SIR: Even before his victory at the March 28 presidential election, the President, Muhammadu Buhari, had in a way, carved a niche for himself in the consciousness of most Nigerians. Riding on the wings of integrity that he had earned in his first coming as a military head of state, Buhari had come across to even his critics, as one with zero tolerance for indiscipline and corruption.
Though coming around this time as a civilian, the President does not seem to have departed from that tradition of transparency and respect for law and order. In his May 29 inaugural address, for instance, Buhari had courageously attempted to raise the bar of governance and confidence in the system by laying bare certain engagements his administration would undertake in the efforts to position the country on the path of standard practice.
He had for example, stated his administration’s willingness to review existing relations between Local Governments, states and Federal Government especially in the area of operations of the Local Government Joint Accounts. By the pronouncement, the president has shown that his administration is prepared to sanitize the accounting system of the three tiers of government and bring it to the level where complimentarity in the accounting processes in governance becomes a seamless operation.
The President also sounded a note of warning in his speech when he said he belonged to nobody. He implied in the remark that his ascension to power should not be seen as the making of any godfather or any particular section of the country but by the collective endorsement of Nigerians. That being the case, he is not beholden to any particular set of people or individuals.
While Buhari spoke, he obviously did not have any state or entity in mind. But by a curious coincidence, he seemed to have touched on the very odious factors that had held Abia State down, especially in the last eight years. The experience with governance at the state and local government levels within the period had indicated monumental abuse of local government allocations by the executive which had seen statutory allocations to local governments as a cash cow meant for looting and profligate adventurism.
The tragic story in the exercise is that for eight years in the saddle, the immediate past administration rapaciously looted the coffers of the 17 Local Government Areas in the state and consequently left the masses of the state highly impoverished.
In apparent bid to sustain the practice, the administration never conducted elections into the 17 Local Government Areas in the state as prescribed by law. Instead, it ran the state arbitrarily, foisting on the citizens stooges and cronies as Caretaker Chairmen of the Local Council Areas for the purpose of circumventing the due process of fund appropriation.
As part of the untoward scheme to cover the criminality of the actions, the administration, issued handouts to its cronies in charge of the local council areas in the state that were not enough to pay salaries of workers let alone carry out any form of capital expenditure, but curiously got them to sign for receipt of full allocation from the Federal Government.
The administration, of course, could not have had its way if the chairmen at the councils were elected in the true sense of the word.
It was in that respect that critical stakeholders in Abia had expressed concern on the dangers of enthronement of a new administration in the state through the clandestine efforts of former Governor Theodore Orji. Their fear, essentially, was that such successor would face the twin challenge of either continuing with the infamous policies of his godfather or be prepared to face the wrought of his godfather and his co- travellers.
This is presently the dilemma of Okezie Ikpeazu, the beneficiary of that unprincipled scheme. The escape route for him looks rough and may have been littered with booby traps and landmines. In the process, it is the already depleted coffers of Abia State that may still bleed in servicing this rentier relationship. This is the danger of godfather politics.
- Nnanna Ezeocha,
Umuahia, Abia State.
