One of the highpoints of the ongoing screening of President Muhammadu Buhari’s ministers-designate was the stellar performance of the Ogun State export to Nigeria on the list. True to character, she did not disappoint, thereby following in the footsteps of the likes of Akinwunmi Adesina (of elevated status as president of the African Development Bank) and Olikoye Ransome-Kuti (of blessed memory). And this is without saying the many others have not done exceedingly well for our country.
Kemi Adeosun, immediate past commissioner for finance in the Gateway State, depending on who watched her deliveries and deliverables while being screened for confirmation by the Senate, obviously gave a lecture at the hallowed red chamber of the National Assembly. Not necessarily because she was trained as a chartered accountant in London and Wales, but because she is gifted – a mixture of brain, beauty and boldness.
What we gave, which we are still giving Nigeria, as one of our finest inputs to drive the new change process in the country is a twin sister of what the State of Osun is also offering in the person of the renowned Isaac Adewole, professor of Obstetrics and Gynaecology and immediate past vice-chancellor of the University of Ibadan.
Scoring first again, as normally is the case with Ogun State, Adeosun told her edgy audience how her state, my state, pioneered the “Treasury Single Account” under the governorship of the incumbent, Ibikunle Amosun. According to her, over 500 government accounts, some of which were dormant, were streamlined into one TSA, obviously to block leakages and free money for human capacity development and infrastructural uplift of the state in the “Mission To Rebuild” efforts. She volunteered that a good chunk of money was saved for the state following from the financial ingenuity of the government. I remember that late 2013, when a staff of Intermedia Communications was to use the field of a government-owned secondary school at the Onikolobo axis of Abeokuta, the state capital, payment was done into this account thereby blocking one of the principals’ means of augmenting their pay and maintaining their families.
As an aftermath of the introduction of the TSA, the state turned into a construction site of sorts. Indigenes and residents marvelled at the speed of completion of the expanded Totoro-Sokori-Ibara road, the first fully covered less-than-five-minute walk, fully air-conditioned and gated pedestrian overhead in Nigeria, which, according to the governor, cost N267 million!
The TSA, according to financial experts spoken to across board, is meant to ensure financial discipline on the part of its managers, that is, government, and give value for money to the taxpayers. But when one considers the building of an air-conditioned pedestrian bridge with entry and exit gates, and covertly covered, cutting the site of a residential building, I need no expert opinion to decipher the sheer waste the introduction of the TSA has turned to be, at least in my state.
I am compelled to take this position considering the fact that Lagos, with the stupendous purse at her disposal under Governors Bola Ahmed and Babatunde Fashola, never built a semi-detached complex and wanted the people to applaud them. What is seen in Lagos are simple “carry me across” ungated and non-air-conditioned pedestrian bridges.
Most of the roads which should be the posters of the adoption of the TSA in the state had been abandoned for various numbers of months even before the inauguration of the governor for second term. Idi-Aba to OGTV road, a continuation of the Iyana-Mortuary road expansion is a pitiable spectacle; Saje-Elega road, I can confirm, is only motorable to “Ota Aje” car owners; Totoro-Ogbe-Ijeja inner road all within Abeokuta metropolis are bad, to say the least.
A government that did not segregate where federal citizens ply from where state residents ply during electioneering will be quick to categorise Ilaro-Papalanto; Owode-Ilaro; Ado-Odo-Owode, Lusada-At-an, through Agbara and most of the roads in Ota, incidentally the industrial hub of the state, as Agbara is, as federal roads when frustrated users of the ‘facilities’ beg government to use their monies for them by fixing the roads. The position of the residents of this area, which I religiously share, derives from the logic that any state which can afford an air-conditioned less-than-five-minute walk pedestrian overhead should be able to, at least, provide palliative which can allow the roads to be passable to reflate the wobbling and crawling economy.
So, is the building of model schools for close to four years going to count as a plus for the TSA or a minus? Where on earth are old, once-efficient and able-to-expand schools left unattended just because new ones are being built? One has seen models in APC or is it ACN’s Edo and Lagos State, ditto for PDP’s Gombe and Ondo States where old schools have been brought back afresh and alive, so this is not about party but simple economic sense of financial accountability.
The WAEC, NECO results and other indices of development are there to show that the much-touted advantage of embracing the TSA in Ogun State are not there, except on the profile and economic fortunes of the privileged few – yes, very insignificant few, whereas government is supposed to be for the benefit of the greatest number of the masses, and the vulnerable.
Could the brain behind Ogun TSA tell Nigerians how the account has impacted on tertiary institutions like Olabisi Onabanjo, Tai Solarin University of Education, the State College of Education and the four ICT-driven polytechnics as well as the Moshood Abiola Polytechnic, Abeokuta, for instance? And significantly, how primary schools have benefitted from its adoption when, for close to two years now, contractors handling renovations and new constructions of primary schools across the state have not been paid.
In embracing the TSA by the Federal Government, one hopes one or two lessons would be learnt on how not to use resources from the advantages the single accounts should effortlessly confer on the nation to the detriment of the citizenry. Yes, the TSA is advantageous if the motive is to develop the nation, but is the motive always altruistic, as had been seen in the Ogun State model?
Segun Adeleye
