On Friday, June 5 2024, a proposed bill meant for legislation and titled ‘A Bill for an Act to make Provisions for Nigeria Gold Reserve Framework and for Other Related Matters, 2024’, passed the second reading at the floor of the Nigerian Senate. The bill, among other things, seeks to establish a gold reserve authority to be saddled with the responsibility for the implementation of the Minerals and Mining Act for the regulation of exploration and exploitation of Nigeria’s gold deposits. Though harmless at first, however Part II (10) of the proposed bill (Control of property in gold, vested in the State) is already revealing a motive, nay, a handshake that extends beyond the wrist. This portion reads that the entire property in and control of gold, under or upon any land in Nigeria, shall be vested in the Government of the Federation for and on behalf of the people of Nigeria, and that all lands in which gold have been found in commercial quantities shall, from the commencement of this Bill be acquired by the Government of the Federation in accordance with the provisions of the Land Use Act, and that the Authority shall administer and enforce the provisions of the Mining Act for the purpose of this Bill to the exclusion of any other authority, among other provisions. With the spirit and letters of this bill, and many before it, it is clear that the federal government is not slowing down in its bid to make governance in Nigeria a full-fledge unitary system; and the idea that true federalism be enthroned and resources should return to the states and constituents they are domiciled (a.k.a. resource control) is not in the thinking of the political gang in Abuja.
Now, if there is anything that the Supreme Court’s local government financial autonomy judgment achieved, it is the throwing up, again, of the issue of fiscal federalism; and, through the judgment, bringing the issue to the front burner despite frantic, desperate but failing efforts by the federal government to kill Nigeria’s need for true federalism. The federal government is bent on making Nigeria, a gathering of nations with diverse developmental needs, a unitarily-governed state. But Nigeria, for the purpose of good governance, is made of 811 entities or units. These entities is divided into three governance structures (local, state and federal with groupings of 1, 36, and 774). These arrangement can be considered to be great for developmental convenience in a bottom-up governance system. The desire of the federal government for a federally-controlled, top-down structure is only suitable in a benevolent dictatorship, and can only be led by a personality trait fashioned in the mould of Singapore’s Lee Kuan Yew and South Korea’s Park Chung-Hee who came to power in 1961 and whose electoral victories were propelled by his success in launching the country’s economic ‘miracle’ through his 5-Year Plans for Economic Development. Within a space of ten years, Park Chung-Hee’s supposedly-ambitious and delusional goal of raising his country’s per capita income to US$1,000 by 1981 was achieved four years ahead of schedule. He launched his economic development plan with the heavy and chemical industrialization (HCI) programme, the country’s first steel mill production, the first modern shipyard, and the first locally designed cars (made mostly from imported parts) rolling off production lines. New firms were set up in electronics, machinery, chemicals and other industrial activities. During the period, South Korea’s per capita income grew phenomenally by more than five times between 1972 and 1979 (read the book: ‘Bad Samaritans, The Myth Of Free Trade And The Secret History Of Capitalism’ written by Ha-Joon Chang).
But the present Abuja is not blessed with such personalities as Lee Kuan Yew and Park Chung-Hee; and also, Nigeria had moved beyond era of sole administrator and dictatorial system. But the people in the current system love power and they are yet to be seen as blessed with such people-centric productivity grace. It is not far from the truth if the centre is seen as being controlled by money-mongers with the present resource sharing formula and a system where the structure for economic development is starved of funds and are left at the mercy of the other two whose responsibilities should be more of strategic planning and productivity coordination (states), as well as economic policy formulation and maintenance of territorial integrity (federal).
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The local government financial autonomy is not the absolute solution to the economic and financial decadence that bedevil Nigeria. For the Supreme Court judgment to make any real meaning, there must be urgent political autonomy for the three tiers of governance – a total overhaul of the Constitution that will return power and resource control to the people. For Nigeria to become a productive economy, the governance system must be bottom-up, a truly federal in structure, and control of resources taking from the hands of political jobbers and given back to the rightful owners. The current system where one unit (out of 811 units) takes 52.68% of generated incomes and 36 units share 26.72% among themselves while the centre of developments, a whopping 774 units, are left with just 20.60% to split into 774 places, is not only replete with absurdity but is very ludicrous. This explains why economic development is difficult and everyone is running to Abuja to partake of the cake (due to significant concentration of resources at the centre), thereby engendering high spate of corruption and wastages.
The solution to Nigeria’s problem is not only by untying the local governments from the apron strings of the states government, also the federal government must be compelled to release what doesn’t belong to it. This should be the next and urgent focus of state governors and the civil society organisations. So far since 1966, the federal government self-appointed itself as the purse, the custodian, or treasurer of the people’s resources, I don’t believe Nigerians are still toddlers who cannot keep their resources by themselves but have to be looking up for handouts from Abuja.
Ola Emmanuel is a business planning consultant
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