₦airaland Forum

Goddex: The bolded refers, truth is, no govt makes such bold reforms in its first term. Opposition will use propaganda to bring you down eventhough noble and no President wants that. That is why a few of the reforms during OBJ were all done in his second term.

Take the issue of fuel subsidy removal last year when a crowd of Lagosians trooped out to occupy Ojota due largely to inciting propaganda from opposition. No govt will plunge itself into labour crisis and mass revolt barely a year to the next election. Have you asked yourself why Fashola did not ban Okada in his first term?

This is unacceptable to me. What makes a 2nd-term a guarantee? What happens if GEJ doesn't get a 2nd-term like Obj? Why cant a meaningful leader plan and work with a mandate of 4years? IMO, even if people complain in the 1st and 2nd year because the new government policies are hard and they couldn't understand or appreciate them, I believe majority will change their mind and start appreciating the leader by the time the results start coming in the 3rd year. That is if the leader knows what he is doing anyway.

Besides, has the government exhausted other means of addressing the imbalance apart from subsidy removal?

Sincere 9gerian: Nobody is giving excuses. Everyone, including the minister of finance wants the capital component of the federal budget to increase and even surpase the recurrent. That is the ideal. But the reality on ground is that it is very difficult to achieve this at the federal level based on the current structure of the federation and constitution.

We all know it is not an easy job, but someone has to do the hard job. Ignoring it is postponing the evil days. Government have to be be decisive in addressing this imbalance. Either way you look at it is not in favour of FG to ignore it. If they do something about it people will complain of the immediate hardship but will appreciate the results later, but if they ignore it and keep spending less on capital developments, people will complain both now and in the future of lack of performance. You have to accept it, there is very little development Government can achieve with the current budget.

Going forward, the solution lies in re-structuring the country so that we can, as a nation, generate more revenue. We are simply not generating enough revenue at the moment. If we boost the revenue base of the country, the capital component of the budget will automatically go up. N4 or 5 trillion budget (or N10 trillion for the 3 tiers of govt) is just to small for a country of 170 million. Ghana with a population of about 20 million people has a budget of over N1 trillion. South Africa with population far lesser than ours has a budget of over N60 trillion. US with about 200 million people has a budget of over N600 trillion.

So bottomline, we need to grow our revenue. You cannot sack people with the high unemployment rate in the country. And the resource control and true federalism is the starting point of boosting the revenue base of the country. Until we do that, we have not even started.

This I agree with, but even before looking for ways of generating more income, FG needs to deal with the corruption and leakages with our present income. How much of our earnings are being accounted for? Even those accounted for, how much of them is being remitted into the government's coffer? For example, rather than politicize Sanusi's letter and claiming what was not remitted is less than what Sunusi claimed, government should have dealt with all the officers who failed to remit the fund even it is only $1. We cant keep politicizing everything and playing lip service to things and expect a meaningful change.

Pukkah: These are mere excuses. Someone could also reverse the argument and ask if Kano earns as much as the FG?

The question is: are we stuck with an unhealthy 72% in favour of recurrent expenditure? Are you defending this? Is the government helpless?

The truth is that no government (whether or not Jonathan is the one there; or whether it is PDP or APC) can develop the country with this kind of budget. There's no magic wand.

If this kind of budget continues, millions of Nigeria will continue to rightly blame the government for non-performance.

Nigerians are suffering and poverty and unemployment levels are unacceptable and scandalous.

Something has to give! What's the transformational government of Jonathan doing to change the status quo and shake up the system?

Well done! You have made brilliant contributions to this topic. And I cannot agree with you less that this subject is not about parties in power both at Federal level or State level. There is definitely no way any Government (PDP or APC) can perform with just just about 28% of its budget for capital expenditure. Three things need to be urgently addressed:

1. From the income perspective, Government needs to deal with the corruption, the rot and all the leakages with our sources of income. I believe we are not getting halve of what we are truly earning.

2. The cost of running Nigeria government is far too expensive. Rather than government cutting down its cost what I see are increments here and there, or they cut it in the left and increase it on the right. We can do away with many of the government luxuries and unneeded political advisers for a start.

3. Even if the Government doesn't want to sack staff, merging many of the agencies doing exactly the same or similar jobs will still save us a lot of money.

^You and the person that insults you will be banned if you follow through your decision and we find out. Two wrongs don't make a right.

I will advise you keep reporting.

Good one cramjones!

I appreciate the your civility so far and will love to see it continue. Any insult or off topic comment on this thread should be ignored and reported.

I also welcome similar thread from the likes of Reno Omokri or any PDP official, if well organised, we might just stick the two threads as 2015-Elections Q&A threads.

Seasons of letters. About time I write mine.

Please how many pages is this letter?

Indeed triblizing threads is not only shameful but also against the rules of Nairaland. The Moderators of this section come from different ethnic sections and have nothing to gain aiding or supporting tribalism. Neither is the Admin, because contrary to general believe, tribalism doesn't increase traffic but drives away many people who find tribalism disgusting.

If moderators don't respond on time, it is because we were not online and yet to get reports/complaints about an on-going tribal fights/insults. But you can be rest assured, that as soon as we get to know of these fights, we will deal with the situation accordingly and punish all the offenders.

Thank you all for your cooperation. Please keep reporting tribal fights/insults.