NIGERIA : IS EGALITARIAN SOCIETY A MIRAGE IN OUR CLIME?

As long as poverty, injustice and gross inequality persist in our world, none of us can truly rest – Nelson Mandela

The news about the “Presidential award” to the highest echelons of the military, dropped like a bombshell. I was awestruck by the outlandish retirement packages approved for military officers by President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, penultimate week. What a provocative and wasteful gesture! Another slap in the face of the longsuffering, ever-rugged Nigerians, sucked in by a docile and mentally conquered populace?

They say silence means consent. I am more disturbed by the Labour Movement’s silence and its failure to promptly take the government to the laundry. I do not want to subscribe to the idea that the movement needs an eternity to study the award document before making a pronouncement, for fear of being labelled overzealous or overreactive bunch of Labour group. I stand to be enlightened by comrades in the NLC on the reason for their nonchalant attitude to this highly egregious action. It would not be surprising if the NLC and its affiliates and allies are complicit in the wicked discriminatory treatment of Nigerians and the civil workforce of the nation. It stands reason on its head, that a country whose “rulers” are lamenting that a meagre 70, 000 naira monthly salary for the least-paid worker in Nigeria is beyond their pay power, could indulge in a money rain on a single section of the national workforce – agreed that the military plays a critical role in securing the country – at a time the country’s economy is on a lifeline, is hugely disconcerting!

According to the ‘award document,’ the Chief of Defence Staff and other service chiefs are entitled to a bulletproof SUV or its equivalent as a retirement package. The vehicle would be replaced every four years and maintained by the military. This is in addition to a Peugeot 508 or an equivalent vehicle as a back-up. Retired generals are also to enjoy a range of other luxury benefits, including domestic aides and residential guards, upon retirement. While those who retire as Lieutenants generals and their equivalents will enjoy international and local medical treatment worth up to $20,000 annually, the medical benefits for the CDS and the service chiefs were not specified but it is believed that theirs would be significantly higher. In addition, they will be assigned a special assistant or personal assistant, three service drivers, and a service orderly, with escorts provided as necessary by relevant military units. Also, each retiring service chief will also be provided with five domestic aides, comprising two service cooks, two stewards, and one civilian gardener, along with an aide-de-camp or security officer.

The Retention of all military uniforms and accoutrement to be worn for appropriate ceremonies; five domestic aides (two service cooks, two stewards and one civilian gardener); one Aide-de-Camp/security officer; one Special Assistant (Lt/Capt or equivalents) or one Personal Assistant (Warrant Officer or equivalents); standard guard (nine soldiers).

“Three service drivers; one service orderly; escorts (to be provided by appropriate military units/formation as the need arises); retention of personal firearms (on his demise, the personal firearm(s) shall be retrieved by the relevant service) and free medical cover in Nigeria and abroad.” For other senior officers such as lieutenant generals and equivalents, they are entitled to two Toyota Hilux vehicles or one Toyota Land Cruiser, along with $20,000 annual medical treatment, two cooks, two stewards, four residential guards and two drivers.

Looking at the benefits rolled out to the military, Mr. President’s new year bonanza for this privileged class, deserves some interrogation. First, it creates the impression that the military top brass is a special breed of Nigerians who deserve kingly treatment and the “ordinary” civil servants including the intelligentsia, and other members of the workforce, are mere slaves, within the system. By this action, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has further reinforced the existing segregation and systemic entrenchment of anti-egalitarianism that has robbed Nigeria’s democracy of its essence. Further implication of the action of the government is that it is defrauding majority of Nigerians to pay those already living fat at the expense of others. In Yoruba parlance, it is called “o ja ile onile bo ti e lehin” literally translates to mean stealing to nurture others to live. The new arrangements create a dichotomy even among the armed personnel who are in the services of their father’s land and are both maintained on tax payers’ money while those who work to produce wealth are excluded from reaping the commonwealth. A system that offers remuneration that hardly reflects the quantum and value of contributions to nation building is a system that promotes injustice and disincentivizes dedication and patriotism.

Let’s assume that the government wants to compensate the military- like in other climes for their critical role in nation building, must they be so rewarded as to portray others as being inconsequential to the well-being and developmental goal of the nation? And at what and whose expense is the government going to splash and sustain these bourgeoise packages for these senior military officers?

On a loan-dependent economy that subjects the present and future generations of Nigerians to frightening uncertainty?
As critical as the role of the military is, aren’t scholars and other critical stakeholders, who are undergirds of modern development – and are so appreciated and motivated in countries that are serious with the business of development-supposed to enjoy a level of appreciation and motivation to contribute more to the development of the country? It is apposite to acknowledge that security-engendered political stability, and development, constitute the fulcrum of modern governance and undergird well-functioning societies.
In this case, while the government may have overlooked the inability or failure of the military to contain insurgency or outrightly free the country from its stranglehold- despite unrelenting efforts and humongous resources expended and owing, partly, to the corruption within the military as in the appropriating political class-should Tinubu go to the extent of ‘awarding’ an underperforming sector, a socially-discriminatory life economic medals for those fighting from the back while the foot soldiers at the frontline of battle, are renumerated with peanuts?

Only few weeks ago, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) released figures of the amount paid by Nigerians as ransom to secure the release of victims of kidnapping across the country enabled by the collapse of the nation’s security architecture. Innocent staff of the Bureau were harassed by ruthless plain-clothed security men, for allegedly embarrassing the government by divulging classified information to the public. I wondered how those staff must have felt, being so humiliated and traumatized for doing the job they were employed to do! I have no problem when government takes the initiative to reward any of its workforce either in the civil, military or intelligence sector, to serve as motivation for more efficient performance.

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However, how does it feel when an underperforming sector is so richly rewarded as to reinforce the sense of mediocrity and complacency that pervades the country’s service landscape?

Permit me to probe a little further. What is the true intent of the dollar-showers on these already well-fed military guys? Is it altruistically motivated or for the promotion of a well-disguised personal interest? It is, even more, befuddling that a government that launched its first day in office and sustained its campaign of life-strangulating economic reforms – touted as economic recovery therapy – could openly promote the use of a foreign currency on its soil at the detriment of its own currency and cascading economy? Why is it that a government that has been struggling with paying 70, 000 naira as minimum wage for workers and a miserable pension benefit for civil servants in an economy that has suffered 33 % inflation rate and at least 500% increase in prices of goods, now has enough dollar and naira to spray on senior military officers?

Still on the pecks turf, the political class has been on a continuous war to deny the working class its dues. What is the retirement package of a teacher, civil servants, and those in essential services such as medical workers and allied services? The university professors for instance. The political class had created a series of severance packages for themselves after serving four-year terms. Some as governors, upscaling to the office of the President in retirement! Legislatures go away with heavy severance packages after four years of legislative tour while those who had put in 35 years of their productive life in service have nothing to show but a display of wrecked wasted life lived in penury with their pension and gratuity sometimes left unpaid for years, or looted by heartless government officials.

It is a serious indictment on the Labour Movement , I say to maintain a sealed lips over this matter for over two weeks.

For an avoidance of doubts, let me roll the tape back to the pre-Murtala/Obasanjo precisely During General Yakubu Gowon’s period, top most on the card of an average civil servant was his career and the retirement pecks of a cottage home, holiday trip and other packages after a meritorious 35 years of service, but this same military threw a spanner into the works and dismissed the core of well-trained technocrats -‘ you are sacked with immediate effect’ and stuffed the mouth of its kind with national cake. I believe we are refreshed now, to see the start of robbing Peter to pay Paul while systematically destroying the fabrics of egalitarianism in our clime, thus enthroning and laying the foundations for today’s injustices.

Our dear President, if you’ve resolved to have a better Nigeria and not a divided country within itself as you have repeatedly clamoured in your statements in the last four years before you became leader of government business, your reforms must be informed by altruism and honesty of purpose and not merely out of fear of displacement by the military, the most feared threat to your administration. Your reforms should be more encompassing than the selective upgrades in a few sectors.

It is obvious, the current setting is pointing to the fact that all animals are not equal. And it is more disheartening to note that the political class has devised a clever way of taking from the poor to pamper the privileged elites and officers, serving or retiring.

Let’s not deviate from the discourse, let me go back to this mouthwatering award. President Tinubu’s intentions need to undergo serious interrogations. From the campaign period to day one of the President’s stay in office, he had devoted special attention to judges and later military officers, assuring them of his commitment to their well-being.Many Nigerians have queried President Tinubu’s special ‘love’ for judges against the backdrop of his contentious entry into office and his future election prospects. The President’s biting economic reforms and the attendant backlash from the civil society and the concomitant fear of displacement of “democratic” regimes that has become the emerging trend in West Africa, has drawn the Nigerian military into Tinubu’s wooing embrace. What then is the cost of maintaining Tinubu’s outlandish ‘monetary award’ to the military and the impact on the flapping economy?

While self-survival is a basic element of human existence, applicable to governmental regimes, to what extent should a perceptively threatened regime maneuver, to secure itself at the expense of the public?

President Tinubu’s unilateral award of humongous benefits to these “special” officers, at a time when Nigerians are being suffocated by his killer-reforms, calls for concern. Leadership that appropriates public resources by whims and without recourse to other stakeholders or societal sensitivity and a rubber stamp and ever complicit national assembly are pain in the neck of the country. Except we purge ourselves and the upper echelon of the nation’s rulership of its deep-seated disdain, entrenched marginalization and injustices for the ordinary Nigerian, the country’s hope of becoming a nation of great reckoning will remain a mirage.

Again! My worries are whether the service chiefs had done enough to deserve the packages doled out to them and if the continued complacency of the Labour movement and the citizens, to challenge these segregating policies, is assuring. It is alarming to have packages of this magnitude instituted at a time when Nigeria is undergoing serious economic hardship. Does Nigeria truly have this kind of money to play around with? When millions of Nigerians are struggling with extreme poverty and failing public services, yet resources are being funnelled into luxuries for a select few. Such extravagant expenditures, raise serious concerns about government’s sincerity and priorities. When will the government of Nigeria come to justice with equity? That is a dialectical question!

©️ Lanre Ogundipe
Public Affairs Analyst,
Former President Nigeria and African Union of Journalists
January 22 2025