Ordinarily, no one should ask President Bola Tinubu to reverse the removal of subsidies from petrol, electricity and foreign exchange just because it has caused a hike in the cost of living of rich and poor Nigerians, whose personal finances and well-being have practically become train wrecks of sorts.
But maybe the President and his aides, who have been asking the media to pay more attention to how state governors spend the windfall they now receive from the Federal Accounts Allocation Committee after the removal of the subsidies, should take a second look at their economic policies.
The policies seem to be working against the welfare of the people, which Section 14(b) of the Nigerian Constitution says is the government’s number one assignment toward Nigerians, who have a right to live a good life. The Preamble of Nigeria’s Constitution promises the promotion of “good government and welfare of all persons in our country…”
Members of the President’s Economic Management Team and his media aides have become echo chambers of his call for the media to (probably give the Federal Government a break and) pay more judicious attention to the spending habits of the governors, some of whom are splurging in opulence that they did not work for.
Many of the governors do not even bother to find ways to raise the Internally Generated Revenue of their states anymore; they wait, like birds of prey, for the dole that is sure to come to them from the FAAC every month.
Their receipts from the Federation Account have become so generous, it’s as if their exchequers have become a purse of royalty whose umbilical cord is tied to the God that the Israelis call El Shaddai, the All-Sufficient God.
Perhaps the only advantage that Nigerians now benefit from money saved from the subsidies is that the salaries of government workers have been paid more regularly. Yet there are reports of states where the salaries of workers are still delayed, unpaid or not paid in full.
There is no doubt that some state governors are showing traits of rich people with the mentality of the poor, those that the French describe with the derogatory term, nouveaux riche, people who have recently acquired wealth and display it in the most ostentatious, tasteless and crass manner.
Besides spending so much on their peccadillos, they also keep looking for white elephant projects to spend the “excess” money they are receiving on. Of course, they have constructed new roads and sometimes (unnecessary) flyovers, which must at least be acknowledged and commended.
But they need to add other infrastructure, like electricity, petroleum refineries, and introduce economic policies to reverse the economic regression that Nigerians are enduring nowadays. Reports from Business Insider Africa indicate that, while its 2022 reports put the number of Nigerians who lived below the $2 per day poverty line at 70 million, the data for the 2025-2026 period show a runaway 130 to 140 million.
One cannot help but draw attention to a state that has an airport, which receives sparse air passengers from Abuja or Lagos once in a while, because there is hardly any business that anyone from other parts of Nigeria has to do in that state.
A Nigerian airport that does not receive passengers from Abuja, the Federal Capital City, or Lagos, the economic hub of Nigeria, except through combined flights or chartered flights by governors, a few business executives, and Nigeria’s equivalent of the jet set, is not yet ready for business. The “me-too” attitude that led to such white elephant projects betrays governments that did not get their economics right.
Though some state governors still hold on to the funds of their local government authorities, despite the landmark judgment of the Supreme Court of Nigeria that ordered that monies due to LGAs from the FAAC should be remitted promptly, there is no doubt that LGA revenues have also increased tremendously.
But, like the state governments that have practically gone rogue with “too much money” in their exchequers, the officials of the LGAs also seem to be doing either of two things: wasting the money on needless ventures or diverting the money into their pockets, sometimes via the opaque special purpose vehicle called security vote.
It is increasingly looking as if the number of Japanese-built SUVs in Nigeria is vastly more than the number in Japan, where it is manufactured. This is reminiscent of the 1960s and 1970s, when Peugeot vehicles in Nigeria were far in excess of the number in France.
Even if it appears to be a repetition, it is important to reiterate that, because governance is about “good government and welfare of Nigerians, as explained in the Preamble to the Constitution, no effort must be spared to ensure that all Nigerians, and not only those in government, should feel the impact of the increase in money that is now available to the states.
Though some cynics have described this as “stomach infrastructure,” one is tempted to argue that if the subsidy is returned, maybe Nigerians will feel the direct impact in the (possible) reduction in the cost of petroleum products, electricity, foodstuffs, building materials, household goods and other strategic consumer goods.
This argument is based on what seems to be the reality of the higher cost of living that the removal of the subsidies has plunged Nigerians into, and the obvious failure of many state governors who cannot use their increased revenues to plug the holes. If the removal of the subsidies will not reflect on the lives of Nigerians, maybe the government should review the policy.
This argument should not be regarded as frivolous, because the conduct of many state governors, who have become beneficiaries of the free money that is coming after the removal of subsidies, does not reflect state actors who want the dividends of democracy to go round.
It should not be regarded as an act of cowardice or surrender if the government reverses a policy that is not quite working as intended, or is willfully sabotaged by governors who should partner with the Federal Government to deliver good governance.
Someone argues that because governance, rule of law and law enforcement are weak and inconsistent in Nigeria, by the choice of the leadership, the mismanagement, or reprehensible pilfering, of public funds went up by fivefold!
If all state governments that receive 26.72 per cent of the national revenue, all LGAs that get 20.60 per cent, and all the petroleum-producing states that receive an additional 13 per cent as a matter of statutory right, fritter it all on wasteful projects, it might just be better to hand the money directly to Nigerians as subsidies, because they know where their shoes pinch.
Of course, the return of subsidies would upset the economic applecart that President Tinubu is precariously setting up, inconsolably upset the Bretton Woods institutions, and reverse the current revenue allocation formula that already favours the Federal Government.
But if President Tinubu cannot find a way to make the profligate governors spend their increased revenue appropriately, he may need to find a way to wrest the excess money from their hands and hand it over to the people.
There is no gainsaying that governments that cannot enhance the welfare of their people have failed ab initio.
X:@lekansote1, lekansote.com
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