*Citizens demand accountability
Over the past four years, the three tiers of government in Nigeria – federal, state and local – have shared amongst themselves N39.22 trillion in federal allocations, even as analysts and Nigerians say the impact of these funds is yet to be felt in the lives of the citizenry.
LEADERSHIP reports that the Federation Accounts Allocation Committee (FAAC), on a monthly basis, pulls together the revenue of the Nigerian entity and shares it among the federal government, the state governments and the local governments in the country.As the FAAC disbursements continue to surge year on year, Nigerians say they are yet to feel the impact, with analysts saying politicians at the helm of governance should expect that the citizenry will be expecting more from them in the coming months.
According to data sourced from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), while FAAC allocations had declined from N8.21 trillion in 2019 to N7.78 trillion in 2020, the disbursements have been on the increase.
In 2021, FAAC had disbursed N9.08 trillion which increased to N11.685 trillion at the end of 2022, and already in the first two months of the year, FAAC had disbursed N2.469 trillion to the tree tiers of government.
According to the head, Financial Institutions Ratings at Agusto & Co, Ayokunle Olubunmi, the state of disconnect between the government and the people is about to change as Nigerians are now set to demand more from their leaders.
Noting that the impact of the allocations have not really had the desired effect on the populace, he said many state governments had embarked mostly on white elephant projects that have not had real economic impact on their citizens.
Olubunmi said, “Nigerians definitely don’t think that they have felt the impact of those amounts that have been shared from FAAC. There is disconnect between Nigerians and the government.
“From the language of the government, what they have done and the way they implement policies. The reason for the disconnect is because Nigerians have not felt the impact of government policies. One major problem with the Buhari administration wasn’t that they were not doing anything but they were not communicating well.
“For example, if you look at the local government level, I am not sure there is any local government that is actually pulling their weight. Year in and year out, it seems as if the local governments’ performances are actually coming down.
“Even state governments have actually been focusing on white elephant projects. And a lot of Nigerians are not feeling the impact. People are struggling to reconcile the amounts that have been shared and what they are seeing physically. This is aside the other funds that they have collected. Even with all these, some state governments are still owing salaries and pensions.”
Chief executive of Centre for Financial Journalism, Dr Ray Echebiri, noted that while there has been some good use of the allocations, the usage had not been for the betterment of the welfare of the citizenry.
Acknowledging that there has been some sort of impact of the funds disbursed at the state level, Echebiri said “but not the kind of impact we or anybody expects, especially in the area of infrastructure.
“Yes, governments across all the states and even at the federal level are doing quite a lot in the area of infrastructure. If you move around the country, you can see that many state governments are doing a whole lot in terms of infrastructure, especially roads, bridges, even electricity to some extent, but in the area of human development, investment in human capital, I don’t think the government has done very well.”
To him, governments at all levels should focus more on welfare and policies that will improve the standard of living of Nigerians.
“The major thing for me is to focus on human development. We are talking about education. We are talking about health. If you are not doing a lot in these areas, the people will not feel the impact. But if you do a lot in this area, then the standard of living of the people will improve, because if anybody is able to give somebody the opportunity to go to school and be able to take care of the person’s health definitely, that person’s standard of living will improve dramatically.”
Olubunmi of Agusto & Co, on his part noted that one good thing that will come out from the present hardship in Nigeria is that, henceforth, many will begin to hold governments more accountable to the people.
“The era of not caring about what they are doing is going down the drain. There has been increased anger on the pension of governors, which has been there for many years but the awareness is increasing. There has been little accountability and investing in projects that would benefit the people. Very soon, people will be asking more questions and we should expect more accountability on the part of the government on how the funds are expended,” he said.
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