The declaration by the NLC Chairman, Ayuba Waba, on October 24th, 2017 that Nigerians should come to the aid of Kogi State workers because they were internally displaced following the non-payment of salaries, the death of Mr Edward Soje and the attendant donation of 1,260 bags by the Nigerian senators yesterday, October 25th, 2017 abused and disgraced our dignity and integrity before the world whichever way we look at it.
While some of people commended the donation as divine and timely, and went ahead to thank Dino Melaye for creating a fertile environment and the rest of the senators for the donation, the fact that all the workers will not get the rice eventually, but that the whole world has already heard and seen Kogi State as a hungry, poor and helpless state will reduce our social and territorial dignity.
With all due respect to our national lawmakers, and while we appreciate their kind gesture, what we need in Kogi State is far beyond a morsel of food. We need help in Kogi State and we need it in full. The help we need is not that of rice and beans. It is not out of place if our lawmakers sponsor students’ education from secondary to the university levels. We expect the Nigerian lawmakers to have helped the state in a manner that the people will benefit generally rather than their mere display of crude sense of political brute, a show of shame and of pride intended for public praises. How many states have the same problem of non-payment of salaries, and how many of these states are helped by the Senate? How many of these lawmakers came down to the state to ask why salaries were not paid? How many families will then benefit from their show of shame?
The donation, to them, was intended to disgrace the Governor and make the world to see him as incompetent, inhuman and corrupt. Our honourable lawmakers failed to realise the colossal and lasting damage they have caused the entire state. The governor is not the only citizen of the state, and every action directed at him for political victory is also directed at all the people in and from Kogi State – whether they live and work in Kogi State or are out of it. We reject this insult with all humility. Completely.
Kogi State has three senators: from the Central, East and West. How many of them are responsible to their constituencies? How many times had Senators from Kogi Central and Kogi East, especially ever complained or even taken time off their programmes to come to the state and ask why salaries were not paid if they feel there is a problem in the state and are concerned? Why were they so generous to donate bags of rice on the floor of the Senate because the entire nation would witness their showy philanthropic gesture and praise them? How many of them had tried to engage the Governor in a discussion on why things have not been working well? How many of the Kogi State or the Nigerian senators tried to see the widow of Mr Edward Soje whose death they are using today to start their 2019 political campaign?
While nobody celebrates the current difficulty in the state in particular and the country in generally, the non-payment of salaries and the attendant silence from government’s end on why it has been unable to pay gave the loophole through which every Tom, Dick and Harry is taking the state for granted. The need to address the people and let them know why they are not being paid and when they are likely going to be paid will do a lot of damage control. If we leave things as they are, we will continue to witness more debasing and deflating comments. It is not good for us as a people.
We beg those in Kogi State that are celebrating the rice donors to stop the celebration of shame and humiliation. Borno State is ravaged by insurgency, and the state has never been this denigrated, humiliated or mocked on the floor of the Senate as Kogi State was. Every well-meaning Kogite who knows what shame is should stop celebrating the degrading names we are being given in the name of bags of rice.
– Odih Daniel N.,
Lokoja, Kogi State.
odih4sure@gmail.com
