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An Open Letter To Governor Yahaya Adoza Bello In Commemoration Of His Two Years In Office Anniversary.
Your Misgivings Are Obviously Embarrassing And Too Inexcusable To Be Taken As Forgivable Mistakes No Matter How Long You Stay In Office.
Your excellency sir, with due respect I will like to bring you greetings and pleasantries as a matter of social and cultural practices, not a consent to it as a civic responsibility by the virtue of your office . Ordinarily, with my native sense of respect as a virtue and should I want to approach you in that regard, you are obviously just too unworthy of it because a man who has no respect for the feelings of thousands of persons upon whose collective existence he exercises an authority do not own a place in history, therefore, I am afraid of where then my encounter with you may be placed.
In few days time, precisely on the 27th of January ,2018, you will be marking your 2nd year in office anniversary as the 4th executive governor of Kogi state. I therefore wish to seize the opportunity of this sober reflecting occasion to once again write to you on what i think of your led government so far for 2 years having gotten to the mid-term of the first mandate that you were given by the People of Kogi state. However the circumstances surrounding your emergance sir , we can not deny the fact that you are occupying your present position through the consent of Kogi state people. Each time you have reason to take us down Memory Lane on how you started your journey, It gets me sober remembering the death of our own Prince of the Niger, Late Prince Abubakar Audu who aside having put in place several living legacies even after his demise but also made the sacrifice for the change of political party in charge of the affairs of Kogi state and therefore paved way for the emergence of your mandate as decreed by God Almighty. We pray he continue to rest in peace while we are optimistic that as a merciful God, His shortcomings will be forgiven.
This time your excellency, I shall majorly be getting concerned and writing to you about your score card in governance and politics for these past two years. I have chosen to convey this to you prior before the date of the anniversary because on that day, merriments and programmes lined up for the ceremony may likely not make you to have spare time to get bothered about giving audience to any correspondence even as you have promised us that the celebration this time around shall be on low Key through your clueless, misleading and heartless Director General of Media and Publicity, “Evangelist” Kingsley Fanwo who is a frontier of your mismanaged media public outreach that has dented your image and at one time or the other caused Kogi State obvious National Embarrassment.
Your excellency, the intention behind writing this letter is not to attack the personality of any individual through false stories because I am conscious of the power of Karma, but rather, my concern is to avoid keeping quiet while several abnormalities takes place in my own state as it will be a very big shame not to have explanations to give to the younger generations if eventually am challenged on my roles toward speaking out while all these were going on. I am not a politician at least at the moment neither am I an apologist of any politician. In fact, during the periods that I thought it wise to give you benefit of doubt with the hope that things will get better , I can vividly remember and have records of my publications where I tried to plead and enjoin the people of Kogi State to exercise patience with your government even in the face of sufferings. I applauded and felt relieved by your decision to reshuffle your cabinet by inter changing some of the serving commissioners in your cabinet among ministries and appointment of new ones to fill the vacant spaces of any of the appointees who eventually will get sacked by this ending January if found not productive to the realization of your not too clear, doubtful, uninteresting and unpopular agenda. So therefore, I hope when this gets to you if given chance, you will know and understand that my stand is of no political interest neither is it a product of hatred for you and your led government.
Let me also state categorically that, the need for this piece to be accommodated objectively is not a plead to you alone but also to the docile, intellectually starved and deceitful aides you have around helping to assume the responsibilities of your activities as designated to them by the virtue of the various positions that they hold.
Now, enough of explanatory analysis to avoid justification of any likely claim later that I am being sponsored by any one to paint your government bad if eventually as usual such comes up from any angle.
Your excellency, there are certain circumstances that surrounds the business of governance in every political settings be it a community, local government area, State or at most a Nation. Recognising these peculiarities will definitely lay a very good foundation for any serious minded and responsible government as it will help point out the needs of the masses with emphasis in preferential order. Your excellency, If I must be honest with you, I think in this area you failed and that is why even with your severally expressed good intention towards the people of Kogi State, everyday you seem to be compounding our problems as a state and then bringing embarrassment upon your self which is capable of blocking your chances in future National Politics. It is a common sense that before venturing into vying any position of authority, it is necessary or better put, mandatory for one to have an in depth knowledge of the responsibilities attached to such offices and as well have plans with which you intend to get things right if eventually entrusted with the mantle of leadership. With your obvious failure to put this into consideration, I must also tell you that has become obvious and it is really telling a lot of damages or set backs in our collective existence and journey towards a prosperous economic status as a state. You wouldn’t deny the very fact that even if for a very long time you have felt bad about the hardship faced by the people of Kogi State before your coming on board , your candidacy at every stage was sudden, unorganised, desperational and thus was too confrontational. It is more of recognising and utilizing an opportunity to get on board, though this is not without destiny and will of God Almighty.
Sometimes ago however your excellency, I did stated that humanly speaking, it is too unfortunate that this is the part God Almighty has destined you to take charge of in the history of Kogi state considering the economic and political realities of things before, during and obviously most regrettably after your reign no matter how long you may stay in office. I am always careful when it comes to deciding what will become of you if eventually you finally choose to join the race to seek relection for the position of Kogi State Governor in 2019, this is because the ultimate choice of those who are chosen as leaders is of God Almighty especially as revealed in the circumstances surrounding your present mandate and several other occasions at different times in one place or the other. Frankly speaking, we can not bank on this to kick out the fact that the masses play great roles in deciding who leads them because even the will of God Almighty still manifest through human efforts and also that the voice of the people is the voice of God. Summarily in this regard, your eventual experience come 2019 is not what my concern is and that is why I always emphasis in saying that “no matter how long you stay in office ” because I know aside from the constitutional dictations on the number of terms one can serve as a state governor, I am also aware that nothing last forever not even the life that we all live.
First among the realistic economic pecularity of Kogi State is that, the major drive of our economy is the civil service. Kogi state has larger proportion of her citizens earning their income through salary payment as civil servants. The implication of this is that, the survival of every home in food provision and other bills of many are attended to by salary payment. Even private firms, market women and other organizations providing services for human comforts as a means of employment depends so heavily on the financial viability of civil servants.
In this regard, a people oriented and responsible government in Kogi should not for any reason play with or mishandle the payment of salary for whatever reason. Regrettably your excellency, not minding the Nationwide problem of non salary payment, the stage at which it is being experience in Kogi state is not only terrible but better put as horrible.
I reckon with your popular saying in your early days in office that your government shall not be a government that will be interested in paying salaries alone . But we never knew it was going to get to this level. I personally thought the pronouncement of that plan is banked on a workable or confirmed means of alternative in sourcing for funds to invest heavily in infrastructural development in the state. Again, your decision to launch or go into staff verification exercise was not a bad idea at all as it was obvious to quite a number of persons that there are group of persons who are on government pay roll and they are neither duly employed civil servants nor a committed to duty ones who even rarely have idea of the schedule of activities taking place in the very ministry they are fixed in at both the state and local government area levels. This decision was a laudable one but the turn out of events as I have always said has embarrasingly kept one at mute as to if we knew things will turn out this way, such decision should have been taken and executed by an administration spearheaded by people of deep knowledge in public administration and high level of intelligence in the area of approaching issues brilliantly through means that it will cause if unavoidable but very minimal pain and hardship on the masses.
Your excellency, if it might interest you to know sir, in the process of the screening or staff verification exercise, many lives were lost either through accidents, heart attacks, suicide, incapability of civil servants to take care of their hospital bills or purchase drugs for themselves or their relatives who they are by circumstances in charge of taking care of or handling their responsibilities, and further more your excellency, there are also cases where parents could not afford to pay the tuition fees of their wards and in most cases they were withdrawn, the highest chance of remedy in this aspect was the manged trust, respect and consideration given to some parents to write undertaking that they shall offset their debts at specific periods when things gets better financially.
The staff verification exercise If we must be truthful to ourselves actually helped to reveal a lot of rots and sharp practices in Kogi state civil service . But the question that we may not be able to answer is what will happen to those who lost their lives and those whose life plans were cut short by this situation making them to miss many life changing opportunities or open doors of fortunes probably, this question is akin to the question to the one you asked Kogi State University lecturers who were on strike during your maiden official visit to the school sometimes in July, 2017.
Your excellency sir, permit me to say that, government exist most primarily to help proffer solutions to our collective challenges as a people binded together by peculiar territorial identity, therefore, at all times, a responsible government must be careful enough not to allow it’s decision to have irredeemable effects on the masses regardless of the gains that the such decision will fetch us. I am not saying the staff verification exercise shouldn’t have been ventured into, and I am also not disputing the fact that there are hundreds of persons who are guilty of one offence or the other but out of shame can not confess the true status of their screening result and thus have resulted into chanting the anthem of no salary payment. But not minding this sir, we are aware of persons who by virtue of the screening exercise are cleared and authenticated as duly employed and valid civil servants in the state but are denied of their entitlements. This is where the concern lies.
As a people, we have not been able to conceive the thought of any possible reason why salary payment should be an issue in Kogi State considering the known release of funds of different kinds into the state. From the two trench of bail out funds courtesy of the magnanimity of President Muhammad Buhari in view of the peculiarity of the problem of salary payment in all the states of the federation. Soon later, to complement or augment this initial gesture, there were three phase of Paris Club Refund into the state. Monthly allocations which is of statutory right for every state from the Federation account is aware of and to cap it all, we are also aware of increase in our Internally Generated Revenue. At a time news also had it that a certain bill bond loan granted to Kogi State government by World Bank as applied by the Captain Idris Wada’s administration was released. This loan as we learnt was for the completion of the embarkment project going on at the old market/Kabawa vicinity to reduce or avoid future reoccurence of the heavy destruction of lives and properties caused by Flood, completion of the One Bedroom Flat estate which atleast was at 70% completion before the end of Captain Wads’s exit from office, as heard, the loan also was to be used to work on the abandoned Kogi Hotel Project opposite Kogi state government house.
A break from the above sir, a puzzling question that we have also not been able to answer is that, since the staff verification exercise lead to the withdrawal of many persons from the pay roll of government, shouldn’t it be a better avenue to have enough savings to enable prompt payment of salaries? I want to agree as most likely and as you have said severally that you met on ground debts of borrowing and loans, but it’s not just possible to have an excuse to why authenticated or valid civil servants in the state should be owed for many months ranging from 5, 8 and some for more than a year. To worsen this situation your excellency sir, I do not know if it was a miscalculated thought or fear of query that lead to your declaration on National Television while on a visit to President Mohammed Buhari that all salary arrears has been cleared in Kogi state, no one is owed a dime in Kogi State and that as a matter of fact you have to go as far as making a borrow of Ten Billion Naira to augment what was on ground to attend to the alleged cleared outstanding salaries . This is is not only embarrassing but I consider it an insult to the intelligence of all us as a people in Kogi State. For the benefit of doubt your excellency, let us assume that as it is always said, it is he who wear the shoe that knows where it pinches, if you feel there are complicated issues that is making it impossible for you to attend to your responsibilities, there will be nothing or decision wiser than to speak out to the masses in the language that they will understand and not fabricated lies and cosmetic presentations as usually done by your hungry and intellectually starved media handlers . One fact we can’t dispute is that, you told a white lie on your claim that all salaries has been cleared in Kogi state. On the account that you are doubtful of my claim, you can conduct a feasibility studies among civil servants in all the ministries and Kogi owned parastatals.
Aside from the non payment of Salary sir, one other way that your led government has gotten it wrong to me is the manner in which you handle labour related matters. In this regard, most a times you tend to exercise extreme political power than authority to attend to the agitations of workers who at various times in one way or the other has resulted into embarking on industrial action to drive home their demand for deserving regard for the work that they are doing for the state most especially in the area of finance and government interference on internal administrative control of their affairs. I don’t know how comfortable you are to know that the submission of these persons are true and you have chosen to tell lies against them by describing them as sponsored opposition to your government and as such always result into intimidating them with your usual exercising of extreme political power over your constitutional authority in situations such like this.
I am convinced you lack the negotiation strength with union leadership and that is why most a times government meeting with any aggrieved trade union is conveyed by either your chief of staff, secretary to the state government or of recent your afternoon new founded politically desperate ally, Senator Smart Adeyemi. To me your excellency, this is not only unhealthy but administratively too porous of you. You will agree with me that the honor of meeting with these unions at any moment of grievances is enough to make them have confidence in you to give a reconsideration to their stand and understand with your offers and plead. Most of these persons you delegate to meet with union leaders sometimes do not only embarrass labour leaders but even go as far as ridiculing them with the believe that government has all it takes to find its way out of any trouble.
When it comes to making promises your excellency , following it up or matching it with actions is always a problem, for example, it’s been over six months that you promised to pay bursary to Kogi state impoverished students which you even compounded by your 200% increment but regrettably up till this time nothing realistic has been heard in that regard. These Students wake up everyday, instead of praying for you, they justifiably result into showering curses on you for denying them of their rights. Your excellency, the young shall grow and your story of being a child of nobody can be better understood and believed when you get concerned about taking steps to attend to the needs of these students who are technically trained in their respective fields to be of economic value to the growth and development of the state and nation at large. One is even afraid as to if the recent scholarship you granted to Kogi State University stagnated medical students can be sustained either in the remaining days of your stay in office or successive governments just as you never thought it wise to continue the ones granted to some indigent students before your coming on board.
Your excellency sir, the number or volume of industrial actions embarked upon by trade unions in the state so far under your reign is worrisome and strange to what use to be in Kogi state in as much as no previous administration survived industrial dispute with trade unions. The implication of this is that, aside from the time wasted at home in the case of students as per tertiary institutions and delay in provision of essential services as at when pressing and needed most as per civil servants in ministries, the strike actions has also caused epileptic administrative system in all the quarters that are affected. Take for example, tertiary institutions in Kogi state are still trying to meet up with their contemporaries in other states. This has future telling adverse effect on the students, a situation where students are rushed to complete a particular semester or session all in a bid to meet up and at the end of the day alot are left mis-understood or comprehended. How therefore do we expect these students to be of economic value to where they may find themselves tomorrow when gainfully employed. These are aside other individual psychological effects of the situation on the students and their continues liability on their parents. At this point,I think vision leadership is missing. It is one thing to be a leader and it is another to be a good politician.
In the face of this hardship, one terrible step taken by your government so far is the extortion from the poor masses in disguise of increased revenue generation. Your excellency sir, premised upon the fact that our economic life is not so large, considerably sir, proper monitoring of our tax system should have been what our focus is and not abrupt increase in what they are to remit to the state government coffers . It should have been a different thing if the government is helping to provide essential services to business owners that will in turn enable their cost of production to be low.
Aside from the hike of fuel, the increase in tax collected from public transport owners has lead to increase in transportation fare, whereas the payment of salary is not prompt or consistent.
Your excellency sir, let me applaud you in the area of security for the steps you have taken so far in ensuring that Kogi people go to bed with their two eyes closed without worries. However sir, I am afraid , some of the measures may not be sustainable and moreover, there are issues going on currently in the state that are capable of serving as potencies for futuristic security threat to the state. For example sir, the issue of non payment of salary, compulsory retirement of civil servants who may not be able to meet up with their responsibilities to their families, poor numeration and inconsistent payment of the recruited vigilantees who are enthrusted with guns and other sophisticated weapons, we also have the issue of epileptic academic system in the state which has placed Kogi state students below their contemporaries in other states and thus always placing them at disadvantaged level when it comes to competing in the labour market, the shift from the cultured ways of playing politics that followed the 2015 general elections in the state which has made majority of youths venturing into politics as a fast way of making money with bias and unpurposeful political offices seeking has turned many of Kogi youths into desperation , I am afraid this will result into them taking part in dubious activities when a capable government with the good intention of true governance comes into place to block all leakages.
Your excellency, I want to quickly draw your attention to the very fact that aside from the revenue house built by your administration in lokoja, for the two years of your led administration we still have seemingly abandoned projects in Lokoja in the state capital like the toll gates, round-abouts and as well amongst others. This I do not think is good enough to be recorded for the two years spent so far sir. You really need to look critically into these projects as soon as possible.
POLITICS:
One pitiable fact is that, it is obvious after spending two years in office you are still yet to be politically secured. It doesn’t speak well of you and as well as the state that even with the silence of opposition parties when it matters most in pointing out your misgivings, your differences with your Party chieftains has continued to serve as a distraction from performing your duties. There is obviously lack of party internal harmony in Kogi APC and this is totally unhealthy for any government, especially now that like never before, the people of Kogi state thought it wise even if desperately done to follow suit at the federal level to settle for a change of political party in control of the state during the 2015 general elections.
Appointment of key government officials which has been the monopoly of few individuals in your cabinet is a great political suicide. Politics as we know for a very long time has been a game of numbers and only one person can not garner popular support for the party. Let everyone one feed from the pot they fetched firewood for. At most, only a viable party structure can do so. Your Excellency sir! Among your sons, only Benjamin is given listening here. Joseph and the remaining ones are either left uncatered for or subjected to the highest level of intimidation with the use of the power they fought to bring home.
Your excellency, changing the phase of politics is never a bad idea, the confronting challenge here is the wrong foundation upon which it is being built. There are instances of breakdown of touch between real party men at the grassroot and the high profiled distinguished at the Lugard House. On this note sir, consistent steps must be taken to have a unified house that will first and foremost put the interest of the state forward.
Your excellency sir, I will excuse your non presence in the circle of Kogi Politics prior before your emergence as the governor of Kogi State and that is why probably you seem to be shooting yourself on the leg at every outing. Your excellency, your government has been perceived by many as an affair being run by few individuals who has chosen to enslave the people of Kogi State. Your approaches towards reacting to matters of oppositions are too unserious and unlikely of someone who truly has foresight for any endeavour.
Your excellency sir, today Kogi State Image has been on the wrong records book in almost media houses and social media platforms. We are not the only one playing politics,, there are certain things that should be left unminded to but most a times we have your subordinates reacting to criticisms not only in rude manners but in such a way that reveal their obvious unwillingness to really take the business of governance serious. I do not expect any appointee not to know that their actions goes a long way in shaping the image of Kogi state before the entire world. Regrettably , even when you are not aware of the apprehension of some persons perceived enemies of the government ,they go into using state power to compel their obedience to their will.
Your excellency sir, we also have cases of threat to the lives of legal citizens of the state who seizes the opportunity of government officials present on social media to submit their opinions, grievances and complaints on certain issues. The funny thing is that these persons are not only being threatened alone but at a great extent their family members are victimised in one way or the other.
Your excellency, government exist to serve the people, but then, not minding the comforts that those at the helm of affairs enjoys, attending to the plight of the masses for which purpose they exist becomes a problem, yet these are persons who are given vehicles worth millions of naira but yet majority of them are neither married nor find it necessary to impact on the lives of those around them. I am afraid your excellency that the real enemies of the state are within your cabinet. Your excellency sir, two years is gone and whatever your intention towards 2019 is, sustaining APC in Kogi state by the virtue of your position as the leader of APC in Kogi State, it is a singular duty on you however the extent of your differences with anyone.
Your excellency sir, the decamping ceremonies going on in all the local government areas should not deceive you that you are popular, many of the attendees are usually there to get their own part of their mobilization money. It may surprise you to know that in every local government area that you visit for decamping ceremony , 65% percent of those who are there are not from that town, they either follow in your entourage or mobilize themselves from neighbouring local government areas just as a way of getting what it takes to pay their bills.
Your excellency, party registration being carried out without the knowledge or consent of the state party chairman is too bad an attitude and one wonder what could be the reason for your differences with him that can not be settled.
Your excellency, may I once again advise that the bunch of political appointees under you are more of self seeking individuals than persons who attach value to what unites members of even their immediate community, the ability to do this demands a lot of sacrifices that if ventured into will fetch collective and individual glory for the family.
In conclusion your excellency to wrap it up, your decision to set aside projects executed by your predecessor to be commissioned in commemoration of your 2nd year anniversary in office is seem to me as an act of insanity. However the reason (s) that account for this, on the part of the electorates or better still masses, it is a high level show of lack of seriousness towards the business of governance.
Remember, it is not all about you, years to come, every say, comment or act of you is a point of reference and who knows where or when your part in history may be pointed at.
God bless you sir.
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