Sequel to my last piece; Yahaya Bello; The Sorrow of Kogi State (Part 1) I have chosen to write the part 2 with a different topic.
Five days ago, news broke out that Mr. Zekery Aguye, a Magistrate and Deputy Chief Registrar (Litigation), died after losing the battle to prostate cancer. He died at the National Hospital, Abuja, where he was initially being treated before he was forced to discontinue the treatment due to his inability to offset his medical bills.
Aguye is one of the numerous Judiciary workers in Kogi state who have become endangered species in the state due to stoppage of their salaries by Governor Yahaya Bello. At the moment, Judiciary workers are owed nine months salaries just because Yahaya Bello want to head both executive and judiciary arms of government.
The plight of Judicial workers in Kogi state is occasioned by the failure of Governor Yahaya Bello to perform his constitutional duties of releasing funds due to the Judiciary to her as mandated under section 121(3) of the Constitution of Nigeria and the 1991 edict of Kogi State that prescribes releases of subvention to the judiciary, from which salaries are paid to judiciary staff.
Section 197(1c) of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria (as amended) creates the Judicial Service Commission which regulates the affairs, employment and discipline of workers of the Judiciary and separate them from the core civil service.
The Constitution elaborated further in Section 318 where it clearly categorise judiciary workers as public servants distinctive of civil servants. By these Constitutional provisions, workers of the Judiciary are not servants of the Executive but that of the Judiciary.
Without doubt, our Governor needs proper education on this. How many more Judiciary workers have to die before the Governor wakes up to do the needful?
Aguye is not the only causality in the Judiciary. Mr. Benjamin Ameloko, an Area Court Judge and Mr. Isah Salifu, a member of the Upper Area Court died in similar circumstances.
The Judiciary is not the only segment of the state that has been subjected to Yahaya Bello’s sword of horrors; the health sector has recorded deaths as well. In the month of June last year, the Head of Internal Medicine Department at Kogi State Specialist Hospital, Lokoja, Dr. (Mrs) Rosemary Chukwudebe died after battling with an ailment. Tests like H-Pylori could not be done for her because she had no money. She was a victim of unpaid salaries.
Another doctor, Idris Nuhu, three nurses and an attendant in the maternity ward slumped on hearing about Rosemary’s death.
Five months after Rosemary’s sad demise, a doctor with the Paediatric Unit of Kogi State Specialist Hospital, Lokoja, Dr. Amos Ojo slumped while on duty at the hospital.
In the face of this reality, Kogi state chairman of Nigeria Medical Association (NMA), Dr. Zubair Kabiru raised alarm that doctors in Kogi State Civil Service, are providing healthcare services on empty stomach. According to Zubair, the welfare of doctors in the state has nose-dived due to poor remuneration, poor working conditions, and lack of healthcare infrastructure. He lamented that the situation of doctors is very pathetic in Kogi Civil Service, starting from underpayment, irregular payment to outright non-payment of salaries for over five months consecutively and counting. As at October 2018, a total of 79 doctors have left Kogi Civil Service.
Local government workers, teachers and workers at various ministries, departments and agencies (MDAs) have different sad tales to tell about the inhumane treatment meted on them by the state government. These categories of workers have lost count of colleagues that have died due to financial challenges occasioned by non-payment of salaries.
I wonder of nuclear attack can have more causality than the death count among Kogi civil servants as a result of unpaid salaries. This brings me to the question; is Yahaya Bello a Weapon a Mass Destruction unleashed on Kogi people?
Since he assumed office in January 2016, Yahaya Bello has left no one in doubt that he is on a destructive mission.
He started with the destruction of historical monuments that adorned roundabouts in the state capital under the guise of ‘spiritual cleansing’. He promised to replace the destroyed monuments with ‘world class’ roundabouts but ended up with grotesque structures.
After successfully destroying these historical monuments, Yahaya Bello launched an offensive against the civil servants in the state. As we speak, he has successfully destroyed the civil service in the state. We have never had it so bad. From the endless screening exercise with its accompanying deaths to systemic sack of workers, Yahaya Bello succeeded in destroying the very fabrics upon which the civil service is built. The screening or staff verification exercise that started February 2016 is still ongoing as I write. Three months ago, some workers were declared uncleared, three years after the exercise started!
He destroyed ASUU and ASUP, weakened other vibrant labour unions to ensure no one can stand up and demand for the rights of workers in the state.
The last two months allocation (February and March) came into the state purse quietly and left quietly without payment of a single dime to civil servants in the state. We can safely assume that these allocations were deployed to buy election victories during the just concluded general elections. Now that the treasury is empty, the last hope of salvaging the battered image of the government is to mount pressure on appropriate quarters for the release of N30.8billion balance of the bailout funds applied for by the immediate past administration of Captain Idris Wada. I can bet with my thyroid gland that when the N30.8billion is released, a good percentage will be reserved for Yahaya Bello’s re-election in November. Will heaven fall? We are used to his economic strategy.
I close with the evergreen words of Prof. Pius Adesanmi;
“The other day, I was trying to explain to a friend that I know people in Okun land – folks who have shown me slips – who received N5000 as a certain percentage of salary paid after months of arrears and my friend – a Nigerian who lives in Nigeria and understands Nigerian poverty realities – couldn’t conceptually grasp it. “Prof, e ma binu o. You mean, like, they will owe somebody 20 months and then pay about N5000?”. And I replied that those are the lucky ones. Mama Adesanmi has even completely forgotten that she is a pensioner because it’s been so long she was paid. There are numerous cases of notification and claims of such payments when actually nothing is deposited. If you are on minimum wage, and somebody owes you 20 months and strangely decides to pay 5% of one month, do the math. On a good day, I can humour Buharists and APC people about anything. Not Kogi. In your states, people die regular needless Nigerian deaths. In Okun land, we die irregular needless Nigerian deaths. Those who die regular needless deaths in other states are more equal than us.”
Yes, Prof. Adesanmi was right. We die irregular needless Nigerian deaths in Kogi state because Yahaya Bello is indeed a Weapon of Mass Destruction.
To be continued…
– Adamu Ojonugwa writes from Lokoja.
