Bola Bolawole

By Bolanle Bolawole

Penultimate Thursday as he swore in his Commissioners, Ondo State’s Gov. Rotimi Akeredolu opened the Pandora box when he revealed that his predecessor, Dr. Olusegun Mimiko, left an unbelievable debt stockpile of N220 billion. Next day, Mimiko fired back through erstwhile Commissioner for Information, Kayode Akinmade, that he, in fact, left N20 billion in the State’s coffers. Who, then, is fooling who? It is difficult to believe that Mimiko left that huge sum of money but exited without paying workers eight or so months’ salaries. Akinmade’s explanation is superfluous, to say the least. Why was money idling by when Ondo state workers and pensioners suffered? I remember there was a time the workers went on strike and prevented Mimiko from accessing his office. The workers blockaded the road and Mimiko, like a rain-beaten chicken, sat on the roof of his car trying to placate the irate workers. It cannot be true that the Mimiko administration left N20 billion in Ondo state coffers while the workers went without salaries and pensioners without their pensions month after month. That would be callous. Reading through Akinmade’s list of monies left in the coffers, it was not difficult to see sophistry and semantics at work. Monies that could not be spent; monies that were counterpart funds; and monies that belonged to other tiers of government or other agencies were listed as monies left in the coffers. I dare to say that this is fraudulent.

I, however, agree with Mimiko and Akinmade that some of the debts being referred to by Akeredolu could have been carry-overs from previous administrations. Over-borrowing by administrations and piling up of debts for succeeding administrations have become a terrible pastime which must be addressed head-on if government at all tiers are not to continue to reel under the crushing weight of loans and debts. There are few states of the federation that are not reeling under crushing load of indebtedness. The pity of it is that you cannot put your fingers on what those crushing debts were expended on. The most plausible explanation is that such loans were embezzled; yet, the state continues to pay through the nose servicing and repaying them. It is high time we discouraged this evil and patently corrupt practice. We must find a way to prevent governors and presidents from borrowing beyond the capabilities of their entities. Number two is that we must fashion out a system whereby such loans are put to good use. Many of these leaders take loans or bonds to finance their elections. While I agree that government is a continuum; that does not justify amassing crushing loans that will cripple successor-governments. One of the reasons why many states cannot pay salaries and pensions is because of the heavy debt burdens they carry. Many states have peanuts to take home when their debt obligations are deducted at source. Many states will not end paying back such debts in the next 20, 30 or 40 years – again, with nothing tangible to show for it! What kind of nonsense is that? It must not only stop, those who got their states into such cul-de-sac must be unearthed -and they must be made to face the music.

I recommend Gov. Ayo Fayose’s Ekiti state example to Akeredolu: Set up a high-powered judicial commission of enquiry to look into the finances of Ondo state under the Mimiko administration. Ondo as an oil-producing state should not owe salaries and pensions. It is ridiculous that Ondo under Mimiko fared worse than states that earned far less from the Federation Account. Mimiko must explain in the open what went wrong. Akeredolu owes the state a duty to make this happen. Should he decide otherwise, because of the pledge of soft landing he purportedly gave Mimiko during the election, then, he should forever keep his peace. He will then be treated, fair and square, as an accessory after the fact.

The shake-up Buhari needs

“I am waiting for the newspapers to tell me the performance of my Ministers and whether I should make changes” – President Muhammadu Buhari, during his first anniversary.

Did the president mean what he said in the above quote or was he simply being sarcastic? If he meant what he said, he will not be the first president to appreciate the importance of newspapers. Third president of the United States of America, Thomas Jefferson, had this to say of the media: “Were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers or newspapers without government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter” Leaders who heed media advice and read the lips of newspapers, as it were, do so for their own good; those who do not, their good grief!

Rumours have been rife that Buhari would shake his Cabinet. The present Cabinet did not excite from the very beginning. It was a rehash of same old and discredited hands. Apart from the fact that it took the president an unnecessary long period to put the Cabinet together, the names he announced at the end of the day did not elicit hope or enthusiasm. Many with corruption allegations hanging around their neck like an albatross made the Cabinet. People without a pedigree of achievements and excellence completed the list. Nigerians knew from the word “go” that the Buhari Cabinet will not only under-achieve but also that it will enmesh him in needless controversies. There were too many square pegs in round holes. The Buhari Cabinet was short on people with name and integrity; so, it was clear to discerning Nigerians that we would go nowhere with it. The Cabinet, however, is not the only organ of the Buhari administration that needs a shake-up. The entire Buhari administration does!

Virtually every appointment made by the president fell below par. Nepotism, cronyism, provincialism, vindictiveness, sheer wickedness, and religious fundamentalist bigotry combined to deny the Buhari administration of quality brains and hands. As the president’s wife complained, many of those holding critical appointments in the administration knew nothing about the manifesto of the party that brought Buhari into office. Many of such people played no role in his campaign; according to Mrs. Aisha Buhari, they were just sitting at home folding their arms when cabals called on them and gave them juicy appointments. Any surprise, then, that such people – like the abrasive Gov. Yahaya Bello of Kogi state in his own special case – have not been able to fathom out what to do with power dropped on their laps on a platter, except to assault our sensibilities, ruin the system they found in place, and fritter our common patrimony! The president, if he is to help himself and take full advantage of the rumoured Cabinet reshuffle, must review all appointments, not only Ministerial appointments, so as to correct his mistakes.

The appointments as they stand – Service chiefs and heads of security apparatuses and posts; personal staff of the president; Chief of Staff, SGF, heads of the MDAs – are so lop-sided in favour of the religion and region of the president. And these appointees going forward have carried on with similar biases in their various positions; the recent “restructuring” in the NNPC, headed by a Northern Muslim, readily comes to mind. The NNPC boss favoured the North/Muslims to the chagrin of the South/Christians. In fact, the Igbo were totally frozen out. If the polity is heated up today, it is principally as a result of the lop-sidedness of Buhari’s appointments and his reckless, provocative, and divisive statements. So, for a Cabinet reshuffle to be meaningful, it must encompass the whole gamut of all appointments made so far by the president. Anything contrary will be mere window-dressing. Those making the critical decisions that are making or marring this country at the moment are not Ministers but cabals and “kitchen Cabinet” members around the president, who are virtually all Muslims from the North. They must disband if any Cabinet reshuffle is to be meaningful.

But perhaps more important than a Cabinet shake-up is a Buhari shake-up itself! We need a shake-up in Buhari’s head and brains; his ideas, ideals, mindset, and orientation need total and comprehensive shake-up. It is Buhari’s mindset and orientation that have led him to the scandalous appointments he and his cronies have continued to make. His mindset led him to say he would favour those who voted for him 97% and discriminate against those who gave him only 5% of the vote. Judging with his appointments and the distribution of federal projects, that is what Buhari has done so far. Without a change in this mindset, it will not matter who is appointed as Ministers as they all will take instructions from Buhari as well as pander to his wishes and body language. Buhari’s body language must change for any meaningful and positive change to occur in the country. It is his body language that has encouraged and emboldened the wicked and brutal Fulani herdsmen, whose life patron the president is. Buhari’s archaic ideas ruined the economy when he insisted on pig-headed economic policies that sent an economy that was the biggest in Africa and one of the fastest growing in the world into a tail-spin. The result was recession, and then depression. It is Buhari’s mindset that has set the South-east and South-south on fire. The same mindset had set the country on fire in 2011. If no shake-up occurs in Buhari’s mindset, we may also have a repeat of the costly mistakes of 1967 – 1970 and needless blood-letting on our hands again.

More than a Ministerial shake-up, these are the more fundamental shake-ups needed at this point in time. Otherwise, any Cabinet reshuffle will amount at one and same time to deceit and charade. It will be an exercise in futility.

LAST WORD: Minister of Women Affairs and Social Development, Aisha Alhassan, deserves a medal for boldness, courage, and forthrightness. Taking after Aisha Buhari, it would appear the Aishas are fearless, conscionable, and forthright people, regardless whose ox is gored. Alhassan is damn right: Only an unconscionable person will not be tired and sick of the endless shenanigans of the Buhari administration.

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