A rule of strong men or strong institutions? By Simbo Olorunfemi

It is either Nigerians don’t know how to make a distinction between institutions and individuals or we simply struggle to understand how, with our own hands and by our actions, we end up strengthening individuals to the detriment of our institutions.

We just won’t let our institutions, especially those statutorily set up to be independent, function as designed. If only we know that some of these institutions are framed in such a manner that they have a structure and mechanism for engagement with the public, which we can and ought to use to influence their decisions, rather than piling all the pressure on the President, who is often wrongly positioned as the strong man in control of all activities and decisions by a long list of MDAs.

It starts with the Media. It is the media that will take a decision by RMAFC, for instance, and cast it as one by a President Tinubu who had nothing to do with it, as it is a decision out of his remit, at the point. But that is a symptom of our culture of making the President a strong man, the overseer whose task it is to be on top of even the minutest action by any of the MDAs.

The reality is, however, different and we ought to know so, ascribing actions by particular institutions to them, and taking on them at that level, rather than personalising them by making them about the President.

Take the controversial issue of proposed increase in the basic salary of public officials. What was only a proposal by the National Revenue Mobilisation Allocation and Fiscal Commission (NRMAFC), that was yet to be presented to the President, and would require the concurrence of the legislature at national and state levels, was erroneously (mischievously) headlined as a decision that has been approved by the Federal Government.

The fact is, the National Revenue Mobilisation Allocation and Fiscal Commission (NRMAFC) is a body created by the law to handle revenue allocation and fiscal matters on a continuous basis and statutorily empowered to determine the remuneration of political office holders, such as Governors, Senators, and Members of the House of Representatives, as well as Judicial Officers.

In its own determination, it believes a review of the salary of this category of public officials, which was last carried out in 2008, is due for a review. That process has, in fact, been.on since 2021. That much the RMAFC laid out in a statement it issued in October, 2022 (last year). Apparently, the Agency is ready with its proposal, and the initial report is one about one of its officials seeking the buy-in of a State Governor who he has visited. How this became a decision by the Federal Government, as some in the media reported it, is strange?

Without prejudice to the merit of the proposal or contrary opinions, as might have been canvassed, I think the issue itself has been misrepresented by the media, which renders redundant a dispassionate consideration of the matter.

Another issue currently trending is that of the introduction of a policy for annual renewal of the proof of ownership for vehicles, as announced by the Lagos State Government, which has predictably again been reported as another FG/Tinubu initiative.

The puzzling thing is that the facts of the matter are always to be found in the stories, while the headline take a decidedly different, wrong slant, yet that invariably becomes the driver of social media discourse and analysis by TV pundits, as only few of them go beyond headlines.

Now, even as I do not agree with the idea of introduction of renewal of proof of ownership certificates, as it is purely an additional money-making venture, here are the facts:

The decision to make payment of the certificate an annual one was taken by the Joint Tax Board at its May 9th meeting, as reported by The Punch.

The Joint Tax Board, which was created by the Income Tax Management Act 1961, and now derives authority from Section on 86(1) of PITA, 2004. It is the apex body for tax authorities in Nigeria. The 1961 Act charged it, primarily, to ensure uniformity of standards and application of Personal Income Tax in Nigeria.

The Joint Tax Board comprises the chairman who is usually the executive chairman of the Federal Inland Revenue Service, and a representative from each state of the federation.

The Board meets regularly to take decisions such as the one that had just been announced by the Lagos State Government, which it claims come from the JTB resolution of May 9th. It does means other States would be making same announcement in the future.

It is strange, even if not surprising, that this one has again been tagged a Federal Government/ Tinubu programme. How that can be so, I really do not know. I had thought payments for renewal of vehicle documents go to State Governments, but what does one know?

For me, the idea of a Joint Tax Board pushing for a uniformity of fees rather than ‘uniformity of standards’ it is charged with, is what I find questionable under a Federal arrangement. I do not know what the practice in other Federalist jurisdictions though. But I do not see the sense why someone in Zamfara should be paying same vehicle licence fee as the person in Lagos. Even the vehicle insurance that was jacked up is questionable to me. Why do we have a flat fee for all insurance firms? Why not allow for competitive charges? I think NAICOM has been an enabler in the rip-off of vehicle owners over this compulsory 3rd party insurance fees that hardly ever get activated. I do not see why all firms should charge same fee and why same fee should apply across all parts of the federation. But how do we take up the fight against the institution behind this when we do not even know who does what! Of course, the increase in the fee, when announced last year, was attributed by some in the media to the FG!

I think that the confusion we see with these cases comes from a place of procedural illiteracy on the part of the media just as it is with a lot of the people. Many can’t simply figure out how things as basic as these work. Everything is about Jonathan, Buhari or Tinubu who is supposed to micromanage every aspect of life, even that which has been assigned to the local or state government. Matters of primary healthcare or education are still assumed by many commentators as the primary responsibility of the Federal Government. They are waiting for the magic strong man who is responsible for everything and fix everything from the top.

So, again we return to the same roundabout argument about the need for strong institutions, rather than strong men. My position remains that we do, in fact, need strong men to build strong institutions. Indeed, for us to build strong institutions, we would have to pull back from the way we personalise institutions, which includes how the media reports activities of government and agencies. Emefiele is synonymised with the CBN. Mahmood is a synonym for INEC. Bawa is synonymous with EFCC. Marwa is synonymised with NDLEA. Any activities) decisions that has to do with these institutions, even if they emanate from the institution as a whole, organs within, independent units around it or even from sub-national heads are wrapped around the necks of the Heads of the institutions as if these personal decisions or activities, even when they might not know anything about it. Any decision taken by any of the long list of government agencies are cast as decisions by the President, when in fact, some of these Agencies are expected to function independently, and it is practically impossible for the President to directly superintend over routine activities the Agencies were set up to for. Making everything about “FG orders…”, “Tinubu increases…” deflects attention away from those directly in charge that we should face head-on.