Governors as Oliver Twist
Last Tuesday, a delegation of the 36 state governors on the platform of Nigerian Governors’ Forum, led by Abdul-Aziz Yari, Zamfara State governor and chairman of the Forum, met with President Muhammadu Buhari to demand for release of more Paris Club refund to them.
At the meeting, Yari told the President that they appreciated the financial support he had given them ranging from bailout, restructuring of their debts to London-Paris Club exit payment.
Controversy has continued to trail the use of the huge amounts of money that has been accessed by state governments. Some state governors are being accused of cornering a large portion of the money for their individual projects. The Federal Government is aware of the diversion.
Yari began with sweet talk; lavishing the President with encomiums. “…We want to crave your indulgence so that we can factor the numbers in our 2018 budget so that we can use it for projects and other recurrent spending, according to the specification given by our respective Houses of Assembly, and that’s why we are here.”
The request was couched in an alluring way that the President must be ensnared. They talked about projects as if they were speaking to aliens who did not know what they do with public funds. What manner of projects? How many states boast of good and viable projects or is it not the white elephant projects that dot the landscape in many states, through which they siphon money?
Recall that early in the life of the current administration, the Federal Government released what it termed a bailout fund to the states. In December 2016, the first tranche of the Parish Club refund was also shared among the states; they also received a second tranche in July this year. With all these interventions, many states are still grappling with non-payment of workers’ salaries leading to endless industrial action and protests.
On the day the governors visited to beg for more money, the President lamented that the Federal Government’s intervention had not helped as workers are still crying and suffering all over the place.
Today, there are allegations that some state governors bought houses with part of the money and engaged in other mundane extravagancies. It is sad that these monies have not been able to take care of the workers and pensioners in some states. The more the money is released, the more protests are staged by angry workers. The President lamented the inability of the bailout fund, the Paris Club refund and other interventionist efforts by the Federal Government to positively impact the lives of workers in the states.
Now that they have gone to ambush Buhari again, more money is as good as released albeit to the celebration of the governors and lamentation of the long-suffering masses of the states. Mindless!
Read Also: FG is working hard to reverse current economic decline, says Finance Minister
Rebuilding the ruins
The People’s Democratic Party (PDP), a onetime largest single party in Africa, is trying to pick its pieces. The party held the levers of power for 16 straight years, but when it lost its innocence, it died a natural death. Given the calibre of men and women that were in PDP and the deep pockets in terms of financial wealth, it was inconceivable that by now the party would be a laughing stock. Just like a film, the party died. In 2015, it paid a huge price for its pride. Today, the party is so dead that it cannot even speak to the ills in society, unlike the vibrancy exhibited by the APC when it was in opposition. It has so lost its voice and emasculated that the ruling party, with its excesses, is having a field day. The PDP may just be living in name; it has lost its soul. What is not clear is whether election of a new national chairman and other members of the national working committee (NWC) will deliver the umbrella association from the nadir of hopelessness it has sunken. It has been said again and again that PDP may not bounce back to power even though the APC has proven very disastrous. Observers say the best thing that would happen to the party is for it to change name. Those who canvass the name change say that the name “PDP” is now vibrating a negative aura. The atrocities of the party yesteryear are still fresh in the mind of many a Nigerian. The fortunes of the party is not getting brighter as big names have left, leaving and will also leave.
Nigerians lose confidence in govt
When a child sees his father and takes to his heels; it means something is wrong somewhere, particularly, when that father is trying to give the child something that is vital to his wellbeing. It is not natural for a man to give his son a serpent in place of fish. But when a child has any cause to believe that his father is giving him a suspicious offer, therefore, there is every reason for investigation. For the greater part of last week, parents in various parts of the country were in panic. Many of them rushed to their children’s schools and withdrew them from classrooms over rumoured vaccination that was meant to introduce some forms of deadly diseases into the children. It happened in the South East, the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), North Central; South-South and South West. Rumours had spread that certain people had perfected plans to carry out some fake inoculation, with the intent to inject dangerous disease-causing substances (Monkey pox) into the children. It is unfortunate that Nigeria is retrogressing rather than making progress in terms of building bridges and cementing the bonds of unity among the ethnic nationalities. Nigerians have become detached from one another and many are now living in mortal fear of the government of the day. Enmity is the order of the day. It is the government of the day that has fuelled this and has sown a terrible seed of discord among Nigerians. When citizens begin to doubt the protection from government, you know then that things have really gone out of hand. I think that the Federal Government must, and as a matter of urgency, do everything humanly possible to reassure the citizens that they are secure in the country.
Hunting the hunter?
These are perilous times indeed! The Police in a civil society are saddled with the protection of lives and property. By their training, policemen are supposed to ward off enemies. Before now, in the days when security was tight, robbers operated only at night and fled whenever they sighted the police. In those days, most robbers did not have big guns. Such sophisticated firm arms were exclusively seen with members of the armed forces. And the security agencies had the capacity to dispense brutality and brought criminals into subjection. Today, I can’t understand what is happening any longer. Recently, the Inspector-General of Police, Ibrahim Idris got pissed off, castigating his officers for being careless to the extent that they are now being kidnapped by street boys. The IG’s anger stemmed from a number of abductions of some policemen in the last few weeks. He challenged the Commissioners of Police at a meeting in Abuja to take the protection of their officers seriously.
“You allow the useless kidnappers to pick you and your orderly. It is very embarrassing…”, he said. What the development has shown is that no one is safe. It appears everyone appears to be on his/her own nowadays. There is fire on the mountain and there is no brother in this jungle!
Tears for Plateau State
For some time now, many indigenes of Plateau State have been in a mourning mood. Tears and loud lamentation have become the order of the day in a state that used to be calm. Last week, blood suckers visited the state and left anguish behind. What is baffling is the ease with which the murderers successfully carry out their heinous mission on the noses of soldiers drafted to the area to safeguard the people since there was curfew in the area. Since the massacre, indigenes and the soldiers have been embroiled in blame game over whose fault. Although the military has denied the allegation of complicity in the reported killing of 29 persons, including women and children in the Nkiedonwhro community, saying it was simply overwhelmed by the numerical strength and tactics of the attackers, a community leader in the area, Sunday Abdu, was quoted as saying that soldiers deployed in the community had a hand in the killings. This was also what transpired some months back when herdsmen were killing some people in Southern Kaduna. It is not possible to say that these Fulani herdsmen are more powerful than the government of the day, what may be lacking is the will to end the orgy of blood-letting by the powers that be. Too bad!
