NIGERIA: GOVERNANCE AND DECAYING INFRASTRUCTURE

A World Bank report: "Governance Matters, 2007: Worldwide Governance Indicators (WGI) 1996-2006" says that some African countries are making significant strides on the path to good governance and corruption control, a development that is encouraging, given their place in long-term growth and poverty reduction.

According to the report launched last month by the World Bank Institute and the Bank’s Development Economics Vice-presidency, Kenya, Niger, Sierra Leone have between 1998 and 2006 showed marked recent improvements in voice and accountability, while Algeria and Liberia have strengthened their rule of law.

In a press release, the bank said countries like Algeria, Angola, Libya, Rwanda and Sierra Leone, the report notes have made improvements in political stability while Tanzania has recorded gains on control of corruption. However, other African countries still face enormous governance and development challenges, the report says.

While emerging economies are matching rich countries on key dimensions of governance; with poorer African nations showing marked improvements on key benchmarks of governance, Nigeria did not show any improvement that was worth mentioning in this report.

Now, click on the color coded key Worldwide Governance Indicators (WGI) chart for Nigeria below.

You will see that Nigeria is ranked below the 50th percentile on Voice & Accountability (VA), below the 25th percentile on Government Effectiveness (GE) and Regulatory Quality (RQ) and below the 10th percentile on Political Stability (PS), Rule of Law (RL) and Control of Corruption (CC). This is a shameful statistics for a nation that prides itselfs as the "Giant of Africa"!

This research study was based on the premise that; in a country like Nigeria where there is no voice and accountability; no freedoms for the citizenry to participate in selecting their government, no Government effectiveness; as in lack of quality civil service and it’s independence from political pressure, the quality of policy formulation and implementation and the credibility of the government’s commitment to such policies, it may be hard to pressure public officials/administrators to be accountable to the public. As a result, it is hard to control corruption. Thereby giving rise to the perception of the likelihood that the government will be destabilized or overthrown by unconstitutional or violent means including political violence or terrorism.

To say the least, this is an indictment on the last administration for the lack of governance in Nigeria for the last decade – the period in question in this report. And adding to this, the scathing statement made last week that “Revamping Nigerias Decaying Infrastructure is taking too long...
”by Kavalsky, a World Bank official, one is constrained to pass judgement that the Obasanjo vis-a-vis the Yar’Adua's administration would be the worst Government Nigerians will experience in recent memory.

The World Bank team from the Independent Evaluation Unit (IEU) who was in Nigeria to assess the impact of the bank’s projects in the last 10 years expressed shock that the country was still grappling with the problem of infrastructure, and indeed all the facilities that could have made life easier for Nigerians in spite of the huge funds injected into its provision during the tenure of Obasanjo.
"Infrastructure is a difficult problem. There should have been a breakthrough but it is taking a longer time. In my discussion with President Obasanjo, he said he thought they could fix the problem in six months but it was not possible." Kawalsky added.
Nobody knew what was Obasanjo's excuse for failing Nigerians on this most crucial duty as a president!

Here is an excerpt from the news article - “Both federal and state roads across the country have been the subject of much concern by business and the Nigerian public who use them. Over an eight-year period, the last government, under Olusegun Obasanjo, is believed to have spent well over N1-trillion for the rehabilitation of roads across the country for which nothing is on the ground to show for the huge expenditure.

The country also continues to suffer from poor state of electricity supply, with generation capacity falling to below 3,000 megawatts this year. The country actually requires an estimated 40,000 megawatts to be able to enjoy constant power. Poor state of refineries has also meant that the country is faced with constant disruption in fuel supply, with a litre of petrol selling for N150 in some far northern and eastern states.

Education remains in a shambolic state in a period of rising global oil prices for a country known for being the world’s eighth exporter of crude oil in the world. The five-man team from the World Bank appears to have been convinced to draw its conclusion from its observation of the current state of disrepair of the different infrastructural facilities that it examined. “
He, however, described the privatisation programme under the last administration as a difficult issue with the several policy somersaults experienced as he condemned the sale of refineries.

This brings to mind the fallacy of Obasanjo's questionable achievements, when mirrored against his administration many evident failures. One is forced to question - What was the sense in handing off billions of dollars to the Paris Club in settlement of questionable debts when your nation's roads are in deplorable condition? How do you justify keeping $40 billion in foreign bank vaults when Nigeria’s infrastructure remains inferior to Ghana’s, the Congo’s and Uganda’s, and closer to those of war-torn Liberia, Sierra Leone and Somalia? And why hasn’t the EFCC responded to the grave accusations, by his Vice President no less, to the effect that Obasanjo has engaged in corrupt self-enrichment? How committed is this anti-graft crusade anyways, when Yar’dua have now decided to cage these anti-corruption agencies and strip them of their independence?

Let's not even rehash the issue of insecurity of the nation; as the Nigerian Police have now stooped to the lowest of the lows; wantonly arresting defenseless women for dressing ‘inappropriately’ under the guise of imposing a veiled Sharia state; while leaving 419ners, rapist, street thugs, pedophiles, murderers and armed robbers to roam freely, unleashing terror and mayhem on the ordinary citizenry. And do we expect a President Yar’Adua’s govt to stop this ugly menace by the police? Not in Yar’Adua’s lifetime; this is the same staunch Shariarist zealot, whom, while he was the governor of Katsina State, allowed the conviction and death sentence of a hapless Muslim woman who was still nursing her child for allegedly committing adultery!

The sad news is that while a considerable number of countries, including poorer and smaller African nations are showing that it is possible to make significant governance progress in a relatively short period of time, Nigeria continues to experience deteriorations in a number of governance dimensions and decaying infrastructures. The reality is that the Nigerian government will never come to grips with the fact that improvements in governance are critical for government effectiveness and for the sustenance of long-term political stability and economic growth, if any.