While
most Nigerians tend to blame the Federal Government for everything that is
wrong with the country, state governors, local government chairmen and
representatives at various levels, who should majorly be held responsible for
most of the decay in states and communities, ironically, are left off the
searchlight.
This
was the case during President Goodluck Jonathan’s time in office, where state
governors, who never defaulted in the constant trips to Abuja for their monthly
allocations, busied themselves blaming, and actually in some instances,
instigating their people to heap all the blames for leadership failure on the
Federal Government. That also is the case today.
In
other words, while the people are busy directing their anger at the Federal
Government for even such things as non-payment of primary school teachers’
salaries, for instance, leaders at state and local government levels freely
carry on, with reckless abandon, the looting of the commonwealth. They become
lords unto themselves and over the people that elected them to serve. Indeed,
what we have in most states are emperors, who are lords unto themselves and
over the people that elected them to serve.
And
because things aren’t usually very normal in Nigeria, it doesn’t come as a
surprise when wife of a local government chairman goes about blasting sirens
and terrorizing the community, just like her husband.
In
major cities like Lagos actually, where heavy vehicular traffic is usually the
order of the day, you must find how to give way to these politicians and their
escorts if you unfortunately find yourself on the road same time with them. God
help you if you’re unable to do so.
Governor
Tanko Al Makura of Nasarawa State was once reported to have watched from his
car while policemen on his convoy known in local circles as “Kill and Go” for
their ruthless methods, descended on a car driven by a young lady for allegedly
standing on the way of his convoy. They used the nozzle of their rifles to
dent, perforate and scratch the body of her car, before dragging out her brother,
beating him to a pulp.
The
governor actually told the lady he described as a prostitute to simply ‘go to
hell’ when she appealed for his intervention in the pouncing of her brother by
his men.
Abia
State House of Assembly Speaker, Chikwendu Kalu, in June this year, reportedly
ordered some policemen in the state to shoot at officers of the Federal Road
Safety Corps (FRSC) on patrol. Reason? They stopped the Sport Utility Vehicle
his wife was travelling in along the Umuikaa/Aba-Port Harcourt Expressway.
In
fact, the speaker’s wife was said to have joined the policemen to beat the hell
out of the FRSC officers.
While
T.A Orji a.k.a Ochendo Global, held sway as governor of Abia, his son, Chinedu
Orji a.k.a Ikuku, who was relatively said to be de facto governor, usually
moved about in very long convoy of vehicles, wielding tremendous political
power.
He
was in the habit of forcefully dispersing shoppers from wherever he was
shopping in the state, until the day he, along with his aides, descended on a
Lieutenant Colonel that refused to be so intimidated.
The
army officer, not in military uniform at the time of the incident, was already in the shop before Ikuku came
ordering every other shopper out. He ignored his order and was subsequently pounced
upon by the Ikuku squad.
Interestingly,
that incident landed the sitting governor’s son in a foreign hospital, paid
for, of course, with tax payers’ money, as he was later beaten black and blue
by colleagues of the officers that swiftly responded to his phone call.
All
over the country, similar cases of intimidation and harassment by members of
the ruling class, their families and cronies against the people they swore to
protect, abound. They are not only denied their basic rights, impoverished to
the extent they hardly ask questions about their commonwealth, they are also
owed salaries for their work in upward of six months.
Despite
collecting bail-out funds and Paris Club refunds, which all the state governors
have been collecting in present dispensation, Benue State Government, among
others, has not paid salaries, pensions and gratuities, resulting in squalor or
even death.
Which
brings me back to Abia, where Gov Okezie Ikpeazu is yet to reconstitute his
cabinet, months after he dissolved it. But that is not the issue, after all,
this is nowhere near the record already set by Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola of Osun
state.
What
is totally unbelievable is allegation that even when Okezie had his cabinet
intact, there was hardly any commissioner with a subvention. They were all said
to be staved of funds, even when they duly signed for the money.
And
the question is: What happened to the subventions duly signed for by the
commissioners?
The
answer may well be located in the same place, way and manner most governors are
said to handle local councils’ allocations in their respective states.
Source: reubenabati.com.ng
