The staff screening/ verification exercise and probe of some former Governors by the administration of Governor Yahaya Bello of Kogi State may be a wild goose chase
The Kogi State Government has brought its nearly one year old Staff Screening and Verification exercise into a hiatus. Recently, Governor Yahaya Bello led government came up with two broad lists namely cleared and uncleared lists. Those on the cleared list heaved a sigh of relieve as they are said to be the one recognized as genuine civil servants, spotless and without blemish. For those on the uncleared list it was sorrows, tears and fears as they are believed to be ghost workers which the government is determined to give final burial and bar permanently from activities exclusive to the living, notably being on the pay role of government. But trouble is, the said uncleared list also contain many names among the living.
One of such is Olu Onietan, a retired teacher who said he was last paid his meager pension in December 2015. The offense listed against his name is that he has been receiving over payment as a pensioner and should come and refund same. For many of the people on the uncleared list, their problem is summarized as “unsually high cash flow in salary account that cannot be explained…” Others are accused of discrepancies in Dates of Birth, DOB, falsification of academic records/ certificates, lack of Bank Verification Number, BVN and underage employment.
The result of the exercise has been long overdue. On Friday 23rd Dec. the Screening Review and Complaint Committee headed by the State auditor General Yakubu Yusufu Okala presented its report to the Governor without fun-fare, in fact almost in camera as it lacked the razzmatazz and the propaganda of the previous exercise which was given live coverage on national television. During the unadvertised presentation according to figures released by Madam Petra Akinti, the committee told the governor it has cleared 43,522 workers out of a total 76,275 that appeared before it. According to the report, uncleared workers as at December 1, were 32,753 across the state.
Although the govt has said repeatedly in the past that the exercise was to bring sanity and efficiency into the civil service without witch hunting anybody, the final outcome has thrown many families into fear and agony. This first year anniversary gift to the workers may have further plummeted whatever is left of the Yayah Bello led administration’s approval rating.
Mid January, both academic and non academic staff of tertiary institutions owned by the state took to the streets to protest the irregular, lopsided and haphazard payment of salaries which have been the flagship of the Bello leadership. The workers gathered at Kogi State Polytechnic and called on Bello to suspend the mass sack of their members which the screening portends and pay their arrears of salaries ranging variously from one, three, six, eight and twelve months depending on the peculiarity of each case, failure which they threatened to embark on industrial action. As at the time of this report, the workers are on “warning strike” in the state Polytechnic, University and Colleges of Education.
Senior citizens have particularly been bearing the brunt of the Bello government. Most of them have not been paid their monthly stipends since the Governor came to office last year January and undenied reports say Bello had complained about the number of retirees in the state. In fact, the traumatized and helpless pensioners rose from an emergency meeting last week where they handed Bello a 14- ultimatum to pay their gratuities and pension arrears of between three to thirteen months or witness their wrath. That is not all. Staff of some Local Governments went on sporadic demonstrations across the state as they were seriously affected by the report. For instance out of 703 staff of Mopamuro LG, only 199 are said to be cleared leaving 604 others hanging in the balance and living in the wilderness of ennui. Out of about 300 education staff, only 77 were cleared and more than 90 pensioners are on the uncleared list in the Local Government. The situation is not different in other local governments.
Members of the State House of Assembly last week stepped into the matter. Member representing Igalamela Odolu Elder Friday Sani called attention of his colleagues to the issue in a motion he brought under matter of urgent public importance. The House gave the Screening committee a 24-hour ultimatum to bring its controversial report to the House. That request is yet to be granted, as at the time of this report. It is not clear what further steps the Lawmakers may take to enforce compliance.
On 27th January when he was inaugurated without a Deputy, Gov.Bello did not leave any one in doubts about his desire to sanitise governance in the State. “To enforce our commitment to accountability.,” he started “the incoming administration will employ technology and a multilayered system of checks and balances to block all leakages in our financial processes and improve our wealth creation and retention capabilities…we will run this blueprint along with civil service reforms to change the orientation of our workers and improve their productivity”
Given the advantage of his young age, not a few people believed the Governor would hit the ground running. They were not disappointed. Within weeks of assuming power, Bello began to give flesh to the skeletons of his earlier remarks about checking the financial books of the State. The first step was taken on Monday, Feb 22nd when he inaugurated a Staff Screening and Verification Committee. It was headed by a retired army General, Paul Olushola Okuntimo of the infamous military joint task force in Ogoniland in the 1990s when the late despot, Sani Abacha held the country by the jugular.
The Okuntimo committee’s mandate was to screen out ghost workers from government pay rolls in the State. From that inauguration till date, the Committee has bent round many corners and even given birth to other amorphous committees, but its main mandate has been left largely unfulfilled.
Once it was inaugurated, the Okuntimo Committee went about its assignment with military high handedness. Soon allegations of indiscipline, fraud and inordinate mass sack made the rounds against it. Labour became apprehensive and demanded for its sack.
Thus, in order to salvage his intentions of repositioning the civil service, Bello sacrificed Okuntimo and replaced him with Dr. Jerry Agbaji, a nominee of the NLC state chairman Com. Johnson Onu Edoka. On Tuesday, 24th June, Bello inaugurated a back up committee headed by Okala, the State Auditor General, to work with the existing committee.
Things were on the fast lane. On Wednesday June 22nd when Agbaji submitted its report, it was marred beyond redemption. So bad was the report that out of its 29 members, 12 who represented NLC affiliate unions declined to append their signatures. Okala in a remark said the field work of the Agbaji group was excellent, but it’s desk work was “marred by substantial fraud and high level of irregularities.”
Enraged by the shoddy job, Bello immediately disbanded it and upgraded the back up committee to assume responsibilities for full fledged Staff Screening and Verifications.The reformed committee submitted its report on 26th July. The presentation was celebrated as a major achievement and covered live on national television.
The committee gave a detailed presentation of its findings. It disclosed that out of the 88,973 people it screened at the State and local governments, 18,211 were classified as ghost workers and unintended beneficiaries. It announced a monthly saving of 1.3 billion for the state from the exercise.
The Governor was impressed, but not done. The genuine workers who were affected by the screening cried blue murder. Subsequently on 8th August, Bello inaugurated a 23-member review committee, headed by Okala. Although the review committee was given six weeks to tidy up and submit its work, it has already spent about five months before Bello smelled its submissions last week.
Worse still the Governor received knocks for the level of inconvenience, discomfort and occasional deaths that attended its operations. For example, workers and pensioners from the 21 Local Governments were forced to come to Lokoja for screening. In the course of the migrations, many of them were robbed while others were involved in accidents that killed them.
That is not all. It was a common sight to find senior citizens enduring hunger and extremely poor conditions around the Government House just to be screened by the almighty review committee. Worse still, many of the civil servants and retirees were clamped in police cells for inabilities to explain certain discrepancies in their official records. Once apprehended, a detainee could only regain freedom after payment of N20,000 bail fine.
But Bello is not one to fraternise with idleness. While the Screening Committee was going through its various character changing, another committee crept into the stage. On Friday 4th October, Bello inaugurated a Judicial Commission of Inquiry to probe past administrations in the State from May 29th 2003 to January 27th 2012. The Commission has retired Justice Wada Umar Rano as Chairman with Ajimono Ipemida serving as secretary. Other members of the Commission include Dr Mohammed Aboki, Bar. Ameh Franklin Adejoh, Prof (Mrs) Angela Okatahi, Chief Ajewole J.O., Mrs Fatima Ojochenemi Audu, while Justice Daudu JB is to serve as counsel to the Commission.
Governor Bello while inaugurating the commission emphasized that the measure was not aimed at witch hunting anybody but to ensure that stolen funds are recovered and used for the development of the state. “The Panel is not just to find what went wrong and recover what is missing or stolen but to assist us in fashioning institutionalised means of preventing recurrence. We want to inculcate a tradition of preventing theft, not chasing thieves”, he said.
He lamented that Kogi state still ranks low on the global development map after 25 years of its existence due to corruption and mismanagement of public funds by past leaders, noting that his government is determined to put the state on the path of strong economic footing.
The time frame of the probe, covers the administrations of Alhaji Ibrahim Idris who ruled the state from May 2003 to January 2012 and that of Capt. Idris Wada, January 2012 to January 2016. They were both members of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP. The party has kicked, describing the probe as a persecution of its members. In a statement by its state publicity secretary, Bode Ogunmola, the party described the move as classical shadow boxing and political vindictiveness.
PDP accused Bello of singling out its members for probe even when they were not the only people who have governed the state from inception. “If his motives are pure and in the public interest, why did he not start the probe from 1999, when democracy returned to the country or better still from 1991 when the State was created?”
A social cultural group Igala Vanguard claimed the two exercises are ethnic cleansing against the Igala nation. In a public letter it addressed to the Ohinoyi of Ebiraland HRH Ado Ibrahim on the issue and signed by Engr. Lawrence Akpa, it’s Convener and Pa. Ibrahim Odaudu, it’s secretary, the group argued that “in clear terms, the probe is targeted at the administrations of former Governor Idris Ibrahim who recorded unprecedented achievements during his Nine years tenure in the State and his successor and immediate past Governor, Capt. Idris Ichalla Wada. Incidentally the two men are Igala leaders. We see this as a direct attack on the Igala nation and sensibilities of our race.”.
The group said it is not against the fight against corruption and the need to bring sanity to the conduct of Government business where the motifs are altruistic. “But we have unassailable evidences that the proposed probe is intended to rubbish the hard earned reputation of these statesmen. We have heard on good authority that the script Governor Bello is rehearsing is targeted at rubbishing Igala leaders.” The group called on the respected traditional ruler to prevail on Bello not to go ahead with the probe.
A former Senator and retired General Tunde Ogbeha described the probe as self distraction. He wondered why the government was looking back instead of focusing on its programs for the future. Ogbeha advised the Governor to implement programs that will touch on the grassroots rather than dissipate energy on what happened in the past.
Kingsley Fanwo, the Governor’s Director General on Media and Publicity however accused Ogbeha of being a beneficiary of the wrath of the past. He urged the former senator to join his boss in fashioning initiatives that will bring about development to the State rather than being a arm chair critic.
The panel’s inauguration has witnessed so much arguments. Instructively however, the panel which was given three months to conclude it’s work, has already exhausted the time frame with its terms of reference fresh and largely undone. Although it managed to hold one or two apart from its inaugural seating, it has been unable to attend to memorandum from members of the public and failed to make any of the past public servants it is probing to appear before it.
In fact, there are real fears the screening and the probe excercises nay not achieve the anticipated results. “I am tired of this up and down. Screaming today screening tomorrow without end. For how long shall we continue In this mess?” Pa Ogunmefun a retiree from Ijumu Local Government who came to Lokoja for screening told TheNews.
He is just one among many who condemned the long duration of the exercise and its shoddy outcome.
Others also criticized government decision to retain Okala who chaired the screening committee as head of the review panel. “Asking Okala to head the complaint panel is tantamount to asking him to review his own work. I will be surprised if the review work can achieve good results. This screening may not come to an end soon. Government is just buying time with it.” Edwin Okpanachi told this medium.
In the meantime, workers and pensioners continue to bear the pains of irregular payment of salaries and other social dislocations across the State. The government has succeeded in creating disparities among the workers. Whereas the lucky ones are owed only three months, More of the workers and pensioners have been without payment for upwards of thirteen months. The perilous situation has forced most families to live on the edge. With non payment of salaries, starvation has been on the increase and easily avoidable deaths have become rampant.
Idris Asiru, the State Finance Commissioner however gave assurance that epileptic salary payment will soon be a thing of the past. At a recent event in Mopamuro Local Government he opined that the screening will soon be concluded and timely payment of salaries and other emoluments restored.
Fanwo in a discussion with this magazine also reiterated that the probe and screening exercises are not targeted at anybody, but purely in the public good. He gave assurance that government will see the initiatives to conclusion and not abandon them midway as being feared. “Those who have not stolen or mismanaged public funds have nothing to fear. Genuine civil servants will also not be affected in any way. Contractors who have been faithful in the execution of their contracts can also go to sleep. The initiatives are meant to recover public funds in wrong hands and to block all leakages through which our monies are mismanaged.”
Will the policies achieve their stated objectives? Only time will tell.
Credits: Richard Elesho | TheNews
