By Akogun Iyiola Oyedepo
In governance, especially in a democracy, three documents are very paramount. These are Development Plans, Manifesto and the Budget. While the Development Plans can be of medium and long terms goals of government, the manifesto is about the expectations of the people from the people elected, for terms of office. The budget interpretes the plans and the manifesto of either the party or the Governor.
Development Plans often exceed the period of the person in power, but it represents the major destination of the state from which both the manifesto and the budget derive their essence. Whether there is good governance or not can be seen in the availability of Development Plans, Manifestos and Budget that are meticulously crafted, properly followed in terms of implementation. Where none of these are present in a state, one can say that there is no governance going on at all. In such a situation government is reduced to ad-hoc perfunctionary decisions and actions. The outcome of this is a government of anything goes, that is not citizen interests based.
But since 1999, at the commencement of the fourth republic, I have never come across Kwara Development Plans, whether for a short, medium or long term. Sometimes, especially during the military era, we used to hear about five years or ten years Development Plans. But for the last twenty-seven years of the unbroken democracy in Nigeria, there had never been presented to the public, Development Plans either for the examination or information of the people of Kwara State.
Governance here is by the rule of the thumbs and only the desire of the Governor really matters. Governors are erroneously presumed to be the carrier of the collective interests of the diverse people of Kwara State.
As if lack of Development Plans are not enough, since 1999, I have never seen a well-documented manifesto presented to the people of Kwara State by any Party and persons contesting for the governorship of Kwara State. The people of this state have no document from where they could measure their expectations from governments. They do not also have any document through which the performances of any of the administrations can be tracked and measured.
If we have no access to any Development Plans and Manifestos of any administration since 1999, we are at least treated to the annual rituals of budget preparations and presentations.
Through the budget of government, the nature, character and focus of an administration is established. With the ways government is often personalized in Kwara State, perhaps, if presentation of budget is not constitutionally conditioned, successive governors would not have bothered to present any.
In the absence of Development Plans and Manifestos therefore, we now need to examine the yearly budgets of governments through which we should know whether or not we have governments that protect the interests of the people of Kwara State.
By sections 120-122 of the 1999 constitution (as amended), Kwara State House of Assembly is conferred with the responsibility of public appropriation of money before any governor can embark on any form of spending. The state Assembly holds significant power over budget making, serving as the authority that approves state spending through the appropriation process.
We need to establish that budget making is a key instrument of government which should reflect the real needs, priorities, and welfare of the population. Budget should not be based on the fancies and the fantasies of the governor. It should not be based on political or bureaucratic preferences or idiosyncrasies of those in political authority. The needs of the people should at all times be allowed to shape budget priorities, allocations and implementation.
It is therefore imperative that people should be involved in the making of budgets of government. The needs assessment of the people can be gathered through surveys, town hall meetings and gathering of data to determine the critical needs of the people. It is through such data and interactions that various challenges like poverty, unemployment, education, health, road infrastructure, water, agriculture and security among others can be determined.
With the above framework on the process of budget making, we now examine the budget making process in Kwara State especially during the democratic dispensation from 1999 to date. In this regard we need to examine the importance of budget, process of budget making, budget monitoring, its implementation and achievements in the lives of the people of the state.
It must be established that the importance of yearly budget of government cannot be over emphasized. It is through government’s spending that the people in government can be held accountable. I even wish to establish that in as much as money is at the heart of governance, and budget is for allocation of resources, if there is no easy money through monthly statutory allocation; people will not fiercely fight for political offices.
And in Nigeria, particularly in Kwara State, where governments have not been creative as a result of monthly soft money from federation account; if there is no money, if funding public projects and programs depend on the ingenuity of political heads; several people will not move close to public office.
Regrettably however, the people of this state take the issue of budgeting and budget performances with levity and a yearly cultural ritual of governments. Thus, people just feel it is the duty of governments, which they do not share with the people, to give them whatever governments wish. The people do not know or wish to even participate in the process of budget making and implementation.
Budget is too important to be left in the hands of elected officials, no matter how altruistic, they may be.
The closest I had seen in recent years about the involvement of the people in the process of budget making was at a time governor Bukola Saraki after winning an election in 2003, sent his Commissioners, to their constituencies to ask for the needs of the people. Since to win an election in 2003, he presented no manifesto to the people of Kwara State as he rode to power on the back of his father, I then called his endeavour, “manifesto after election”. The second time was when governor Abdulrahaman AbdulRazaq also once told his commissioners to hold strings of meetings with traditional rulers about inputs to one of his seven annual budgets. The opinions of the people in any case have never reflected in budget making process, despite these lackluster consultations.
Budget making process should be more painstaking than successive administrations take it to be in Kwara State. Just because no seriousness is attached to budget making process in Kwara State; the office of budget and planning saddled with the preparation of yearly budget, often adopt cosmetic approach to budget making. A careful scrutiny often reveals successive copy and pasting of previous budgets. One often go with the impression that figures are often jostled according to yearly revenue expectations of governments.
In recent times, budgets are made without due process or consultations with various interests and without inadequate data collection.
We should be of the view that if government is for the protection of the interests of the people, at all times, especially in the making of the budget, government must erect procedures for the consultation with the relevant people. Government should also gather relevant data to justify how the budget is finally made up. I have never seen such procedures in the last twenty-seven years.
For example, governors do not need jamboree tours to the communities, where elaborate dancing and celebrations are done, followed by empty speeches that signify nothing. It is rather better to create a forum of registered Community Development Associations (CDA). This forum should be made up of the Presidents and Secretaries of towns, villages and hamlets of communities in each local government area. The meeting could be held in each local government headquarters. The Presidents and Secretaries should be able to present the critical needs of their people in the areas of road, water, schools, health, agriculture and security.
Information garnered from this type of meetings could be part of the inputs into the annual budget of the state. This forum if properly organized, could be an established feature of interaction and productive engagement with the people.
In the process of making a budget, there could also be engagement with professional bodies, artisans, traditional rulers, labor or trade unions, Civil Society Organizations, etc. This method will provide for inclusivity and transparency in governance. If governance is done this way, the incidences of nebulous development that will never provide for equity, fairness and justice will be eradicated. This method will cage governors that see gubernatorial office as only being meant for tribal or sectional aggregation. It is only by so doing that anybody no matter where he comes from could be a governor of Kwara as such people must substantially protect the interests of the people of the State.
Let me hereby state that if our governments since 1999 are not fair, compassionate and people focused, the greatest culprits are the type of State Assembly Members we often produce. The people of Kwara State are also culpable. This is because out of ignorance, primordial interests and selfishness, they have submitted to inertia, timidity and indifference.
But it is better to treat how ignorant legislature continuously wreck havoc on our democracy. We have a legislature that perhaps do not know the extent of their powers. They do not even know that by constitutional arrangements in the 1999 constitution, legislature is the first tier of government. They do not know that they have the power of the purse.
This great power of the legislature enables it to review, amend, approve or reject budget proposals presented to the Assembly by the Governor. Though the legislature cannot initiate the budget, it has the power to scrutinize, amend and alter figures or transfer money from one sub-head to the other so as to balance the needs of various constituencies.
Whether they know the extent of their powers or not, I really do not know. All I know is that after the 4th Assembly 1999-2003, Kwara State has never been blessed by Assembly of altruistic purpose. If there is a place in modern government, where men of wisdom, knowledge, experience should be sent to do useful job, it is the legislature. But if the place is filled with half-baked, inexperienced “honourables”, how will they understand the tenets of their job?
A scantily educated law maker cannot understand the essence of a budget, not to talk of how to interrogate the budget proposals presented by the state governor.
Even the bright ones among them pander to Executive interests. They value the governor and their Parties more than their constituencies. They are sold to their lustful appetite for good cars, women and good look over and above the understanding of their work. They fail the historical call to defend the welfare and democratic rights of the people. Erroneously, they elevate constituency projects over and above their legislative assignments.
A law maker that is able to scrutinize the yearly budget of government, ensure adequate provisions for his constituency, in terms of roads, water, health, education, etc, projects is by far better than the ones that distributes sewing machine, dryers, tricycles and cash. Nobody sends a law maker to the Assembly to distribute items, but rather to make law so that the government shall protect the interests of his people.
Therefore, the budgets of Kwara State for a long time have never enjoyed any form of robust studies and analysis by the legislature. It has always been budget presentations, followed by tainted rewards and orders for immediate passage from the governor to the Legislature. The most hallow of the legislative duties is this yearly appropriation. Yet it is often handled casually by the Assemblies to meet the deadline given by the governors.
An instrument of control of expenditure by the governor becomes an instrument of co-operation between the legislature and the Executive to defraud the state. If Montesquieu, that French judge, intellectual, historian and political philosopher and the source of the theory of separation of power; is exposed to what is going on in Kwara State House of Assembly, he would reel with disbelief, agony and bewilderment in his grave.
The line between the Executive and the Legislature is completely blurred in Kwara State. Hence democracy is replaced by democratic despotism.
As to the very important function of the oversight responsibility of the legislature, it is even a sorry case. In any case can a timid and compromised Assembly query the Executive? If many of them would perform the oversight responsibility of the legislature, there is no project to examine in their constituencies. They would rather go and see the overhead bridges and high rising projects at the state capital.
Now to the people of Kwara State. The people of this state shrug their shoulders and treat yearly budgets as non-events. A program that determines their destinies is treated with very cold concern. Donations from failed legislators to the Church, Mosques, Communities are more appreciated than evaluation of their performances on the job they were elected to do. Community Development Association do not monitor the performance of the budget, neither do they voice opinions during the process of budget making and defenses.
Budget making is left to the whims and caprices of the chief Executive of the state. Community Development Associations and traditional rulers fight for donations or largesse from the people in political authority than holding public officer accountable for their tenures, especially on what is shared to the people through budgeting. The people through acts of commission or omission should be held responsible for election of misfits into public offices.
There are therefore several evidences that our budget has never been people focused in Kwara State. Evidence that our budgets are not people’s focused could be seen in the priority projects of governments. Examples are legion.
More than 70% of the population have one thing or the other to do with agriculture. The government of Governor Bukola Saraki among many of his misplaced priority projects established the Shonga commercial farming piloted through fourteen foreign farmers. The project was a fraud and resulted into colossal loss to the state.
International conference Centre, renovation of Kwara Hotel, Revenue House, etc are preferred to reducing the unemployment among the youths of Kwara State. Do we need any other evidence to establish that our budgets often neglect the interests of the people?
When our budgets do not reflect the interests of the people of Kwara State, the probability is that we have elected to office the enemies of the people. Perhaps this will always guide us towards our leadership recruitment exercise in future.
