Within the last two weeks or so, the nation’s consciousness was awakened to the backlog of salaries owed workers by many state governments. The attention of this writer was first drawn to it by a call from the Osun State chapter of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) urging the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) to come to the aid of the workers by donating food item and sundry relief materials to save them from starvation.
At first, one thought it was one of those gimmicks by politicians to gain attention which may eventually add up to nothing. But then, the elections were already over. What purpose would such a seemingly campaign of calumny serve at this point in time, one had reasoned?
Soon, events began to unfold in quick succession such that it became obvious that the call was not just for nothing. At least, two demonstrations in the state capital that drew attention to the desperate plight of workers were to follow subsequently. One of such was by civil society organizations during the June 12 celebrations.
As if these were not enough to generate public concern, the state governor, Rauf Aregbesola was to shock everybody when he reportedly said the resolution of the salary arrears imbroglio was beyond him. He told state house reporters “the truth is that I will not fail to say that it is a situation absolutely beyond my control”.
Aregbesola hinged his position on the sharp drop in federal allocations which subsequently disorganized his budget. But, in an apparent bid to stave off accusations of any form of mismanagement, the governor was quick to add that he had transformed the state than he met it in 2010 and that such transformation was as a result of effective application of resources. The message the governor intended to pass across was that though the salary situation was that bad, it should not be misconstrued as an evidence of reckless spending. We shall return to this later.
Then enter the case of Benue State that is also in months of arrears such that have compelled Governor Ortom to conclude plans to borrow money to pay just one month across board. He has also been shouting on roof tops that the departed governor, Gabriel Suswam left a debt burden of N90 billion as against the N9.2 billion he had claimed.
The list is endless. No less than 18 states are reported owing between two and 11 months salary arrears at the end of May. These are Abia, Akwa Ibom, Bauchi, Benue, Cross River and Ekiti. Others are Imo, Katsina, Kogi, Ogun, Ondo, Osun and Oyo. The rest are Rivers, Plateau and Zamfara among others.
Some of the defaulting governors have put up spirited efforts to clarify their positions on the salary arrears index. But even as they strive to give the impression that the situation is not all that bad, the bold face they feign pales into insignificance in the face of the pressure they now mount on the federal government for some bailout. Some of them have even gone further to demand a restructuring of the revenue allocation formula.
Others have been striving to exculpate themselves from the chain of events that led to the current predicament. They lay the blame chiefly on the dwindling receipts from the federation account consequent upon the drop in oil price at the international market.
Attempts have also been made to shift culpability to the regime of Jonathan for mismanaging the economy. Jonathan can as well be blamed for everything under the sun, including obvious excesses and duplicity of some of the governors both immediate past and serving.
But at what point will the governors take direct responsibility for the management of the funds entrusted in their care? Why is it that some states are not owing despite the fact they are not immune from the factors cited by some of the governors for scandalously attempting to starve workers to death? Why are states like Akwa Ibom, Rivers, Imo, Abia and Ondo that are oil producing and receive higher revenue than others also owing?
Answers to these posers can be located in how effective the respective governors managed resources at their disposal. And they inexorably point to the incongruity in attempts to evade responsibility by trying to solely hold other factors culpable. It is the responsibility of the governors to determine areas of priority in the disbursement of their revenue. If they decide to inject them to some other projects in utter neglect of workers salaries, it is their decision and they cannot shy away from its consequences.
Effective planning would require that all competing needs are weighed on the scale ensuring no sector is funded to the detriment of others. If the governors had done that irrespective of the dwindling revenue, the situation might have been somehow different. The governors should take the blame for the backlog of salaries owed workers. After all, they ought to have provided for the rainy day since it is common place that states can solely depend on receipts from the federation account at their own peril.
It is mismanagement of resources to deploy funds such that workers emoluments are not paid for months no matter how competing other needs were. That brings us to the Osun situation in which the governor had sought to rationalize the salary arrears on the ground that he has transformed the state through judicious application of funds. That could as well be. But a ‘judicious application’ of funds that left a backlog of seven months salaries ought to face another verification test. The first law of nature is self survival. Labor is also rated the most important factor of production. Other factors without the human capital will lead to nothing. It is smacks of inverted logic to canvass the argument of effective application of resources in the face of the scandalous inability of the government to pay months of salaries. You cannot have effective application of resource when one critical sector is yawning for urgent attention through obvious neglect. That is the obvious flaw in pushing that argument any further. He may have done well in other sectors. He may have invested heavily in infrastructure that will benefit humanity in the nearest future.
But a situation that compelled a sitting governor to publicly admit helplessness says it all. He may have presented the matter as honestly as he found it. However, in portraying the picture of helplessness, he opened his flanks to diatribe. For, the immediate question the admission conjures is what business he still has there if the situation has defied him? That is why the governor’ altercation with Senator Ben Bruce on his comic gesture to donate part of his wardrobe allowance to Osun workers is patently unnecessary.
Beyond these however, is the urgent need for a fundamental restructuring of the federal order. As long as we concentrate virtually all powers on the central authority, so long will systemic stress from the component units impair any meaningful progress. Happily, we now have a regime that has promised change. That change must be fundamental and far reaching for real results to be recorded. But, there are vested interests benefiting from the decadent past that will not let go. We must muster the political will to do the right thing through immediate constitutional change. Such change should devolve powers by allowing a greater measure of autonomy to the components units.
