More Money, Less Results: AEF Questions Governors’ Spending
By Patience Ikpeme
The Arewa Economic Forum (AEF), has decried the huge sums of money available to state governors yet the people are suffering.
The Forum is concerned that the people are not feeling and enjoying the benefit of increased funding to their states “because the governors are not investing in areas that will reflate the states’ economy and are not committed to providing palliatives for the people”.
Addressing the press in Abuja on Thursday, the Chairman of Arewa Economic Forum Ibrahim Shehu Dandakata said “To be fair to him, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu made it unambiguously clear during the electioneering campaign that he would remove fuel subsidy if he won the election. What he didn’t however warn Nigerians of is the unprecedented hardship this singular decision will cause for our people.
“But fuel subsidy removal is not all about bad news. It has at least caused massive increase in the monies shared at the Federation Account Allocation Committee (FAAC) meetings with states going away with humongous figures on a monthly basis. But how has more money for governors to play with affected the lives of the masses?
He wants a check we conducted on recent FAAC allocations has shown that some of the states have had their allocations increased by up to 90 percent with little or no improvement in the lives of the people. The percentage increase in the allocations to states after fuel subsidy removal is humongous.
“We are therefore using this platform to call on President Tinubu to reverse the subsidy removal policy and use the extra money FAAC has been giving to the states to resume paying subsidy on PMS. The President should do this urgently if he knows he can’t find a way within the limit of his constitutional powers and political influence to make the governors more accountable to the people.
“We are also calling on the federal government to put together a proper social register that can be used to distribute food items to Nigerians without the involvement of the state governments.
“We have also noticed the seeming rush by the President and governors to put together a state policing system to combat the rising insecurity in the country. While we admit that state police is a good concept on its own which works for other nations, we are however against the idea of empowering our governors with a tool they are most likely to use for political witch-hunting.
“On the contrary, as concerned citizens ourselves, we are proposing that federal government should revive and expand the Police Constabulary and provide for it the logistics needed to support security agencies to combat crimes at local levels” Dandakata said.
According to him, “state governments, who are desirous of such policing at their level, should be made to provide the missing logistics for it to function well in terms of operational costs and allowances”.
The AEF is also of the opinion that the federal government must summon adequate political will to arrest the free fall of the Naira compared to the rising dollar. “Dollar is not a legal tender in Nigeria. The government should therefore ban the practice of keeping dollars at home or in offices, and clampdown on all hoarders of dollars” he admonished
Dandakata wants the government to investigate why dollars go up after every FAAC meeting. “Relevant government agencies should also ban the practice of paying for goods and services online in dollars. Everything must be in Naira as far as it is done by a Nigerian in Nigeria. If we don’t stop our obsession with the dollar, our Naira will never rise” he warned.
In the area of agriculture, Dandakata noted that all agricultural facilities are within the grasp of the state governments including dams and the land. However, he lamented that “the state governments are doing nothing in the area of irrigation and provision of lands for beneficial farming. The states have to do better.
“The federal government should also ensure that in its agricultural development plans, the emphasis is on semi-mechanised farming that creates job opportunities for the unemployed and not full merchanised farming that will just render our people jobless and redundant”.
Speaking to mininh, the AEF leader while admitting that mining is on the exclusive list as the federal government has absolute powers on everything below the surface. “The present administration is yet to come up with any clear cut plan on artisanal mining which is an untapped area for real, massive job creation. Government should concentrate on developing artisanal miners and not just the big companies” he insisted.
With regards to education, the AEF Chairman described education as “the bedrock of society and we need to now focus on teaching our young ones both the hard and soft skills that can give them real sustenance and make them useful to the economy”. He advocated for a return to “the use of local languages in teaching. Skills rather than mere certificates should be the priority”.