White elephant projects

Also published in Daily Trust

The mere sight of many resource-consuming white elephant projects in towns and cities across Nigeria provokes huge frustration, in view of the sheer amounts of public funds effectively wasted therein, as the projects don’t add any value to the economy, and aren’t likely to do so in the foreseeable future, either. Unfortunately, this trend persists anyway despite the acute scarcity of funds experienced at all levels of government in the country.

While many of such projects are completed, albeit still unutilized or grossly underutilized, many others initiated several years ago are still purportedly under construction, or rather, have been simply abandoned halfway and at the mercy of the succeeding holders of the public offices concerned, who may not necessarily bother to complete them, after all, since they equally have their own plans for similar white elephant projects. 

Obviously, the public office holders who embark on such white elephant projects are motivated by the sheer desire to impress the public and consequently gain unearned political points, knowing that the vast majority of Nigerians hardly bother to explore the economic viability of government projects and their prospects for appropriate revenue generation. Moreover, such projects, the costs of which are often disproportionately inflated, represent some of the many pretexts under which public office holders quietly and conveniently steal public funds and get away with it. 

This explains their apparent eagerness to embark upon such projects in a blatant disregard for the urgent need for economically viable projects and/or public services in their respective constituencies or areas under their respective service jurisdictions.

When the trend of airport construction by state governors emerged, for instance, it was obvious that none of the state governors in question was guided, in that regard, by any exhaustive feasibility studies. Many experts and some other Nigerians also criticized the governors’ decisions to embark on such projects, warning that they would simply end up as white elephant projects. The state governors, nevertheless, ignored the warnings and went ahead to spend huge amounts of public funds in the construction of such airports.

As predicted, now years after their purported commissioning, and when they are supposed to have been fully functioning and generating revenues by handling an increasing number of regular local and, perhaps, international passenger and cargo flights, the airports remain unutilized except for the chartered flights and private jets that land occasionally.

The condition of so-called Dutse International Airport in Jigawa state, for instance, is a typical instance of this disappointing scenario. Jigawa state, by the way, is one of the poorest states in the federation, if not actually the poorest. Beside, apart from the staggering billions of naira spent, or rather, wasted in its construction, and which could have been invested in the provision of economically viable infrastructure to alleviate the unbearable poverty ravaging the ordinary people of the state, the airport’s close proximity (less than 100 kilometers) to Mallam Aminu Kano International Airport (MAKIA), makes it particularly unnecessary.

After all, even the MAKIA itself, which is the first airport in Nigeria, has, over the last few decades, lost its glory, as many international airlines successively cancelled their operations there, due to persistent fall in passenger traffic, as a result of Kanawa’s failure to catch up with modernity in terms of doing business, which cost them, and indeed the state, its commercial attractiveness and competitiveness. Now, with only a handful of international and local airlines still operating there, the MAKIA has been, unfortunately, reduced to a shadow of its former self, as it now looks more like a glorified airstrip than an international airport. 

Anyway, in addition to physical structures, there are also many equally resource-consuming initiatives and schemes through which public funds are wasted and/or stolen. For example, unnecessary provision of expensive scholarships to people in order study or specialize in fields that aren’t immediately needed in public service, is another unfortunate trend nowadays through which public resources are squandered. 

In this regard, for instance, when the previous Kano state administration of governor Rabi’u Musa Kwankwaso decided to sponsor some one hundred students to undergo an 18-month professional pilot training course at the Mid-East Aviation Academy, Amman, Jordan, at the cost of $6.7 million,no government official appeared to have wondered how and where the state government would utilize their expertise after their graduation, in the absence of any state-owned airline company. As a matter of fact, no government official appeared to have wondered how they would secure employment in the country’s airline industry where there already hundreds of unemployed pilots unable to find jobs.

By the way, in a recent investigation by Daily Trust, some of such observations were raised. The investigation also found that there are already about 600 qualified but unemployed pilots in the country. It also reported that about 80 of them have come back to the country following their graduation; however those lucky among them have been employed by the state government as regular civil servants, some of whom as classroom teachers.

In the same vein, former governor Kwankwaso also sponsored some twenty five Kano students for a four-year course in Marine Engineering, in the United States of America and India at the staggering cost of $80 million per annum, (i.e. $320 million for the total four years) according to Baba Dantiye, the Director of Press to governor Kwankwaso. Obviously, apart from the fact that this amount is ridiculously inflated by more than 90%, Kano as a geographically landlocked state doesn’t have any suitable job opportunities for the students when they graduate.

It’s high time these acts of squandering and blatant thefts of public funds stopped. Nigerians shouldn’t count on local, state and federal legislative councils anymore, to determine the economic viability of proposed projects, initiatives or schemes. Instead, there should be alternative means to do so, and the media has a particularly important role to play in this regard.