Twelve days ago, I raised the alarm that there might be no Imo State after Rochas. My position was based on facts that he has shown gross unconcern for the people of the state. I said the government of Okorocha is preoccupied with edifice mentality, as if raising useless structures, buildings that may be pulled down by another Governor, is the real essence of governance.
If anyone is still in doubt about the Okorocha failure, let the fellow go through the 2017 budget presented to the state assembly on Friday by the Governor. My analysis of the budget will come in few days hence.
I have also said elsewhere that I am not excited about what the Governor does in Imo State. He has not found the path. He has not shown the way. We are still lost. All of us. We are still in search of credible leadership that will provide good governance for all of us.
On Wednesday, 14 December 2016, when I raised the alarm that Imo State might disappear after Rochas completes his tenure, I didn’t know I would find a kindred spirit. But I did find one, from unexpected quarter. I found a kindred spirit in the Senate in the person of The Common Sense Senator, Senator Ben Muray Bruce. Sen Bruce was responding angrily to the treatment meted to the gold winning falcons.
The girls had not been paid their due, leading to their protest at the national assembly, as a way of taking the matter to the lawmakers. The matter was obviously beyond the girls. And angered that the girls who sacrificed their all to get the country to international limelight by dint of their own hardwork and perseverance were abandoned and mistreated, whereas many of our bigmen sit idle daily in air-conditioned and fabulously furnished offices and earn unmerited mouthwatering and tempting pay at month end in the name of salaries, the lawmaker did not see any reason the girls would be subjected to undue inhuman treatment by their own government.
The Common Sense Senator told his colleagues that their children, including the children of other rich and wealthy Nigerians, would never become world champions. His colleagues did not grasp that very well. They murmured. He called them noise makers. He further lectured them that the children of the senators would go into science and technology and perhaps take over their father’s businesses and also join politics (to continue the suppression and oppression of the common man). He said that the children of the common man would challenge themselves and overcome the odds and go into sports, music and others, to become world champions and bring fame to the country.
He was not done. He went ahead to lampoon the APC led federal government for neglecting the people. He said the reason the girls were not taken care of was because there were no contracts to award by those manning our sports and other aspects of our national life. He said if there were contracts to award by the authorities they would have done that quickly because they would have to make some personal gains. Finally he hit hammer on the nail: the government cares only about structures and not the people.
It is not further from the truth if one says that the current Imo State government does not care about the people but structures alone. It is more worrisome when many of the said structures do not address any needs of the people, but looks like ways to fret away peoples common wealth. But when it comes to impacting on the people directly, the government is seen wanting. Let us take the case of the 27 general hospitals: while the government was quick to award contract for the buildings, it was also quick to shut down and “sell” the existing general hospitals he met on ground. Thus while the contract is running for new hospitals Imo people won’t have hospitals to run to, except private ones, and for those that can afford the cost.
When we were in secondary school, many students began nursing the idea of taking up careers in the civil service. This idea of a career in the civil service led many to make the choices of courses of study in the university. While in the university they nursed the hope that there would be openings in the civil service, as they said government was the largest employer. Is that still correct?
I had to ask some of my classmates in far back secondary school days in Lagos why they wanted to work for government – I have always wanted to be my own man. Some of the reasons they gave me were: (i) That government job came with job security. (ii) That government job guarantees your pay and that you can plan your life. (iii) That government job gives the opportunity to work for the society. (iv) That government job guarantees growth in terms of promotions. (v) That government job comes with gratuity upon retirement. (vi) That after working meritoriously for the government one would be taken care of by the government in terms of pensions, till he breathes his last.
These were compelling reasons, strong enough to push many into the civil service. But when these compelling factors are carelessly and wickedly taken away by the government, what would you expect? A dead system. In Imo State, nay Nigeria, today, once the government that employed you leaves office, please be prepared to pack your things and hope for possible prosecution, because you might just be another ghost worker. This has been a very vicious means of eliminating those employed by previous governments by successive governments, and thus opening up opportunities for their own kit and kins to be employed, in another process that would be destroyed by another man who would call those employed, ghost workers.
In a more bizarre situation, the pensioners are also eliminated under the ghost pensioners euphemism. These days, pensioners have organized themselves well under a union. Government targets those they cannot manipulate against their fellows and eliminate through the euphemism of ghost pensioners. Thus, those left are intimidated. And the Government wins. Where lies the joy of working for government? Where is the motivation?
This ugly situation has been the situation in Imo State. First, a government woke up one morning and sacked the entire 10,000 workers employed by his predecessor in the most transparent employment exercise ever in the state. He did not consider what would happen to those people whose monthly N450m salaries would have turned around the economy of the state. This is not about defending any past leader. It is about standing up for the truth. As imperfect as the Ohakim administration was, like other human endeavours, there are so many pleasant takeaways from it.
Moreover, those who have engaged me on the Ohakim government have only said he was bad mounted and arrogant, and not that he did not have the vision. But this is not about Ohakim or Rochas. It is about the people and what they gain from their government.
With the euphemism of the elimination process called ghost workers, local government workers were relentlessly vilified and sacked, especially those in the health sector. Worst hit were those working at the health centers. Of course, the development centers were scrapped and the workers went underground. The LGA elected officials were sacked. The state civil servants and board members were also sacked. It was a sack galore in one broadcast in June 2011. Since then the workers have seen nothing called promotion. Their allowances have all been withheld. The leave allowances gone with the wind. No promotion and its attendant reward. No nothing. Just stagnation. Then, no pay. Then pay slash of 60%, 70%, 80%. Then no pension. The pensioners continue to die. Then pensioners protest, some collapsing. Now pension cut of 40% and death sentence forcefully signed.
While this wickedness is going on, some of my friends in the government house taunt me, telling me that they don’t know from where the Governor gets the money to do the things (structures) he is doing.
They tell me the Governor has built 27 general hospitals, but what we have are uncompleted 27 halls. And it appears to me that once the government conceives of any idea it is already counted for them as achievement, even when such things remain in the realm of ideas, and even when public funds have been sunk into them without any service to show for it.
But when my friends try to tell me the story of what the government is doing and how they are in wonderment of how he is getting all the money, I tell them that the answer lies in the fact that the Governor does not care for the people but for projects. I have said severally that the Governor does those things just to hug the headlines and gain immediate applause. There is no planning for the people. There are only plans for the government. They government wants to be seen to be good government, no minding whether the people are alive or dead.
What explains the fact that the same Governor who claims there is no money, which are also official reasons for the incessant pay cuts in salaries and pension, would have money enough to build freedom square, Akachi, roundabouts; waste money building houses that are unoccupied, especially the 27 general hospitals that have been abandoned? The Okorocha led government gives the impression that why it goes on erecting structures is that it frets money away through those channels. It is giving the impression that it is using the twin weapons of poverty and hunger as a tool to keep the people down, so that none will have the effrontery to ask him questions.
Edifice mentality does not help any people. It is like a wealthy man who went on acquiring wealth and refusing to train his children. He might well acquire all and become very wealthy. But once he is no more, those wealth stand great risks. Imo should not be forced on this pedestal. Just two days ago, a friend from government house asked me whether I don’t see all the things the Governor is doing. I asked him a question: if you wake up one morning and find N10bn in your account and it is all yours, what would you do? He said he would first invest in real estate and agriculture and manufacturing. I asked why he would not buy cars or build houses, and he said he would buy cars only enough to help him do his business and take care of his family and build house to live in.
I asked him again: suppose you choose to spend the money buying cars and drinking and buying the best clothes and travelling and showing off? He said no. I explained to him that either way he would be spending money and but not doing the right things with both. That the man who spends his N10bn buying cars, building houses, buying clothes and travelling and showing off would gain immediate and quicker recognition, but the man whose money went into real estate and others would leave those things for his generations unborn.
Such is leadership. And we don’t have it in Imo State now.
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