- By Ifeonu Okolo
Then he was campaigning to secure his first term mandate in 2015, the slogan of the immediate past Delta State Governor Ifeanyi Okowa was ‘Prosperity for all Deltans’. In local pidgin parlance, the campaign mantra was ‘Una mata na my mata’. This translates to a pledge to shoulder the burden of Deltans.
But, the experience was a misadventure for the people. Even for residents of Delta North Senatorial District, otherwise known as ‘Anioma’, where the former governor hails from, it was also a tale of woes. Based on the power rotation arrangement in the South-south state, which aided his emergence as governor, the Anioma people were fully in support of his emergence; as it is an opportunity for one of their sons to occupy the Asaba Government House which had been occupied for 16 years then by the administration of James Ibori and Dr Emmanuel Uduaghan who hail from the other two senatorial districts: Delta Central and Delta South respectively.
Barely a month after ascending the governorship seat, he unveiled one of his draconian policies, which inflicted pains that would not be forgotten in a hurry by the people. His first casualty was a batch of workers of the Delta State Polytechnic, Ogwashi-Uku who were sacked for what the former governor described as irregular procedure in their employment by the then government of Dr. Emmanuel Uduaghan. The matter was contested by the affected workers who took it to industrial court for adjudication. At the time of writing this report, it is unclear what the situation of the matter was in the court.
Beyond the polytechnic workers, several thousands of employees in the state civil service also suffered a similar fate, as a good number of them were laid off for similar reasons. It took the intervention of the office of the then Special Adviser on Labour Matter, headed by Mike Okeme, to have about 450 reinstated out of the several thousand affected.
While the issue of the mass retrenchment of workers was yet to settle, Okowa came up with another surprise. This time, he introduced the clock-in clock-out system for civil servants. He test-ran the move with the local government workers in the state; using the Information technology consultancy firm that was allegedly owned by his wife. The company began with a verification exercise for local government officials.
Following the conclusion of the exercise, some local government workers were sacked, for not being able to produce their First School Leaving Certificate or primary six certificates.
Besides, many workers whose retirement was not yet due were intimidated into accepting a retirement date determined by the office of the Delta State Head of Service. The affected workers were coerced into deposing to fresh affidavits disclaiming their initial age.
With the failure and complicity of the leadership of the Delta State chapter of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), headed by, Jonathan Ofoburuku. With the backing of the NLC chairman, in agreement with other members of his executive, Ifeanyi Okowa descended on the workers at the state level.
The immediate governor unleashed a consultancy firm, Heckerbellah to determine the number of the state workforce. With the introduction of the clock-in and clock-out system, workers were subjected to the task of clocking in and clocking out every morning and at closing hours respectively.
Civil servants experienced untold hardships at the hands of consultants working for the state government. Salaries of many of them were suspended by the administration’s Head of Service, Reginald Bayoko, while their compulsory verification was still in progress. The result was the compulsory retirement of many workers, whiles those who escaped were coerced into accepting a new retirement age.
This culminated in the death of some of the workers that were laid off. Others suffered complications resulting from high blood pressure or stroke.
Next, the former governor hiked the school fees of all state government-owned tertiary institutions. This was a move to punish even those who voted for him. During the era of former Governor Emmanuel Uduaghan, no Deltan student paid above N15,000 per academic session in the state-owned university. Even in the polytechnics which were established by former Governor James Ibori, parents funded the education of their children and wards with ease.
But, things changed when Okowa took over the reins of power, as he raised the average school fees in the state university to over N180,000. Courses like law and medicine rose to over N250,000 per session. Several appeals by parents and guardians to the Okowa-led government fell on deaf ears, as he refused to bring down the school fees. This is even though workers in the state were being owed entitlements like leave allowances and promotion arrears.
For a state that reportedly receives the second highest allocation from the Federation Account, as one of the oil-producing states, Deltans were impoverished under Okowa’s government. The state receives over N17 billion monthly. Deputy Senate President, Sen. Ovie Omo-Agege, who was the governorship candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC) during the recently concluded general election, was quoted as saying that the state received up to four trillion naira as allocation under Okowa’s leadership.
Yet, Delta is the second most indebted state in the country. At the twilight of the administration, the state House of Assembly approved a last-minute loan of about N71 billion for the government. The state is believed to be indebted to the tune of about one trillion naira. Sad as it may seem, there is nothing on the ground to justify the borrowed money.
Elder statesman, Pa Edwin Clarke accused Okowa several times of running the state like his personal fiefdom. The way and manner Okowa handled the so-called privatisation of Delta State assets is shrouded in secrecy. A case in point is during his first tenure when Delta State Transport Company, which is known as Delta Line was handed over to God is Good Motors, a private transport company in a questionable manner. The leadership of the then Delta State chapter of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) had bidded to pay N2 billion to the state government in other to be allowed to run the fleets.
But, Okowa rejected the offer and instead handed the company to the private transport company after it paid N200 million to the state government. Even the last-minute sale of the Ubulu-Uku Oil Palm Company to Rain Oil Company by the Okowa administration equally has a lot of question marks surrounding it.
In infrastructure, praise singers suspected to be on government payroll were always in the habit of praising the former governor during public functions in the state, describing him as a ‘road master’, which by interpretation suggests that he is the best when it comes to the construction of roads. But, residents of the state have consistently been asking the question, where are the roads? To them, nothing was done by the Okowa administration to tackle the issue of flooding in Asaba, the state capital. Besides, the dual carriageway from Asaba to Ughelli initiated by Dr Emmanuel Uduaghan’s administration has not been completed eight years after Uduaghan left office. This is notwithstanding that the project had reached 70 per cent completion when the Uduaghan-led government bowed out.
Apart from the tag of being substandard, some of the roads constructed by the Okowa government, especially in the Delta North Senatorial District, are alleged to be road projects that were awarded to him by the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) when he was a senator.
For many Deltans, the exit of Okowa from Government House, Asaba, is a good radiance to bad rubbish.
- Okolo, a public affairs commentator, writes from Asaba, Delta State