According to the
retired permanent secretary who is now the chairman of the Council of
Retired Federal Permanent Secretaries, if those who took over from the
Gen. Yakubu Gowon’s administration had continued with the development
plans, which the regime laid out in the 1975 to 1980 National
Development plan and also did not indulge in mass sack of civil
servants, the country would have been a developed nation now away from
where majority of the population live in poverty.
Speaking at the 2012 yearly general meeting of the council in Lagos at the weekend, Asiodu, a former Economic Adviser to former president Olusegun Obasanjo, maintained that it was at that point Nigeria deviated from the road to development and has not recovered till date.
“The whole position is that when you have no plan, you cannot achieve anything. The coup against Gowon did two terrible things on the country, though the two leading members of that cabinet were members of Gowon cabinet, who approved the 75 to 80 National Development Plan. We were going into pulp and paper metallurgy as well as agro-allied to create a good base for our industrialisation and ensure job creation.
“But when we had that coup, not only the plan was abandoned, 10,000 civil servants were removed. And that destroyed the confidence, non-partisanship and courage in the civil service. In my time in the civil service, you can tell a minister sir, you want to do this, here are three options, and he knows you are advising him objectively, your commitment is to him and the country to succeed.
“That coup destroyed the leadership of the civil service, destroyed the people who could have been custodians of check and balances, who can say, you cannot do this or that. That was when Nigeria diverged, we were at par with Malaysia and Singapore. Today, we are 40 years behind them. We started assembling cars before South Korea, but today we are importing cars from South Korea. Should that be? But go abroad, in many universities or any institutions, Nigerians are there and on top. The coup truncated that plan.”
Asiodu called on politicians and bureaucrats to imbibe the value of responsiveness to what the people need and be always guided by the desire to want to help to lift Nigeria to a certain development platform for the benefit of the majority.
He recalled that “our founding fathers, Azikwe, Awolowo, and Balewa, the campaign then was, give us independence and we shall improve the condition of the people, and they showed it.
“As soon as we had regional government in the West and the East, there was tremendous increase in the number of farm settlement scheme, expansion in school, award of scholarship to competent deserving ones to go abroad and construction of dams as well as commitment to the drive to improve the condition of life of the ordinary man.
He called for better commitment to the state by elected officials and politicians, recalling that to accelerate development immediately after independence, Balewa and other elected officials cut their salaries by 10 per cent in order to save for developmental projects. He said it was ironical that now, about 74 per cent of the budget is spent on recurrent expenditure.
“At one time, education alone got more than 40 per cent of the budget of the Western and Eastern regions because that is the key to development. But what is it today? We are now spending 74 per cent of the resources on recurrent expenditure and overheads of, may be, 300,000 government officials and a paltry 24 per cent on education, health, manpower and power,” he lamented.
The elder statesman noted that in spite of the huge fund that had come into government coffers, no spectacular projects had been executed since 1975 when there were less fund. The government then executed most of the landmark projects in Nigeria today.
“We are saying the path we are following, this recurrent expenditure fueled by how much we are paying our officials is not sustainable. I believed the leadership should realise that what we are doing is not sustainable,” he said.
Asiodu maintained that what is being paid the elected officials cannot be justified, noting also that the current quality of the civil service is poor and no government can achieve result with a poor civil service, so the country must return to international norms in its civil service procedure. According to Asiodu, the country does not need more than 18 ministries to drive its development plans. He said with that, Nigeria would be better coordinated and manage the level of waste in governance.
Speaking at the 2012 yearly general meeting of the council in Lagos at the weekend, Asiodu, a former Economic Adviser to former president Olusegun Obasanjo, maintained that it was at that point Nigeria deviated from the road to development and has not recovered till date.
“The whole position is that when you have no plan, you cannot achieve anything. The coup against Gowon did two terrible things on the country, though the two leading members of that cabinet were members of Gowon cabinet, who approved the 75 to 80 National Development Plan. We were going into pulp and paper metallurgy as well as agro-allied to create a good base for our industrialisation and ensure job creation.
“But when we had that coup, not only the plan was abandoned, 10,000 civil servants were removed. And that destroyed the confidence, non-partisanship and courage in the civil service. In my time in the civil service, you can tell a minister sir, you want to do this, here are three options, and he knows you are advising him objectively, your commitment is to him and the country to succeed.
“That coup destroyed the leadership of the civil service, destroyed the people who could have been custodians of check and balances, who can say, you cannot do this or that. That was when Nigeria diverged, we were at par with Malaysia and Singapore. Today, we are 40 years behind them. We started assembling cars before South Korea, but today we are importing cars from South Korea. Should that be? But go abroad, in many universities or any institutions, Nigerians are there and on top. The coup truncated that plan.”
Asiodu called on politicians and bureaucrats to imbibe the value of responsiveness to what the people need and be always guided by the desire to want to help to lift Nigeria to a certain development platform for the benefit of the majority.
He recalled that “our founding fathers, Azikwe, Awolowo, and Balewa, the campaign then was, give us independence and we shall improve the condition of the people, and they showed it.
“As soon as we had regional government in the West and the East, there was tremendous increase in the number of farm settlement scheme, expansion in school, award of scholarship to competent deserving ones to go abroad and construction of dams as well as commitment to the drive to improve the condition of life of the ordinary man.
He called for better commitment to the state by elected officials and politicians, recalling that to accelerate development immediately after independence, Balewa and other elected officials cut their salaries by 10 per cent in order to save for developmental projects. He said it was ironical that now, about 74 per cent of the budget is spent on recurrent expenditure.
“At one time, education alone got more than 40 per cent of the budget of the Western and Eastern regions because that is the key to development. But what is it today? We are now spending 74 per cent of the resources on recurrent expenditure and overheads of, may be, 300,000 government officials and a paltry 24 per cent on education, health, manpower and power,” he lamented.
The elder statesman noted that in spite of the huge fund that had come into government coffers, no spectacular projects had been executed since 1975 when there were less fund. The government then executed most of the landmark projects in Nigeria today.
“We are saying the path we are following, this recurrent expenditure fueled by how much we are paying our officials is not sustainable. I believed the leadership should realise that what we are doing is not sustainable,” he said.
Asiodu maintained that what is being paid the elected officials cannot be justified, noting also that the current quality of the civil service is poor and no government can achieve result with a poor civil service, so the country must return to international norms in its civil service procedure. According to Asiodu, the country does not need more than 18 ministries to drive its development plans. He said with that, Nigeria would be better coordinated and manage the level of waste in governance.
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