It is time for another United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) this September. How time flies! We have received the news that President Bola Tinubu has instructed that only those with a definite business at the annual meeting of heads of state and government should make the list of Nigeria’s delegation. According to the president’s chief of staff, Femi Gbajabiamila, this directive is coming against the backdrop of the recent national protests where the issue of reducing the cost of governance once again came to the fore. Of course, also definitely fresh in the president’s mind is the controversy that trailed the allegation that the nation sponsored over 1, 400 delegates to the climate change summit (COP28) held in Dubai late last year. Even though the government has come out to clarify that all members of the delegation were not sponsored by the government, the perennial question of prudence in spending of public funds remains unanswered.
Reckless spending in the public sector is a firmly entrenched practice that counts as one of the major obstacles to our collective progress. Government officials, especially governors and the president, usually move about with a crowd among whom are a lot of persons whose roles are, at best, easily dispensable and, at worst, non-existent. Peter Obi, in a widely circulated video of his appearance on the Platform a few years ago, reflected on his experience dealing with this anomaly as the Anambra State governor. Obi’s revelation should not shock us as it is simply something that has become a normal way of life among us. Swirling around leaders wherever they go has become a gainful privilege, a prized opportunity, which many individuals have been exploiting so fervently.
All over the world, leaders move about with aides. However, the logic of this practice excludes a situation where anyone who has no definite role in the itinerary would be in the party. When leaders embark on international travels, they necessarily go with not only some of their regular aides, but also some relevant stakeholders and experts whose participation will be key in the engagements such leaders will have at their destination. This is the case with international engagements like the Conference of Parties (COP).
However, in Nigeria this necessary and innocent practice has been a problem given our pathological tendency to bastardise everything. Ours is a senseless sphere where sanity is totally absent as nothing is ever done with diligence and altruism simply because everyone is looking for any available opportunity to profit from the system. This explains the crowds of idle individuals always seen around leaders whether they’re moving within or outside the country.
Some months ago, the presidency announced reductions in the number of persons traveling with the president, his vice, the first lady and the wife of the vice president. But the president didn’t have to wait until Nigerians began to complain before taking that step. As one who came to power on the back of loud avowals of improving things, reversing the culture of reckless public spending should have been on the top of his to-do list from his first day in office. Second, there is no reason retaining the president’s wife and the vice president’s wife on the list of those on whose travels the nation should be spending taxpayers’ money. These two are private persons and not public officials. Surely, the president needs to do more to convince us that he is really out to change things.
However, I find it very important to point out that the phenomenon of idle crowds is not restricted to the government spheres; it is a way of life embedded in our attitude to public responsibility. In government departments and agencies including ministries, schools and other institutions, you invariably find employees who are practically doing nothing. Stated differently, in these public institutions, it is common to see a crowd of people among whom there are several individuals doing practically nothing.
It is a well known fact that some people who work at ministries and other public institutions literally come to work to chat and engage in other idling acts such as eating groundnuts. Some share their working time between doing the job they are paid for and engaging in private business especially selling at the office. There are those that never show up at their workplace from week to week but are receiving salaries every month. As an undergraduate, I knew a few students who were employees of their local government civil service, yet were full-time students and never traveled to their workplace from month to month. There are teachers whose duty posts are rural schools, yet they live in cities doing private business because their superiors are in connivance with them
In my place of work, a higher institution, I know too well that there are a lot of persons doing next to nothing, even though they are being remunerated using taxpayers’ money. I know many admin personnel who hardly show up in school, yet they are counted among the large workforce the government is “labouring” to pay. There are lecturers whose classroom input is zero or next to zero; the primary aspect of their engagement (which is teaching) is largely or completely neglected, yet they are receiving pay.
This is a reflection of what happens across the various sectors of our national life, and the implication is that many individuals are receiving wages from our common patrimony without actually earning them. Ironically, whenever the government is criticised for spending public money on idle individuals who crowd around state officials, such workers quickly join the chorus conveniently overlooking the fact that they’re equally guilty.
Too many things are wrong with our work ethic in this country. This is not helped by a reward system that encourages laziness by giving uniform rewards to both those that work hard and those that idle away. This makes a public servant who is uncompromisingly diligent in his duty look foolish.
We often lament the damage arising from the culture of idleness in governmental spheres but tend to discountenance the equally serious damage wrought by the same culture at lower levels of state service such as ministries, agencies, departments, schools etc. Send an enquiry email to any of these public institutions and you are most likely not to get a reply. Go to any ministry and apply for any public information and you will hardly get it without the rigmarole of being asked to come back tomorrow and then next week etc. Retire from service and go for processing of your gratuities and see the system grinds very slowly. What else does one expect when the offices are populated by too many people doing nothing, or at best, next to nothing? But then karma works in an interesting way: that idle or absentee public servant will retire tomorrow and expect the system to work so efficiently as to get his entitlements quickly processed. No, the system can only perform within the enablements and limitations of the culture built into it through years of deeds or misdeeds of human agents that run it.
Our greatest dilemma as a people is our ungodly and amoral disposition towards public affairs and public interest. The same president or governor that permits spending of public funds on a crowd of idling individuals will never allow such reckless spending in their private business. The same teacher who is absent at his duty post will enrol his child in a private school where teachers will normally be at their duty post. Public interest has become a miserable orphan in our clime, it has assumed the status of the proverbial “ewu ora” (goat owned by the public)
which ends up dying of hunger because everyone is waiting for someone to feed it and at the end nobody ends up feeding it.
Henry Chigozie Duru, PhD, teaches journalism and mass communication at Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka, Nigeria.
Hmmm. Idleness/laziness has eaten deep into our public sectors. Sometimes, I feel everyone just want to eat from the national cake. No one wants to effect a change. Their predecessors did it, their leaders are doing it. The one who should monitor the affairs is Idle too
Res Ipsa Loquitur, well articulated.
Quite a good piece , but whether it will help in changing things already entrenched in the corrupt system, is subject to debate. However, the article, in my thinking, is a wake-up call to the right-thinking Nigerians, like the writer, who would want things to work efficiently and effectively.