TheCable

One of the characteristics of those of us living in Nigeria is the fact that our shockability index is very low. Quite low, indeed. When you think there cannot be anything worse than what you’ve seen, you’re confronted with something else that forces you to revise your earlier opinion or merely shrug your shoulder, and move on.

I speak of the N700 million residence for the Sultan of Sokoto in Abuja bought by the Sokoto State government under the leadership of Governor Aminu Waziri Tambuwal, former speaker of the House of Representatives. Tambuwal, 51, was called to the Bar in 1992 and so he is a learned person – or learned fellow – as lawyers call themselves. Mr. Tambuwal is also a member of the Body of Benchers, meaning that he is actually involved in shaping legal education in Nigeria.

We need to also interrogate the purchase because Tambuwal has his eyes on the ultimate prize in the land, the presidency. Whether he authorized it or not, there’s already a “Tambuwal for president” movement and based on our recent experience, we must scrutinize in greater detail, every aspirant to that office. Mercifully this time around and to his credit, Imam Imam, Mr. Tanbuwal’s special adviser on media and publicity, admitted in a statement that the money was for the “provision and furnishing of Sultanate council office and residence in Abuja”.

But there’s more to the story.  The Sokoto State government did not just disclose the information to the citizens but it was in the course of an investigation by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) that Sokoto citizens and other Nigerians got to know. In a story by Daily Trust, it was reported that EFCC interrogated the Chief of Staff to the Sultan – never knew that traditional rulers now have chief of staff – Kabiru Tafida, last week, “over a suspicious transfer of N700 million to his account from the Sokoto State government.” Though Mr. Imam added that the expenditure was captured in the state’s 2016 supplementary budget and 2017 budget, he, however, did not offer any justification for the purchase for the Sultan and his council members who ordinarily, are resident in Sokoto.

With 23 local government areas, the National Bureau of Statistics classified Sokoto State as the poorest in Nigeria in 2016 with 81.2 per cent poverty rate. Further, as at January this year, in another report by NBS, of internally generated revenue for states in the first half of 2016, Sokoto’s IGR was omitted as the state, with six others, were yet to report their IGR figures. So, we cannot say categorically how much it generated for such an expenditure of N700 million on a traditional ruler. It received N2.9 billion net allocation from the federation account in May this year for April allocation and N2.16 billion in June for May. This offers a rough estimate of how much come to the state’s coffers.

But how does Mr. Tambuwal explain the expenditure in a state, which, together with other northern states, has 60 per cent of the more than 10 million out-of-school children in Nigeria? Most likely, such scandalous expenditure goes on in some states too forcing one to ask, for the umpteenth time, “What exactly is wrong with us as a nation?” Feudalism has been with us for ages and with the latest action of the Sokoto State governor, it is not about to end very soon. The governor surely preferred the endorsement of Sultan for a second term to the votes of ordinary citizens, hence his decision to spend more on one person at the detriment of many.

Last year at Usman Danfodio University, Sokoto, Tambuwal said his state’s negative health statistics worried him and that his administration was determined to turn the corner on the various negative statistics in the health sector in the state. Though, it equally committed N2.8 billion to a joint annual plan with UNICEF in areas like health, education, water sanitation and hygiene showing that the Tambuwal government put its money where its mouth is sometime, the usual brand of politics in Nigeria proved too irresistible for him. Perhaps, if Sokoto has been generating more revenue than its share of allocation from the federation account, it would have committed the N700 million in projects that will benefit more citizens.

The Sultan, no doubt, accepts that you don’t look a gift horse in the mouth and does not see anything wrong in a N700 million Abuja residence. Hopefully Mr. Tambuwal still remember the Sokoto State Strategic Health Plan 2016 – 2020, it deserves more money and greater commitment. Across the border too, internally displaced persons are going hungry in the north east, there’s no harm if he extends the largesse to them.