•Nigerians must rise and make government at all levels review the structure and cost of running the public service and Bring down the cost

•Nigerians must rise and make government at all levels review the structure and cost of running the public service

Hunger, squalor and criminality stalk the land. Tackling these challenges has been the task before successive governments, with none yet able to proffer a commendable solution. Analysts and experts have regularly attributed the poverty in the land to the twin evil of corruption and bloated recurrent expenditure. The ineffective bureaucracy continues to gulp more than 70 per cent of the annual budget in personnel cost and overhead every year, despite the lip service usually paid to taking on this obstacle to development.

As the chairman of the Revenue Mobilisation, Allocation and Fiscal Commission (RMAFC), Shettima Abba-Gana, has pointed out, until a government is bold enough to harmonise the public service, ensuring that redundant staff are assisted to become productive outside the service, and the government at all levels are compelled to make lean appointments, it would be impossible to increase the capital budget that would improve the state of infrastructure and boost the people’s earning power. It is unfortunate that, despite the promise of the Buhari administration to trim the size of the public service, not much has been achieved.

To fundamentally tackle the problem, the constitution that mandates the Federal Government, in reflecting the federal character in the composition of the Federal Executive Council, to appoint a minister from each of the 36 states, plus Abuja, must be amended. Federal character could still be reflected by appointing two or three ministers from each of the six geopolitical zones. States not so represented could be compensated with appointments into major extra ministerial agencies. In addition, special advisers, senior special assistants, senior assistants are appointed with perks of office that will make jaws of professors and military generals drop. Funds that could construct highways or equip universities are then deployed to maintain offices that are of no use to the country.

This is a period of socioeconomic crisis when little attention should be paid to sentiments. Nigeria is in the doldrums, people are dying from starvation and the institutions are decaying, yet the elite remains clueless about the way forward. Unfortunately, the oppressed are used to egg on their oppressors, with ethnicity and religion used as tools of enslavement.

As another general election is being held this week, we urge Nigerians in general, and civil society organisations in particular, to prevail on the National Assembly to restructure the machinery of government with a view to radically reviewing cost downwards. The process should start with the legislature. Bicameral legislature is not an inherent feature of the presidential system. The United States of America has made it an important component of its governance mechanism to reflect its culture and history, and in view of its affluence.

Given the parlous state of the Nigerian economy, it would not be out of place to retain only the House of Representatives. Where this is considered too radical, the size of the House could be cut down to 200, and the Senate, 73, with two senators from each state and one representing the Federal Capital Territory. The jumbo allowances being paid the senators and members of the House must be stopped forthwith. The RMAFC has a duty to Nigerians to probe all illegal payments to officials of the three arms of government and make all involved refund such payments before May 29. The next set of elected officials should start on a clean slate if sufficient fund is to be available for nation building.

Fiscal restructuring should not be limited to the Federal Government. The states are even more wasteful, no wonder workers are sometimes left unpaid for months. Many of the civil servants are redundant and should be disengaged and empowered to be self reliant. The executive council of the states, too, should be lean; perhaps not more than 10 commissioners.

We cannot continue to pay lip service to development, it is time all Nigerians put pressure on leaders. Political office is not where to accumulate wealth. Whoever cannot make sacrifice has no business coming into power. Really, enough is enough.