Nigeria’s Social and Economic Development: Perambulations in the Maze of Majoring in Minors – By Femi Onakanren

 

“Many are unaware of the huge amounts spent on civil servants yearly to attend different courses across the world. This is a regular occurrence. Since we are still suffering from an inefficient, corruption-facilitating, and bureaucracy-tied civil service, shouldn’t this also be considered a waste? Or is it because there was no opportunity for public review?”

PEGASUS REPORTERS, LAGOS | MARCH 22, 2024

A recent trending story compelled this writer to once again put pen to paper to provide a critical review of the state of affairs and the much-needed cognitive re-tuning of our collective reasoning and values.

One of the biggest issues that irks about Nigeria is how we praise hypocrisy, celebrate mediocrity, and enjoy majoring in minors to score cheap social and/or political points that play to the gallery but ultimately achieves nothing.

The aforementioned story refers to the uproar surrounding a conference held in London, UK, by the Office of the Accountant General of the Federation with State Accountant Generals of the 36 states of the country.

I read different reports about how wasteful and unfeeling it is for these senior executive administrators to hold a conference in London. I was amused when FX rates and USD scarcity were brought up. Some said the country’s economy is struggling and cannot afford such frivolities.

It degenerated to more hilarious levels when prominent Nigerians who should know better decided to use this as an opportunity to score cheap political points. Naturally, the echo chamber of such dim narratives reverberated and resonated with the intended audience.

In my humble opinion, this matter captures how the majority of Nigerians major in minors. People who should be educating and enlightening the public exploit their ignorance for political mileage.

Let us critically review the issues.

First of all, was a crime committed? Was there a subterfuge to defraud the public or a misappropriation of funds? Is the conference a frivolity? These are the only germane reasons for a public outcry, in my opinion. In the absence of the above, the uproar becomes a farce.

The next opinion raised was with regards to the expense and outlay. To which I asked the question, what is the projected total outlay for the conference for all the participants? How much would we consider as appropriate to host a conference/retreat for senior executives?

Many are unaware of the huge amounts spent on civil servants yearly to attend different courses across the world. This is a regular occurrence. Since we are still suffering from an inefficient, corruption facilitating, and bureaucracy-tied civil service, shouldn’t this also be considered a waste? Or is it because there was no opportunity for public review?

We often lament the state of public service, but we want public servants to be altruistic and not properly taken care of. Attendance of a conference in London is not about optics, it is a small perk enjoyed from time to time by senior executives at different levels across the world.

We want the best minds to serve. We also want them to live up to high standards of integrity. Yet, we believe they should be subjected to disruptive denigration whenever they enjoy simple perks. Is this not counterintuitive? Will disgruntled workers not look for ways to sabotage the system for personal gains when thr system does not seem to care about them? This is the hypocrisy in our moral compass.

Keeping a team motivated, especially during challenging periods when excellence is the only mandate worth rallying around means matters such as welfare and perks should be factored into expenses. It is a needed necessity.

It is not on issues like this that we begin to pontificate on waste of public funds. A shareholder may as well ask a company’s executive director to desist from using air conditioning on the way to a meeting that will improve the fortunes of the company because targets were marginally missed.

In this writer’s opinion, the focus should be to first establish if any criminal activity or corrupt practice such as expense padding, frivolous cost items, etc. have been inserted. The second thing is to establish if the trip was a frivolity. Again, I will repeat that anything outside of the above is a farce.

If we want mediocres who will pander to public adulation whilst fleecing us dry, then we should just come out with it! Most of those lamenting have had the opportunity to serve in elected positions, with executive powers, and were found to have worked for personal enrichment. One commentator on the matter ‘saved’ funds allocated for public infrastructure development. And Nigerians praised him.

Assessment of effectiveness of public servants should be based on empirical value creation KPIs, not myopic and ignorant public sentiment endearing hypocritical posturing.

There a lot of administrative issues that we can focus on as a country, a lot of key accountability positions such as performance and management of constituency projects, open accountability of the administration of security votes allocated to Governors, cycle of public resources waste arising from the monetization policy which encumbers our expenditure line every election cycle, delivery of high quality social infrastructure by government agencies and PPP vehicles, high redundancy receipts in the civil service, duplication of responsibilities by over-bloated MDAs, improvement of national productivity across different sectors, etc.

It is discredit to our collective aspiration for a good society if we would abandon these more pressing and impactful issues to play the clowns to irrelevant nitpickings with no value outside of beer parlors.

There are more important issues to focus on. Let’s focus on social development and economic prosperity. Let’s focus on delivery of relevant KPIs. Let’s focus on substance, not guff.

If you are more outraged that senior civil servants went on official conference in London UK, no shenanigans, no crimes committed, but you have not expressed similar outrage over what state governors use their security votes for, especially in states with perennial insecurity challenges, or the performances of state and LGA administrators to deliver quality social amenities and public health welfare, then you’ve got your priorities wrong!

This article is not a defense of waste and mismanagement in the public service or an insensitive response to the economic challenges many Nigerians are going through.

If our economic conditions are so dire and getting it right is truly important to all, then it is time to expend our efforts in the areas that would yield the most significant results. As a people, we need to break away from emotional puppeteering by self-interest seekers masquerading as social activists!

If the OAGF is found culpable of any malfeasance, by all means this should be interrogated and diligently followed up with the appropriate law enforcement legal processes.

However, if the premise of the public outrage is political puppeteering to exploit frayed conditions and emotions for political mileage, then enough is enough! In the immortal words of the late Robert (Bob) Nesta Marley, it is time to “emancipate ourselves from mental slavery!”

Enough with the majoring in minors!

*Femi Onakanren is a Business Consultant and Socioeconomic Analyst. He writes from Lagos.

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Editor’s Titbits: How do you justify such profit in investments in the banking sector in a few years?

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