Tanko Yakassai, Chairman of Northern Elders Council, NEC, says that President Muhammadu Buhari is ruling Nigeria with military mentality.
Yakassai was reacting about Buhari’s unfavorable TSA policy which according to him, caused states government to lose interests that were supposed to accrue to their account from banks; and taxes expected from them to pay. He also said that the unfriendly TSA policy led some banks reduce their workforce due to dwindling revenues as they will not be able to pay salaries.
In an interview he granted to Vanguard News, he also blame the entire problems of Nigeria on the three military coup de’tats of 1966, 1975 and 1983, as he forecasts that getting out of the current economic recession may not be soon.
Excerpts:
Looking back these years, are you happy with the Nigerian polity of today?
I cannot be happy. Who is happy with the Nigeria of today? I am one of those who called for the independence of this country. Then military came and destroyed all the efforts that our founding fathers did in building this country. There are three coup de’tats that did a lot of harm to this country: The first was the 1966 coup; the second was the 1975 coup and the third was the 1983 coup.
Each coup destroyed a certain aspect of Nigeria’s political life and values. Each coup destroyed some political aspects of Nigeria’s life. The first coup destroyed the political clout; the political parties that our founding fathers laboured to create. At the same time it destroyed the system of government in the country. The 1975 coup, of Murtala/Obasanjo, destroyed the Nigeria Civil Service.
It destroyed security of tenure in the civil service of Nigeria. When they came they started dismissing people without following due process. A Permanent Secretary would leave his home for the office. Before reaching his office, his name was already on the radio that he had been dismissed, just like that without any excuse given him.
Because of that the Civil Servants who were once loyal to their service and their country, decided to look for money for themselves. They reasoned that they could be dismissed anytime without any retirement benefit. They decided to look for money so that they could have security for themselves and their children in the event they were suddenly dismissed. Corruption took root in civil service.
The 1983 coup destroyed the political class and institutions created by the disciples of the earlier political leaders. The coup destroyed the effort to rebuild political culture in Nigeria. The implication was that we ended up in most of Nigeria’s life with a military culture of governance.
Name them: Buhari, Babangida, Abacha, Abdulsalam. And if they were not in Khaki, they were in mufti: Obasanjo, Buhari, they are still military men and they rule with military mentality. So, in a nutshell, these are the major things that set us back or destroyed Nigeria from the fast pace developments we were witnessing after independence. And things cannot be fixed overnight. It’s going to take time. It is going to take time to reestablish order and right the wrongs.
You have attempted to capture how we got here. What is the way to recovery?
The way to recovery is to allow political culture to flourish uninterrupted. It is only a democracy that can build a democracy. Unfortunately in most part of our lives it is the military that has dominated, not democracy. The military are limited in their training, in their psyche, in their mentality; their ego is military.
This is why you direct all national funds from the banks into a single treasury account at the Central Bank without taking into consideration the wider effects of that policy. Government’s agencies put their monies in banks under certain conditions which are both benefiting the banks and government. And it is from these deposits that the banks lend out to people and corporate bodies at an interest rate, and they go into all manner of businesses creating wealth and employment.
But, suddenly, you decree that all the monies must be taken to the Central Bank under a Treasury Single Account, TSA. In the first place, government loses the interests that were supposed to accrue to these accounts. Again, the banks lose revenue and they will not be able to pay to government the taxes expected of them. The banks dwindling finances mean that they will not be able to pay their workers, and as such they have to cut down their work force.
So, government loses money through loss of interest rate, taxes and job losses. This is the military mentality I’m talking about. Policies are not well throughout but just ordered out. The TSA could have been implemented carefully, phase by phase and the effect on the economy and society studied to decide how best to implement it or not.
Culled from Vanguard
