Mohammed Bouazizi (March 29, 1984 – January 4, 2011) was hawking fruits in Sidi Bouzid, Tunisia on December 17, 2010 when policemen apprehended him and demanded bribe for the alleged offence of street hawking.
Bouazizi refused to pay the bribe and the police seized the scale he used to measure the fruit for sale, slapped him and made disparaging remarks about his late father. Bouazizi rushed to the provincial headquarters to complain, but was not allowed to enter the building.
In frustration, he doused himself with petrol and started a suicide blaze in front of the provincial headquarters building. His action torched off spontaneous protests in the city.
The protests escalated out of control when Bouazizi died on January 4, 2011. The protesters blamed Bouazizi’s suicide on bad governance and demanded the ouster of President Ben Alli who had ruled Tunisia with iron hand for 23 years at that moment. Four days into the mass protest, Ben Alli fled the country. That was how the mass protests and eventual armed rebellions tagged “Arab Spring” started.
The looting, arson and mayhem that followed the shooting of the #ENDSARS protesters at Lekki Toll plaza on Tuesday, October 22, 2020, has the semblance of Arab Spring and it would be dangerous for the rulers of Nigeria to dismiss it with a wave of the hand.
Unemployment in Tunisia was less than 15 per cent when Bouazizi’s suicide triggered Arab Spring which exported violent protests across the Arab world as oppressed majorities demanded good governance.
Unemployment and poverty rates in Nigeria at the moment are worse than what triggered Arab Spring in Tunisia in 2011. Unemployment stands menacingly at 27.1 per cent with youth unemployment at 55 per cent. More than 102 million live in abject poverty. Tunisia’s youth unemployment was 38 per cent when Arab Spring unleashed terror on President Ben Alli, forcing him to flee to Saudi Arabia within four days of Bouazizi’s death.
The yawning imbalance in income distribution is nauseating and unacceptable. Less than 2, 000 politicians and top civil servants control more than 90 per cent of the nation’s revenue. Not even the drastic decline in income conjured by COVID-19 has persuaded the federal government to trim Nigeria’s unacceptably high cost of governance. For the 2021 Appropriation Bill, recurrent expenditure and personnel cost is 112 per cent of total revenue. Nigeria now has to borrow to pay its over-pampered lawmakers and ministers to sustain their indecent ostentation.
A senator in Nigeria earns more than the U.S. president. The monthly pay of the U.S. president is about $30, 000. At the official exchange rate of the 2021 Appropriation Bill which is N379 to the dollar, the pay of the U.S. president is a paltry N11.3 million. That is less than the N13 million collected by Nigerian senators as monthly allowance only.
The situation is so unrealistic that the budget of the 469 members of the National Assembly is about 150 per cent of the budget of Ekiti state with a population of 2.2 million. Ekiti state budget for 2021 is just N109.9 billion. In 2021, Nigeria would spend N128 billion on its 469 lawmakers. They are just too expensive for the country.
Everything is done to protect the less than 2, 000 politicians and super-rich businessmen. The Nigeria Police Force has a workforce of 370, 000 men and women. More than 150, 000 of them are assigned to protect 2, 000 politicians and super-rich business men.
That leaves the policing of the more than 206 million inconsequential majority in the hands of 220, 000 policemen.
The N13 million monthly allowance to lawmakers is illegal, fraudulent and unacceptable. It cannot stand the test of time even during affluence.
Now that revenue has tumbled by a record 60 per cent, the illegal and fraudulent allowance must be withdrawn immediately to free resources for providing the environment for the private sector to create jobs and reduce tension in the land.
Everything in the land is for politicians while the crumbs are not even there for the inconsequential majority. Civil servants toil for 35 years and when they are due for retirement they go home with pittance as gratuity. A graduate retiring from service on grade level 15 after 35 years of service would be lucky if he gets N12 million as gratuity.
A school certificate holder who finds his way into a state House of Assembly gets N40 million as severance package after four- years tenure. In some states he gets a house in addition. The lawmakers’ severance package is paid instantly at the end of the tenure. The civil servant waits for years to get his gratuity. In Oyo state those who retired seven years ago are yet to be paid their entitlements. Ironically, politicians (governor, his deputy and lawmakers) who finished their tenure in May 29, 2019 were paid off instantly.
Abdulaziz Yari, the immediate past governor of Zamfara state even collected N20 million monthly as up-keep allowance besides his huge pension, fleet of cars, health allowance and retinue of domestic staff. That is a state which has 30 doctors for a population of five million.
Politicians have taken Nigeria for a ride for too long. The imbalance has reached breaking point with the #ENDSARS protest which left a mountain of smoldering ruins to be cleared. If anyone stretches the system beyond this point it could be calamitous both for the rich and those wallowing in abject poverty.
The massive reforms needed to avoid the final spark should be as spontaneous as the protest itself.
Government must divert money from the massive waste in the National Assembly and the monstrous federal civil service to fix the deplorable roads and comatose rail system. A rail link between the east and the west is long overdue. That alone would take hundreds of thousands of idle hands from the boisterous labour market.
Politicians have had their day. If they really want to enjoy their loots in peace, they must ensure an equitable income distribution system that would remove Nigeria’s inglorious toga of the world’s headquarters of abject poverty. Bangladesh does not have 10 per cent of Nigeria’s revenue. Ironically its poverty rate is less than 20 per cent of what obtains in Nigeria. The hoarding of COVID-19 palliatives by politicians is a sad reminder of the level of selfishness among the rich. It must stop.