Short & Sharp: Nigeria’s spendthrift leadership

Those who hoped that the prolonged exercise in amending the 2013 budget might result in significant re-alignment of priorities were disappointed: the amended budget is much like the original; its priorities are still upside-down.

The amended budget is still a whopping N4.987 trillion (just short of N5 trillion). Half of this huge sum (N2.415 trillion) is to be consumed as “recurrent expenses” (salaries, allowances, cars, travel, entertainment, armed escorts, etc.) by a few hundred persons in the upper echelons of the leadership. The task of industrial and infrastructural development (“capital expenditure”) is to be handled with a meager N1.591 trillion, a little more than half the amount consumed by “recurrent expenses”.

Besides the N2.415 trillion consumed as “recurrent expenses,” National Assembly members will swallow an additional N388 billion for their allowances which they call “statutory transfers,” monies that cannot be questioned or reduced by anyone.

Other “underdeveloped or developing” nations simply do not operate this way. They minimize their consumption and devote the overwhelming bulk of their funds to “capital expenditure,” including building, equipping and staffing schools and hospitals and providing water, roads, railways and electricity.

In contrast, Nigeria’s leaders remain stubborn and headstrong, heeding no advice, refusing to copy any positive examples from more successful countries, and foolishly consuming instead of rapidly diversifying the economy and constructing infrastructure, preparing for a future of declining oil revenues