Pebbles with Igbotako Nowinta
‘‘This is a sense of where we are: unparalleled treachery of the ruling class in Nigeria. Nigerians have been drilled and drilled by wicked leadership. The masses have seen brutal military regimes and the most vicious democratic savagery…Today, the toiling masses are living with painful and unforgettable memories’’- Quoted in Nowinta’s
Book, 2009: Where We Are (pages 111/112).
It is an undeniable fact that never before has the Nigerian nation been so mercilessly betrayed by a band of politicians, such as the way Dr. Goodluck Jonathan and the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) ran the country aground.
This is so because of the gory revelations that are daily being relayed to a stunned nation, of mind boggling embezzlement of public funds by a set of people that supposed to have held office on behalf of all of us.
Nowhere have a people been so systematically insulted and humiliated like how the nation’s oil agency – The Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) awarded trillions of naira to itself and cronies of high-ranking government officials in the name of fuel and kerosene subsidy.
It is seething to recollect that successive military and civilian administrations in Nigeria have had to surpass each other in the criminal business of squandering our collective commonwealth.
More disturbingly in the last sixteen years, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) approached the issues of governance with levity and succeeded in creating an army of jobless impoverished and traumatized citizenry.
The executive, judicial and legislative arms of government looked the other way while a gang of bandits descended on our hard earned money and put our nation on the reverse gear which infuriated the electorate to demand their exit via the sound of thunder of March 28th 2015.
Today, sadly enough we are confronted with a situation where a selected few have stolen so much public money that can last several generations even after their earthly sojourn here.
It is only here that some shameless, corrupt and idiotic politicians have had cause to put away trillions of money in foreign bank accounts while the nation is gasping for financial breath.
I am taking off on this note today on this column because I have taken pains to study the huge gains obtainable in the Treasury Single Account (TSA) being passionately pursued by the Buhari administration today.
Indeed a few days from now, precisely on September 15th, 2015 the official deadline for all Federal Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) to comply with the government directive on TSA will take effect.
Complying with TSA means that all MDAs will channel all revenues, income and receipts into what will be known as Consolidated Revenue Fund according to the 1999 Constitution, as stipulated in sections 80 and 162 respectively.
Specifically, bodies like the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Nigeria Liquefied Natural Gas (NLNG), Federal Inland Revenue Service, Nigerian Customs Service, Nigerian Maritime Administration Safety Agency (NIMASA) etc., must now key into the TSA.
The TSA will put an end to phony contracts, questionable recurrent expenditure, paralleled budgeting and pittance remittance to the Federation accounts by MDAs.
The implication is that all MDAs expenditure will now be budgeted for, taken to the Executive arm and ultimately approved by the Legislature.
The TSA will definitely prevent financial hemorrhage within the system; leakages of legitimate incomes, bizarre system of revenue collection, stop several fragmented revenue, income and receipt and promote transparency.
Above all, the TSA will ensure unified structure and bank accounts with consolidation and optimal utilization of government cash resources. With TSA, government will at any point in time know its cash position etc.
As the TSA comes into effect the Federal Government should be thinking of diversifying the Nigerian economy from oil-based and look for a way of practicing true federalism.
This is the only way the various units that make up the country can be proactively self-sufficient. It is saddening and worrisome seeing state governments queuing every month waiting for allocation.
Whatever any one has against TSA it is an idea which time has come. We have suffered enough!
Nowinta wrote Where We Are: A call for democratic revolution in Nigeria.
