El-Rufai: Between Idealism and Reality

El-Rufai: Between Idealism and Reality

Kaduna State Governor, Mallam Nasir El-Rufai is noted for making hard choices in governance and holding resolutely to his position. Thus, the recent mass sack of workers was consistent with his style and choices, writes John Shiklam

Governor Nasir El-Rufai of Kaduna State is known for his courageous stands, whenever it comes to taking difficult decisions concerning governance issues. Unlike many of his colleagues, El-Rufai, is one governor, who is not afraid of taking the bull by the horns, when it comes to taking very hard decisions that border on public interest, even if such decisions would negatively affect his political profile.

His principled stand against negotiations or payment of ransom to bandits, who kill and abduct people in communities across the state, almost on a daily basis, stand him out among among his counterparts in Zamfara, Katsina and other states facing same challenges and which, despite negotiation and payment of ransom to the criminals, have not succeeded in stopping them.
Since assuming office, El-Rufai has never shied away from taking very hard decisions on issues he thought were in the best public interest, even though there were always stiff opposition to some of his actions by some sections of the state.

He successfully steered through during the reforms in the civil service and education sector despite opposition, especially, by those affected by the polices. In 2016, many civil servants and school teachers lost their jobs following the reforms.
The governor seemed to have raise the dust again with yet another mass sack of civil servants, whichhas pitted him against the state chapter of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) and his other critics.
The state government had reportedly sacked about 3,000 workers due to dwindling financial resources and a high wage bill of workers without corresponding revenues from the Federation Account Allocations Committee (FAAC).

In a statement on Monday in Kaduna, the government declared that it had no choice than to reduce the workforce due to high wage bill.
In the statement by Muyiwa Adekeye, Media aid to Governor El-Rufai, the state said, “government finances have been severely stretched by higher wage bills at a time when revenues from the Federation Account Allocations Committee (FAAC) have not increased.”

Adekeye explained that what the government has been receiving from FAAC since the middle of 2020, could barely pay salaries and overheads. According to him, in November 2020, the state received N4.83 billion from FAAC, and that after spending N4.66 billion, only N162.9 million was left.

Adekeye said in the last six months, personnel costs accounted for between 84.97% and 96.63% of FAAC transfers received by the state. In March 2021, for instance, the state government received N4.819 billion from FAAC and after settling personnel costs, only N321million was left.

This, he said, did not include standing orders for overheads, funding security operations, running costs of schools and hospitals, and other overhead costs that the state had to bear for the machinery of government to run, for which the state tapped into IGR earnings.

“The state government was elected to develop the state, not just to pay the salaries of public servants. It was elected to promote equality of opportunity, to build and run schools and hospitals, upgrade infrastructure and make the state more secure and attractive to the private sector for jobs and investments”, Adekeye’s statement stated.

He also explained that in September 2019, the state was the first to pay the new minimum wage and consequential adjustments, stressing that this was followed by increasing the minimum pension of persons on the defined benefits scheme to N30,000 monthly.
This, according to him, significantly increased the wage burden of the state government and immediately sapped up the funds of many local governments.

He said the state government, therefore, has no choice but to shed some weight and reduce the size of its workforce. He also disclosed that political appointees would be affected by the rationalisation exercise to save funds for development projects. Unfortunately, the sacking of workers had been widely condemned, especially, by the state chapter of NLC, which accused the state government of being economical with the truth on the reasons for the sack.

In an interview with THISDAY, the state Chairman of NLC, Comrade Ayuba Suleiman, said the government gave flimsy reasons to justify the “illegal sacking of workers at this difficult times.
“The reasons for sacking workers is because the government said people must have diploma certificates. That is the reason they gave for this latest disengagement of workers; it is not about redundancy”.

Although he admitted that it was important for people to upgrade their knowledge, he said the government ought to have given workers notice and a window period within which to acquire the certificate, insisting that government was also not being truthful about its earnings.

“Kaduna State is earning about N4.8 billion monthly from the federation account. Our salary bill as I am talking to you is N3.6 billion and 36 per cent (N1.296 billion) of this amount is spent on the payment of political appointees.

“Equally, there are internal and external grants coming to the the state. Summing all these incomes per month, I don’t think N3.6 billion will be an issue against almost about N10 billion. So, there is no justification for sacking workers”, the NLC chairman said.

But in the final analysis, the issue is between the idealist and the realist. While the idealist mostly pander to emotion and what’s ideal in a different situation, the realist is inoculated against sentiment and works with facts and figures of what is currently obtainable.

If with the facts before the state, government could no longer sustain the allegedly non-productive works force, then, something needed to be done and core essence of leadership is the capacity to make hard choices.

For those that understand governance and its intricacies, it is hard to condemn Governor El-Rufai for his choices, particularly, this very controversial one, because if the recurrent expenditure takes so much, development becomes overtly impossible and at the end of the day, he takes the blame for the overall rating of his government.

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