Rebuilding and restructuring Nigeria requires constitutional amendments
The federal and state government administrations ushered in via the recently held elections have been having their 100-day anniversaries. While the Lagos State government has tried to celebrate its controversial re-election with the launching of a Lagos Metro that took almost two decades to get done but has electric trains being pulled by a diesel engine painted to look like a metro train, it has looked rather sophisticated in comparison to a Kano State Government that recently approved a budget of ₦854 million for the first phase of the Auren Zaurawa—Mass Wedding Initiative that offers financial assistance to young couples who cannot afford to pay for their own weddings.
The budget will go to wedding expenses for 1,800 couples that also get ₦20,000 to start businesses, but this grant amounts to a total of ₦36,000,000, a measly 4.21% of the ₦854 million budgeted for the event that will take place at the Sani Abacha Stadium later this month.
The current political system in Nigeria is highly centralised, giving the federal government enormous powers and responsibilities over a wide range of issues
One has to ask if a mass wedding of this nature and cost actually belongs on a list of the priorities of Kano State. A couple of years ago, the state had the most out-of-school children in Nigeria based on research from the United Nations Children Fund (UNICEF), which said that 1,496,736 children were out of school in Kano State. According to the NBS, Kano State has 10.51 million people living in poverty, which is 66.3% of its estimated population of 15.9 million. Kano State had an unemployment rate of 26.8% and an underemployment rate of 25.8% in the second quarter of 2020, which means that more than half of the labour force in Kano State was either unemployed or underemployed and the economic downturn faced by Nigeria since then hasn’t offered opportunity for improvement. The state government has budgeted ₦1.2 billion to combat the deadly malaria scourge, and ₦500 million has been earmarked to complete the cancer treatment centre. These healthcare initiatives are of much greater importance and will serve the needs of people even into the long term, but the mass-wedding programme has a budget that is 50% of their combined budgetary allocation.
This bizarre wastefulness is a pattern seen with Nigerian state governments, and at this point, we have to accept that the only way to achieve a positive wholesale change in governance is to totally reset the national structure into a format that provides the different tiers with the appropriate motivation to act properly.
Nigeria, Africa’s most populous country and largest economy is facing a crisis of governance and legitimacy. The recent presidential election, which was supposed to usher in a new era of democracy and development, was instead marred by widespread irregularities, violence, and low turnout. Bola Tinubu was declared the election winner with only 36.61% of the votes cast, far below the 51% required by the constitution to avoid a runoff. His main challengers, Atiku Abubakar and Peter Obi, rejected the results and filed petitions at the Presidential Election Tribunal, alleging massive fraud and manipulation. The court dismissed the petitions, but many Nigerians remain unconvinced by its verdict.
The presidential election was not the only source of controversy and discontent. The state and local government elections, which were held separately from the presidential poll, also revealed deep divisions and dissatisfaction among the electorate. Many state governors were accused of rigging the elections in their favour, using their control over security forces, electoral commissions, and public funds. Some governors even faced protests and legal challenges from their own party members, who felt side-lined or betrayed by their actions. While none of the gubernatorial results have been overturned, a few legislative results have been overturned almost unnoticed. This relative silence regarding the state and legislative appeals is what has gotten to me.
Before the general elections, SBM Intelligence partnered with the Enough is Enough Coalition to conduct a countrywide survey for the elections, and we found that most people were uninterested in the down-ballot elections. While all our respondents had something to say about the presidential elections, a third of them were interested in the governorship elections. It was further downhill from there as interest in the Senate, House of Representatives and state assemblies saw one in five, one in six and one in seven respondents answering questions put to them.
Business Day