Costly Governance

RANDOM THOTS

Nigeria is truly a giant, especially when it comes to the size of the recurrent expenditure in her annual budget. However, rather than this catering for the myriad needs of her 170 citizens; it is about pampering those at the helms of power across the three arms of government.

A peep at the wardrobe allowance of National Assembly members or the budget allocated for State House dinners is enough to spur a do-or-die tussle for these positions, while millions of average citizens go to bed hungry each night.

Ironically, in advanced countries like The Netherlands, a country of around 17 million citizens, cost of governance is radically different. According to reports, Prime Minister of Netherlands, Mark Rutte, born in 1967, who took office in November 2012, rides a bicycle to work daily and is very prudent in government expenditures. He even recently gave a bicycle as a gift to the Indian Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, who also took office in 2014.

The Gross Domestic Product per capita in Netherlands was last recorded at $52,111.47 in 2016, which is equivalent to 413 per cent of the world’s average; while the GDP per capita in Nigeria was also last recorded at $5,438.90 in 2016, which is equivalent to 31 per cent of the world’s average.

Cycling to work among top government officials is also not strange in Geneva, Switzerland, as observed by this reporter during a WTO training seminar in April 2013. But in Nigeria, the bigger the entourage surrounding top government officials, the greater the respect from fawning citizens.

In Nigeria, the income gap is so wide between the rich and poor, with growing anger from the lowest rungs of the governance ladder. God forbid that this anger turns into outright rebellion…scary thought

– Abimbola Akosile