One of the issues Governor Bello faced head on after he was sworn-in as the governor of Kogi State was the hydra headed monster of wagebill corruption which manifested in the forms of ghost workers, payroll racketeering, civil service nepotism. Apart from the fact that the system as operated was not sustainable, the injustice inherent in it was simply mind boggling. By the time Governor Bello set up a screening committee to audit both financial and human assets of the Kogi State civil service as one of the thematic areas of the New Direction Blueprint, civil servants in the state rejoiced. A Daniel had come to justice, they said. However, no sooner had it began than the system which was meant to be purged fought back. The process was sabotaged many times necessitating an unnecessary prolonging of an exercise that ordinarily shouldn’t have taken more than 6 months at the maximum.
It was a most painful exercise. An exercise which was greeted which so much optimism became a thorn in the flesh of the administration. Costing the government money and more importantly, goodwill. The people who were once enamored by their intelligent, humane, urbane and charming young governor began to view him as a dictator who had no human feeling.
Little did they know that he agonized endlessly about the state of affairs in the state and how it was most incumbent on us to fix Kogi State for posterity through sanitizing all sectors which had been immersed so deeply in rot so much so they became synonymous with corruption and decay. The civil service with all its embedded mosters was one of such sectors and the security sector was another. He took both head-on, simultaneously. And in the process stepped on toes which had been revered since the creation of the state. What began as a sanitation process turned into a full blown war for the soul of Kogi State.
The average Nigerian public hospital is a place where you see two categories of people who care very deeply about a sick person and want the best for him/her go at each other because the situation is precarious and resources to salvage it is almost nonexistent. On the one hand is the medical team frustrated about the work environment yet must do their best to save lives and on the other end is the group of concerned folks whose loved ones is in the care of the medical team who the latter group think is not doing enough. Rather than work together to snatch the life of the patient from the jaw of death, they almost become enemies! When in actual fact they both really, deeply care and want the same for the patient who is their common interest.
So was it with the Kogi State Civil Service Reforms. Once we got a phase right and thought we were moving on to the next, something happened to the phase we just wrapped up. Before long, the tool of blackmail which it had become in the hands of those who felt they owned the state gained sympathizers from casual spectators home and abroad. Yahaya Bello was cast in the mound of an incompetent, heartless, proud leader whose only capability was in unleashing hardship on the people he had been divinely chosen to lead!
Yet nothing could be further from the truth.
With screening over and the digitization of register successfully done, it came time to consolidate on the gains made in the reforms.
As saboteurs continued to wage their war to sabotage the reform, His Excellency, Governor Bello came up with the idea of ‘Table Payment’ whereby workers and pensioners physically showed up to get presigned cheques for payments of arrears in a manner which didn’t encumber the civil servants.
As different bodies – from the Trade Union Congress to the Nigeria Medical Association – continue to commend the hitch free exercise, my mind travelled back to the beginning of the struggle to sanitize the Kogi State Civil Service and reform it for efficiency, productivity and optimal value addition to the system and I am convinced that His Excellency would experience a sense of satisfaction that he didn’t cave in even when the whole world seemed against him in his determination to reform a system which was proving hellbent on being “unreformable”. The war has ended. In the end, whilst the gains are yet manifesting, Kogi State is the winner.
I read somewhere that a leader is he who doesn’t shy away from taking difficult decisions however painful they may be. Indeed, Governor Yahaya Bello, is a leader for the times, repositioning Kogi for greatness. Posterity will be kind to him.
– Petra Akinti Onyegbule
Chief Press Secretary to Kogi State Governor
