GOVERNMENT SECTOR IN NIGERIA

Quality of service and customer service has always been an issue since records began. Apart from folks who were adults during colonial rule and early days of independence when things may have been better, it has always been a story of files moving from desk to desk, and going missing in transit. Information technology and the Internet have come to stay, but the ubiquitous file has refused to die. Long live the files.

The advent of democracy has improved things somewhat, but this is yet largely driven by current chief executives in power, and are yet to be institutionalized. You still get to deal with files, and all the lofty promises fizzle out in the maze of files.

The Lagos State Government promised to process land papers in less than a month. That is yet to materialize, though things have greatly improved at Alausa. Files still go missing, and still require the naira as a propellant to move the file from office to office. If you submit your application, pay the requisite fees and go wait for a call from Alausa to come pick up your C of O, then you may as well wait for 24 hours electricity from the current government.

The corporate Affairs commission re-launched with a bang; a spanking new database driven website backed by a promise of online services and 48 hours registration. The site is anything but database driven. You cannot do a search online, apart from admire the web graphics. As for the 48 hours turn around time for company registration, that has become a PDP election manifesto. Lawyers now charge two tier fees for company registration. Express is one week while standard is six weeks (optimistic estimate). You choose based on your pocket. Forty-eight hours have become a joke. Nigeria has been adjudged as one of the most difficult places to do business on the planet.

The crux of the matter is that civil servants have not gotten their head around the servant bit. They fancy themselves as civil masters, or public masters. They are there to do you a favour. If they are poorly paid, it is your duty to normalize their cash flow if want anything done on your file. You have to take a bow before their lordships and speak to them nicely, preferably in native tongue. Pride in service is virtually none existent. Some states like Lagos have made giant strides, and upgraded their systems, bringing it closer to the 21st century, but it is not yet uhuru. Some states are still stuck in the 19th century.

Public office holders don’t seem to feel any sense of responsibility to the public, especially in situation where they did not require popular vote to get into office. They are willing to allow public infrastructure to go into total decay without any plan for maintenance and urban renewal. Most local governments exist in paper, especially revenue allocation paper. Politicians will rather buy diesel generators, sink boreholes, buy satellite phones for themselves than make the pubic ones work. They rather fly abroad for medical check up than fix our hospitals. They rather send their kids abroad than fix our public schools. They rather buy jeeps than fix our roads. They rather build fortresses and ride in bulletproof cars than equip the police and create jobs so that our youths can be gainfully employed. They rather arm the JTF than fix the Niger Delta.

To the normal human, this defies logic, but in their circles, it makes a whole lot of sense. It is possible Zimbabwe is the model we are trying to replicate.

The sad aspect to this sorry saga is that well educated and able-bodied Nigerians have been forced to flee for greener pastures abroad, while others have taken to arms and Internet fraud due to failure of basic governance. Nigerian PhD holders abroad become taxi drivers, people who help pack groceries at supermarket checkout, nursing home helpers and all sorts of demeaning jobs unbecoming of such a learned one. Managers of banks in Nigeria have fled to become waiters in McDonalds abroad. Those still at home have devised creative means to make enough money to sustain basic living standards: generator, diesel, borehole, estate development levy, school fees for private schools etc. The average Nigerian is a local government. He provides electricity, water, refuse disposal, security, street lighting, drainage and feeder roads all by himself, and sometimes street by street. They laugh a bitter laugh when they government parrots seven point agenda, vision 20 2020 etc while things go from bad to worse. They have been turned into hard-core cynics, blinded by vision after vision that failed to see daylight.

To a large extent, people are beginning to have a bigger say in government. The old is gradually giving way to the new. The 2007 elections will remain the worst that this land has ever seen. For the first time in Nigeria’s chequered history, the courts restored a stolen mandate. From this point on, the power of stuffed ballot boxes will be on the decline. We simply cannot afford to let this continue much longer. Change is still a long way off. From what is going on in Lagos and some other states with respect to responsible goverance, Nigerians are hopeful that change is indeed possible. Political parties that stuff ballot boxes, use INEC to disqualify opponents, swallow opposition strongmen and dream of being in power for sixty years will be in for a rude shock. The day is around the corner when our very own Obama will ride triumphantly into Aso Rock and proclaim

CHANGE HAS COME TO NIGERIA

For the present, suffering and smiling continues while we wait endlessly for Aso Rock…