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In Kogi Cyber Streets, I do not worry much for the popular folks who relate their opinions on Governance.
Most of them are biased. Interest inclined. It depends on where they fall; opposition or Government. There is no single person standing in isolation.
Hence, engagement with certain people is deliberate. I can also choose to ignore.
The most important people to me are the ordinary folks. Those who don’t understand that most of the things we share on social media is not 100% reality.
For example, a Doctor, Head of one unit in a Specialist Hospital in Kogi State just died. News carried it that she died because she wasn’t paid salary on “Thursday” last week.
How ridiculous can this be? It is however possible for one to die due to the unavailability of funds to procure medicine. But for a woman of her cadre? Wow.
And it became a recurring decimal that anyone who dies in Kogi now is automatically a “civil servant” or at best, “salaries” killed the person. One would now begin to think that the over 4.3m Kogites are all civil servants and no one has been paid salaries for 2 years.
Let me explain what is going on:
Those who intend to oust the current administration understands that, just like Karl Max posited that religion is the opium of the masses, hunger is also the opium of vice of anger. Hence, they have checked every other area of the current Government and discovered that inconsistent salary payment has become a weakness that appeals easily to the “mass thought and opinion”, they now make every event in the state classless because salaries aren’t in the picture.
Why does this work? It works because the people have over the years comatose in the idea that the state is a “civil service state”. It would therefore be difficult for anyone undergoing stringent reforms not be see mass revolt.
So they created a media frame of “No Salaries” on Governor Bello. They loud it always. They find any event to ring that home.
Even civil servants who work about without knowing their health status or those who are aged, when they die, they say it is non payment of salaries. It was the same media frame that won GEJ the “clueless” title in 2015.
Besides, have you noticed that all the criticisms have not gone beyond “salaries”? Does that really mean that other things are not happening in the state?
Without any checks, the various Governorship hopefuls are also not extending their campaigns beyond “I will pay salaries”. Which means, there is nobody bringing anything new.
That is why I think the current problem in Kogi state was a “postponed crisis” that exploded on Bello. Even if it were another Governor, the same thing would have happened. Because the past leaders kept piling up the civil service payroll when the IGR and FG allocation was never improving. A sudden dive in oil prices would make anyone not to pay salaries.
Take for example: the former Governor was not building massive road projects, he was not into any developmental projects but when oil crashed, he couldn’t pay salaries for more than 3 months, which Bello inherited.
Do you know that Kogi civil servants count those months for Bello and not Wada?
Besides that, for those who argue for Paris refund. If Bello paid backlogs with Paris refund and Bailouts, even when the Allocation has not improved, how do you think he would have been able to build the multi billion Revenue House, the purchase of vehicles of Government appointees for work, the renovation of the Government house, the over 54 road construction projects across the state which are under vary in degrees of completion?
What about the Omi Rice Farm project?
The Ejiba Rice mill project?
Let us not lose focus. I am not saying salaries should not be paid. But who would take bailout funds which is like a loan that Kogi will pay back and sink everything into paying salaries to a structure that is even redundant to more employment creation which only thrives on consumption?
There’s an explanation for Kogi people, but then, I would like that we don’t forget these grey areas.
Those projects listed above, are there for mere millions? Do you know how much it costs to construct a ten kilometer road?
Back to the topic,
It is the salaries that are more important to the people because it is the life they are used to. To suddenly alternate events that would make them think otherwise, it would take a visionary population along with explanations that they can see to understand. Have the Government done much to make the people see this?
(?).
Regardless, I shall not be a part of those who would want Kogi to continue as a civil service state. Whatever it takes, regardless of the hate or scorn or threats, Kogi is bigger than few persons. People would always have to go through pains to see through futuristic reforms.
When you always read about non payment of salaries from the media influencers, ask them the future they can see other than salaries.
In the 2018 budget, Bello made it clear that the IGR drive would be from Agriculture which would fund the budget by 15%. It is a policy. Even if you reject, that is the reality.
To rise above poverty, they are saying- join the agricultural train. Do the media influencers understand this? Ask them.
Well, salaries..
– Promise Emmanuel (Kogi Rebel)
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