Akpabio/Yilwatda’s challenge to governors, council chairmen

“As long as greed is stronger than compassion, there will always be suffering.”——Rusty Eric

Godswill Akpabio and Professor Nentawe Yilwatda recently stirred the hornets’ nest. The public was held in awe by the bluntness of their uttered words against the slow pace of effective governance at the subnational levels across the country.

By virtue of their vantage positions, no one should doubt the veracity of their revelations. What makes their spills startling is that most of those that were affected and exposed at the subnational levels were elected governors cum councils’ chairmen from same political party with them—be they old, new or aspiring defectors.

Akpabio and Yilwatda are not just ordinary Nigerians; one is the all powerful number three political figure anchoring the upper legislative chamber of the National Assembly in the country; the other is the national chairman of the ruling All Progressives Congress(APC).

Yilwatda’s party, in case of temporary amnesia by anyone, has become, for good or bad, the beautiful bride being courted by governors of states in Nigeria today as witnessed in the ongoing gale of defections. This development is reminiscent of the historical jostle for the partitioning of Africa by the European colonial powers. That is what APC has become in modern day politics of the country.

Pardon my temporary digression. The missiles fired by these two men should bother the privileged people in power that they were directed at. This is so if only for exposing the governors/chairmen’s mostly shambolic performances at states and local levels; and more importantly for the inciting weight of such observations by these two political leaders.

Yours sincerely is grappling with how best to fathom these two important men’s damning call-out of governors and councils’ chairmen largely believed to be members of their political party. They didn’t just say these but beckoned on their people to monitor and teach them consequential lessons where necessary.

Obviously, the governed, especially across the states and local council areas are displeased with the lackadaisical approach of their governors and councils’ chairmen in handling their infrastructural, institutional, and general wellbeing. Therefore, the timely reminders by these two significant figures in the nation’s body politic can’t just be waived aside.

The duo’s challenge that the state governors and local councils’ chairmen be held accountable for the rot in the states, despite increased revenue allocations under President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s administration should not be taken with levity. Their words only bring to the fore, the silent truths that sub-national governments across the country are mostly known to have failed to translate recent higher statutory allocations into improved livelihoods, job creation and above all, tangible development.

Kindly permit a scrutiny of what the duo said. For instance, Professor Yilwatda at the public presentation of a book titled: “Vicious Red Circle” authored by Alex Oriaku, enjoins Nigerians to demand people-oriented projects from their governors and local councils’ chairmen in view of the huge fiscal inflows currently accruing to the states/councils.

“No governor in Nigeria collects less than three times, up to four times what they used to collect before — none. Who knows that two years ago, there was a sharing of about N400bn per month—but today, the last sharing they did was N2.2tn…….I would say, talk to your governors. Talk to your local government chairmen. Let them do more.”

Good talk from Yilwatda but the national APC chairman seems to have discounted the fact that most of these governors and chairmen are deaf to reason and good judgment. They’re only aggressively agile on how to steal public funds, conceive defective policies and implement sub-standard and inflated projects. Of course, the governors and councils’ chairmen, with the current allocation largesse, are not letting their constituents feel the realistic and positive impacts of good governance.

To curb their excesses, Yilwatda as the national chairman of ruling APC has a critical role to play in ensuring that the right persons are allowed to emerge as candidates of his party in the upcoming general elections. This is the right template and the first step to take in ensuring transparency and accountability in governance of this era when the booming allocations do not positively reflect in the lives of ordinary citizens but more in the profligacy of public officers.

Most governors and chairmen who are misleading their people today and giving the federal government of President Tinubu bad name are products of misplaced political priorities by political parties. They see governance as business endeavours and not any conscientiously selfless service to the people.

Also, Yilwatda needs to drum into the ears of his party candidates at the subnational levels, the significance of having dedicated cardinal programmes from their party manifesto; and the need for uniform implementation across subnational levels. So far, virtually all the governors/chairmen don’t seem to know what the manifesto of their political party talks about. There’s no actual particular roadmaps in practice. They only do things that appear to them in their dreams while sleeping. This is responsible for the uncoordinated policies, planning and projects that reasonable Nigerians complain about in the life of this country.

The foregoing is not applicable to APC alone but to other political parties. Most elected officials on the platforms of all these political parties in the country know nothing about the cardinal programmes of their parties but are only interested in sustaining power and making money through whatever means from government. I recommend for Yilwatda, the late Pa Obafemi Awolowo’s Unity Party of Nigeria (UPN) manifesto template to make his tenure more people-friendly and a politically correct system that his party can effectively monitor.

Except this existing detrimental system is corrected by Yilwatda, it might be difficult to envision any meaningful use of public funds at the subnational levels, especially.

Akpabio, on his part, also spoke candidly at the joint graduation ceremony of the National Institute for Legislative and Democratic Studies (NILDS) and the University of Benin. In clear language, he called on State Houses of Assembly to hold governors accountable for how they deployed their increased allocations.

Akpabio emphasises the need to “strengthen existing legal frameworks” necessary for the enhancement of “oversight responsibilities of public institutions to ensure that they deliver effective public service.”

Akpabio did not forget to self-commend the 10th National Assembly that he’s leading for having “contributed tremendously to increasing the revenue that accrues to the Consolidated Revenue Fund” which in turn has led to “higher revenue allocation to states and the federal government.” His clincher saw him beckon on the “state legislatures to ensure that the increased revenue to their governors/states translates to improved livelihood and job creation for citizens.”

Yilwatda, with his executive experience, calls for people’s vigilance over how governors spend their money while Akpabio, as a lawmaker and a former governor/minister, beckons on states’ legislatures to meticulously interrogate how the current increased allocations are being spent at the subnational levels.

Let it be known to Akpabio that one major problem draining the country of desired revenues is budget padding and projects’ costs inflation. Through these avenues, the country may not be able to effectively stem the tide of official corruption. While demanding funds accountability from the governors and councils’ chairmen, Akpabio should also quickly address these conduit pipes in public tills. Most legislators, unfortunately, live large from illegal proceeds of budget padding, inflation of projects’ costs and compromise in the discharge of their oversight responsibilities with a telling effect on the nation’s socio-economic development. Akpabio as senate-president, needs to do something to curb this legislative criminality.

In totality, the foregoing are largely responsible for the abysmal governance styles of governors/council chairmen in most states across the federation. And notwithstanding the excuses of Naira devaluation and accompanying inflation, governors’ preference for elephant projects which they financed with ill-advised foreign loans coupled with wanton corruption have denied the people the opportunity of having friendly, and beneficial policies/projects. These amongst others further throw the people into abject poverty and penury.

The final message: Eternal vigilance and effectively uncompromising regulatory systems are necessary tools to whip to line errant governors and councils’ chairmen seeing increased monthly allocations as largesse to be wasted. No more, no less!

Sanusi, former MD/CEO of Lagos State Signage & Advertisement Agency is currently the managing partner of AMS RELIABLE SOLICITORS.