For a state government that sees and treats the civil service as a burden rather than as Engine Room for Economic Growth and Development, hosting an Economic Summit while the civil servants wallow in severe hunger and abject poverty has further shown that common sense is lacking in Lugard House. The idea of convening an economic summit would have been a welcome development but the prevailing atmosphere in the state had already made the aims and objectives of the summit dead on arrival.
A sane government should understand that for the state to witness a sustainable economic growth a system of checks and balances coupled with an atmosphere of workers’ motivation and instilling the right mentality and culture of productivity is required. What makes the civil service of countries like USA, Canada and China so responsible, vibrant and productive is not because they are saints while Nigerians or Kogites are not but bcos there is LEADERSHIP and motivation. We all know there’s a rot in our civil service, but i don’t see how convening an economic summit while neglecting the welfare of workers by deliberately starving them to death will fix anything or lead to a significant economic performance.
Leadership is key to achieving economic growth and a vibrant and productive civil service, not some dumb economic summit. Have we ever wondered why the kind and level of commitment and productivity shown by workers in the private sector especially banks is not seen at the states or federal civil service? it’s because there’s no leadership at the states and federal government. Government killed the civil service just to make it easy to loot public Fund and millions of economic summits wouldn’t fix the rot, but a carefully thought out application of common sense which entails training and retraining, setting targets, frequent financial audits, workers’ motivation and leadership by example.
The civil service remains wha the leaders wants it to be, a redundant and unreproductive channel through which public funds can be siphoned. The civil service is a tool and an engine room for any sensible government to use effectively to attain economic growth and development. A case study is Lagos state that has turned its civil service into an asset to transform and turn around the economic fortune of that state.
What sense does it make to convene an economic summit when the civil service that will be the tool and engine room to achieve and implement the outcome of such a summit remains untrained, unmotivated and seen as a liability. Civil servants of other states have received their January salaries and already waiting for February alerts, Kogi civil servants are not sure yet whether they will receive a dime even in the next three months. We have a state government that would rather convene an economic summit than pay civil servants their January salaries and pensioners their allowances..
Sadly, what prevails in our dear state is we have a governor who deliberately surrounds himself with daft and dumb appointees who have nothing to benefit Kogi state than further ruin it. Governor Yahaya Bello has shown and proved beyond reasonable doubt that he isn’t only reckless in his utterances but also in financial management, how do one explain a government whose major achievement is the staged decamping rallies across the state when his contemporaries are doing things worthwhile. The fact that nothing tangible could be displayed even after receiving bailouts 1&2 and paris loan refunds 1&2, not even an up to date payment of salaries and allowance of pension, is a pointer to the fact that this administration has failed woefully, moreso that the present government has got nothing to show for its over two years stay in office other than the re-commissioning of projects and programs that were already completed and commissioned by the past administrations.
– Hussain Obaro writes from Lokoja, Kogi State
oseniobar@yahoo.com
