The impunity with which government is operated in Nigeria can only lead to a very violent revolution. The signs are everywhere in sight. The unemployment in the country is simply unacceptable. Insecurity is at an all-time high. All facets of the economy are in a free fall. Even as things are going from bad to worse than worst, government officials are wallowing in wanton profligacy. Something must give soonest.
The chairman of the Revenue Mobilization, Allocation and Fiscal Commission (RMAFC) Hamman Tukur, recently raised the alarm that the excess crude account of the federation has sharply dropped from a high of $27 billion to a measly $7bn! The Nigerian economy is headed for sure doom. The no-nonsense Tukur lamented that the wanton plundering of the Nigerian economy will lead to a total system collapse in a very short time. Everything is poised to grind to a halt, and sure as death, bloody revolution will supervene.
In the informed view of Hamman Tukur, the only revenue accruing to the country remains the monies from the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS), Customs duties and the Petroleum Profit Tax (PPT). Doubting the relevance of the Joint Venture Cash Call (JVC), Chairman Tukur dismissed it as another drainpipe being used by the powers that be to siphon funds away from the system to serve selfish interests inimical to the nation.
Tukur released a bombshell when he said while granting audience to Edo State Governor Comrade Adams Oshiomhole: “From August till October, Nigeria has not got one dollar from the total crude sold.” He continued in exasperation thusly: “Yet, the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) has paid over N560 trillion to JVC. Rather than find a solution to this, the government reverted to the excess crude account, where it took N12 billion to reflate the economy. Now we are eating into the domestic account. One day, you will wake up and there will be no government.” Anarchy surely looms in the land.
From the Federal Government to the states, what obtains is the sharing of booty that does not trickle down in any way to the common people. Governance has thus been thrown out of the window, and the people are left forlorn to make do with self-help. The revenue formula being operated in the states, according to Tukur, is at variance with what the commission designed and recommended. He informed his astounded countrymen and women that the commission designed a new revenue formula that increased the percentage of states’ allocation from 24 percent to 31.6 percent. The commission had to withstand petitions and protests from several quarters. Actually state governments ought to receive greater allocation than the Federal Government but the reverse has always been the case. The system is grossly abused by the do-nothing Federal Government yet the state governors are doing nothing to stop the abuse because governance is not at issue.
Tukur puts the question: “How can you allow an illegal formula to operate in the states?”
Tukur opened a can of worms when he revealed that only N6 billion of the N18 billion released for the building of health centres across the country was used. The rest of the money, Tukur asserts, is still with the Accountant-General of the Federation (AGF), Mallam Ibrahim Dankwambo: “Only N6 billion was used. We even brought the matter before the Federation Accounts Allocation Committee (FAAC) but we did not have their support.”
The point essentially is that it takes the courage of a man like Tukur to open up the underbelly of the rot holding down the Nigerian system. It all smacks of organized corruption, from top to bottom. The country is living a lie in the vain belief that things will not implode.
It was my late comrade Chima Ubani, the then Executive Director of the Civil Liberties Organization (CLO) who was killed in a state-arranged road accident at Potiskum road that prophetically stated that revolution is inevitable in Nigeria. What Chima saw in his time during the Obasanjo regime is child’s play to what is happening in Nigeria today.
The deregulation policy being remorselessly pursued by the Yar’Adua regime may well be the final bomb to unhinge the country. The refineries are left to rot away to make allowance for the government to put in place this deregulation that intends to ruin a nation. There is no escaping the fact that Nigeria is doomed to witness a bloody uprising. The PDP’s satanic policy of national pauperization must be resisted.
Noble Nigerians such as Professor Chinua Achebe are now raising their voices calling for a revolution. Achebe is noted all over the world for his sobriety, but the madness going on in his homeland in the name of government has raised the ire in him. Stalwarts of the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) have raised impunity to high heavens in this season of presidential docility as pathetically showcased by President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua who apparently doesn’t understand that the buck stops at his table. The likes of Chris Uba, James Ibori, Michael Aondoakaa can jolly well get away with murder and Yar’Adua will be hiding behind a finger, pleading rule of law. The auguries are bad for the country. Poet Christopher Okigbo wrote of blood in the lavender-mist of the afternoon before the beginning of our war. One recalls here James Baldwin’s frontispiece to his epochal The Fire Next Time: “God gave Noah the rainbow sign – no more water, the fire next time.” I can clearly see the fire coming in the direction of woebegone Nigeria.
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