For reasons this columnist may never know, the governor of Abia State, Okezie Ikpeazu, is the butt of jokes in social media circles. Compared to his colleagues in the other four states in the southeast, his traducers see him as the poorest performer. The most recent rave of jokes is that he said on a national television programme last week that he would pay N500 to every Abia woman who is delivered of a baby.
If truly he said so, that is scandalous. How on earth can he make a promise to pay a paltry N500, which can only buy two small tubers of yam, in the rural Umudike of Abia State, famous for farm settlements and a university of agriculture? It would have been better he didn’t mention any sum as an incentive, instead of the embarrassing amount. After all, Nigerians are not asking to be rewarded whenever they have a baby as in some parts of Europe and North America.
But this columnist listened to the part of the interview where he talked about how he is handling the challenges facing the Abia State University, the state University Teaching Hospital and the state polytechnic. It was his rather unsatisfactory answers to the germane questions by the Channels television anchor that gave impetus to this write up. While the governor may have his other competences, his answers to the questions portrayed him as an incompetent administrator.
Asked in different ways how he is handling the prolonged crisis in the institutions, as a result of several months of the non-payment of salaries, he came across to this writer as someone who has abdicated his responsibility as state chief executive, and acting frustrated. In his answers he claimed that the university, its teaching hospital and the polytechnic are income-generating institutions and as such should substantially solve their financial problems. While the claim is debatable, he laid allegations that they are wasteful and merely stewing in their mess.
What this column finds disagreeable is that the governor by his own account confirms that the management of the institutions are engaged in corrupting and debilitating activities, and all he could do is to complain and do nothing. In one instance he mentioned that the institutions have a bloated workforce, and are totally unaccountable for the internally generated revenue. When reminded that resident doctors where owed for several months, he said that the teaching hospital generates income and could have used it to pay them.
When pushed by the anchor that the university and polytechnic staff where owed for several months, he repeated the same reason that they generate income, are over staffed and are unaccountable. In fairness to the governor, I didn’t hear all he said till the end of the interview, and as such cannot confirm whether he modified his views subsequently. But listening to him repeat the lame excuse of the institutions being income generating and unaccountable, I made up mind to call out the governor on this column.
If Governor Ikpeazu’s answers to the debilitating challenges faced by the named institutions, which by law he is the overall chief executive, is his presentation on Channels television, then one is tempted to believe some of the ridiculous assertions in the media, both social and traditional. First the governor must realise that he is the chief executive of the state, and as such the overall supervising chief executive of all the institutions, and parastatals that is owned by the state.
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The executive powers of the state governor is eloquently provided for in section 5(2)(a) & (b) of the 1999 constitution as amended. Section 5(2(a) provides: “Subject to the provisions of this constitution, the executive powers of a state: shall be vested in the governor of that state and may, subject as aforesaid and to the provisions of any law made by a House of Assembly, be exercised by him either directly or through the deputy governor and commissioners of the government of that state or officers in the public service of the state.”
Sub-section (b) further provides that such powers: “shall extend to the execution and maintenance of this constitution, all laws made by the House of Assembly of the state and to all matters with respect to which the House of Assembly has for the time being powers to make laws.” The above provisions are the fulcrum of the executive powers exercised by Governor Ikpeazu, just as it is for his other brother governors. Those powers are extensive and extend to dealing with the challenges he spoke helplessly about, last week on Channels television.
The constitution which imbues him with those powers expects him to use it to serve as the chief executive of the institutions, albeit indirectly through the supervising officers of the university, polytechnic and the teaching hospital. He cannot be heard to wring his hands in helpless surrender, when he enjoys the trappings of the office and answers the executive governor. I have no doubt that the laws establishing the institutions recognize his overall supervisory roles and provides him the opportunity to exercise his powers.
As the chief executive of the state, if there are no enabling laws to dutifully do his duties, he is entitled to approach the House of Assembly to enact laws for effective exercise of his executive powers. Of course, this column does not expect him to micromanage the institutions, but he must effectively supervise them through the commissioner for education, the heads of the institutions and its other officers. Where those in charge are ineffective, it is his responsibility to hire competent hands to do the job.
It will be unfair to the ordinary people of the state, who use the services rendered by the institutions, or who work in the institutions, or who are proud indigenes of the state or who voted him to govern the state, to hear him give the lame excuses he offered on Channels television. Of course, this column is not asking him to behave like a bull in a china shop, but rather to exercise his executive powers under the due process of law, to make the institutions deliver on their core mandates.
In his book, Principles of Administrative Law, D.C.M. Yardley wrote: “The kernel of administrative law is the control of power within its lawful compass … The law is employed not just to disqualify unlawful exercise of power but also to compel the performance of legal duties which have been neglected.” Governor Okezie Ikpeazu must take up the mantel of his executive powers, exercise the powers granted him by law, and render nugatory all the scurrilous allegations against him, as a do-nothing governor.