…..Philip Shaibu to the rescue
A common refrain of Edo State Governor, Mr. Godwin Obaseki, is that the state is financially broke and cannot afford primary expenditures crucial to maintaining order and safeguarding the security and welfare of the people.
For months now, multiple deaths have been recorded all over the state, including Benin City, the state capital, as violent criminal groups of different factions engage in a free-for-all and armed robbers staged dare-devil, daytime attacks on innocent civilians striving for their daily bread in what already passes for harsh conditions.
The state government, through its media surrogates and other paid dependents, has done nothing but deny responsibility for these crimes and the ensuing chaos in the state.
Ignoring the clear constitutional mandate that makes the “security and welfare of the people” the primary function of the government at any level, and the apparent fact that other state governments in the country have dipped into available funds to strengthen internal security and protect their people, Governor Obaseki has all but asked the Federal Government to come and halt cult clashes in Benin City.
If security represents a tall order for the hapless Obaseki-administration that remains without appointees several months after inauguration, then what of another routine function which is the prompt payment of salaries, especially to important government employees who are the worst hit by the pandemic?
From all indications, primary school teachers in the state are being treated to inconsistent, paltry payments. Several other higher institutions, including the school of nursing, have been under lock and key because the government has failed to fulfill its financial obligations to them, even in cases where it is complementary.
On Tuesday, Governor Godwin Obaseki also went back on his promise to stage a National Sports Festival unprecedented in its success, because “the state lacks fund.” This reversal came weeks after his Deputy Governor, Mr. Philip Shaibu, bragged openly to the press that the state has all the “infrastructure and logistics” required to host the event.
Perhaps the Deputy Governor’s known deficiency in the area of the English Language may have informed his choice of the word ‘logistics’ without a firm understanding of its import, and so we could excuse the faux-pas, but what of Governor Obaseki’s own personal assurances in the days before and after the election when COVID-19 was already a known fact and the government boasted of its ‘technological projections’?
When all of these is set against the background of the reckless borrowing Governor Godwin Obaseki has embarked on, with the admitted plans to obtain another 18BN loan in addition to 25BN gotten from the stock market in December, it begs the question of what the Governor is doing with these funds.
A theory is that the consequences of the ‘money rain’ Governor Obaseki caused in the PDP to seduce the party leaders of ‘tax-collectors’ into handing him the ticket in controversial circumstances are now beginning to manifest.
Whatever the case, when a state government that receives 13% oil derivation fund, in addition to other monthly revenue allocations from the FG and loans, is failing woefully at what other states without these special financial benefits manage to succeed at or keep at a bearable level, then that speaks to poor management and corruption. Obaseki has questions to answer.