billions it earmarked in budgets.

Which way are going to as a nation…the sustained rise in international oil prices was supposed to be a significant contributory factor, but alas it has become a popular junction called excess crude, to be shared by a select few and ‘wacked’ and mouths cleaned.

Very wonderful Statistics are reeled out but the bitter reality still haunts the nation, in Jos, Plateau State capital, water vendors embarked on a strike to increase packaged water that used to be sold for N5, now N10, nothing happened, government did not wink and we are buying at the new price. Because with all the billions budgeted for water, portable water is still a mirage.

“Our collective challenge today is to translate macro-economic gains into tangible improvements in the living standards of our people. Despite the rapid growth of the economy, about 50% of our population still lives below the poverty line. Oil still accounts for about 40% of GDP, 90% of exports and 80% of government revenue. The challenge therefore is to reverse these ratios”.

Those were the words of Yar’Adua in his first budget speech but for fear of sounding pessimistic, the reality as stated by me remains, that “poor public expenditure management and lack of transparency, accountability and value for money especially now that it is in trillions will facilitate the failure of this budget.

Billions will go into energy, will Nigerians see a change in the power sector, billions into the health sector, will that translate into improved health care delivery, turning teaching hospitals into the schools they should be, not the present state of dispensary homes without drugs to dispense.

In eight years the amount that has gone into education is in trillions, but ask ASUU, the students, look at the laboratories, infrastructures, the quality of graduates and you certainly will agree that all is a pre-arranged talk show, little to show for…Just juxtapose the amount that went into Unity Schools from the budget and then we suggested selling it…‘to the budget makers’.

In the last eight years I challenge anybody to show me a case point where any of the past budgets have been consciously followed, to say the least how can yearly budgets that are passed in March be followed, when by September supplementary budgets are required and by December they are approved and the next year they are not exhausted but another budget is needed.

How can the budget touch the lives of the ordinary Nigerian, when the bulk of the monies go into allowances, transport, monetization for the elite…a glance into the salaries that our political office holders earn is enough to instigate a revolt but we patiently wait and watch, hoping against hope?

The more money the nation has made, the more the people suffer, an irony, a bitter irony. Is Yar’Adua going to change this trend, will Nigerians enjoy a few hundred in these trillions. Will this budget, N4.5 Trillion not go the same way again, to the capitalist by accumulation in our midst, those few men and women, who wallow in their gluttonous living and tell us that all is well while we die?

At the end of the year 2008 will it end as 4.4 trillion for them and .1 trillion to those that can survive and zero for those that have no one to fight their cause, will our roads be better, will schools be any good for it, will the Niger Delta be a new Yankee, will we see rapid infrastructural development, improved workers welfare? Many of us await the miracle of these trillions, may the Almighty Allah remember the poor in His transparent budget, for hope in human, nay Nigerian Budget is fast killing us.

Robot  Villager

# 1 The progress that Nigeria has made as a result of compliance to its annual budget cannot be ascertai...Read the full article. Posted by Robot| 11.11.2007 09:54

Akinyi  Villager

# 2 Thank you very much Prince Charles Dickson. If more people were asking these questions, perhaps, we would have cut corruption in half. I concur that there is corruption in every country. Accountability, whether forced or self-applied is the only reason why some countries are less corrupt or in Nigeria’s case, the #10 or #1 corrupt nation. If our journalists were asking some of the questions you asked, may be, just may be, we would be getting answers. I use to be baffled that the electorate can't seem to ask these questions of their (s)elected officials’ year in year out. In every budget, millions are earmarked for road construction. When these roads are no where to be found and following another year's budget, nobody asks questions, Nigerians are asking for what they get. Is it any surprise therefore that these (s) elected officials steal as much as possible and spit in the electorates' faces. You made a good point when you wrote “Which way are going to as a nation…the sustained rise in international oil prices was supposed to be a significant contributory factor, but alas it has become a popular junction called excess crude, to be shared by a select few and ‘wacked’ and mouths cleaned”. When the last budget was written, I know it is anything but $100 per barrel of oil as it is as at today. Will Nigeria account for this windfall? Going by history of IBB, Buhari and OBJ, the answer would be NO. Are our journalists asking any questions or writing about the $100 per barrel oil price? Again I quote “In eight years the amount that has gone into education is in trillions, but ask ASUU, the students, look at the laboratories, infrastructures, the quality of graduates and you certainly will agree that all is a pre-arranged talk show, little to show for…Just juxtapose the amount that went into Unity Schools from the budget and then we suggested selling it…‘to the budget makers”. If educators and the educated cannot ask these questions, there is something terribly wrong with us. On a side note you wrote “. Oil still accounts for about 40% of GDP, 90% of exports and 80% of government revenue”. Oil is 40% GDP? What are the other products that made up the GDP? Nollywood? If oil is 40% and oil accounts for 90% export, then Nollywood movies cannot account for the 50% difference in export. Anyhow, thank you again Prince. You asked very pertinent questions. These are questions that border at the very existence of Nigeria as a nation. Posted by Akinyi| 11.11.2007 20:30