The proposed tax bill being debated by the Nigerian Senate whose stated goal is to overhaul the country’s tax system, simplify the tax landscape, reduce the burden on small businesses, and streamline how taxes are collected has pitted national interest against parochial tribal and regional agenda. Although objective analysis seems to suggest that on balance, the proposed tax reform is great for the overall interest of the nation as it eliminates multiple taxation across the country, deploy taxation as a tool to encourage private sector investments in critical industries and boost individual disposal incomes through targeted tax exemptions, the passage of the bill hangs in the balance.
All through our history as a nation, national interest has always taken the back seat to parochial tribal and regional hegemonic interest. Even our struggle for independence from the British was almost derailed by those who perceived that their region will be disadvantaged by the more advanced and educated regions of the country.
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If we were to draw an analogy to Nigerian state from the animal world, the most appropriate would probably be the image of a bleached whale in an impoverished sea-shore community whose inhabitants see a stranded bleached whale as manna from heaven and each has brought out in an orgy of gluttony, any cutting device they could lay their hands on to carve out for themselves as much of the free meat as they could grab.
There is actually a concept in political science, known as political particularism, which describes the propensity of policymakers and politicians to further their careers by catering to narrow interests rather than to broader national platforms. So, it is not a unique problem to our country for politician to think national but act locally, to take into cognizance how national policies will affect their local community. After all the essence of politics is the process by which choices are made regarding how resources will be allocated and which economic and social policies government will pursue. Put more simply, politics is the process of who gets what and how.
In the U.S. Congress, there is actually a term for this phenomenon of political particularism. Pork barrel projects, refer to appropriations for constituents’ sweetheart projects by senators and members of Congress that are inserted into and hidden in big omnibus legislative documents as part of the legislative negotiation process.
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So, it is not a uniquely Nigerian problem, it is just that ours is the extreme form of political particularism in which our politicians take as their default mode of operation to subvert critical national interests in pursuit of parochial selfish agenda.
Just like pigging out on the meat of bleached whale often come with the risk of botulism Type E outbreaks, and high metal toxicity, our country has paid a huge price from our tendency to treat it as a bleached whale where everyone takes as much as they could at the expense of everyone else and at the expense of our national interest. Our extreme form of political particularism, of putting tribal parochial interest above national is the root cause of our leadership failure, the stagnation of our economy, the failure of our institutions, and the endemic corruption that has stymied our national development and pauperized our citizens. It explains why a particular region or country has cornered for itself a disproportionate number of nation’s oil well licenses and why our presidential elections have become a do or die contest for tribal hegemonic domination.
It is the reason that our country after 64 years of independence does not have a reliable census of its population and other critical national data for rational development planning.
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Given our history, it will take all of the political capital the president can expend to push the proposed tax bill over the line against the massive force that has been arrayed against it.
Adewale Alonge, PhD, is Founder & President, Africa Diaspora Partnership for Empowerment and Development. www.adped.org
