Re: Governors and unpaid salaries

The article with the title above authored by Dr. Nnaemeka Obiaraeri published in The PUNCH of Friday, May 8, 2015, should be of interest to all those keen on issues of good governance, accountability and the well-being of Nigeria.

While good governance is all we must crave for and leave nothing undone to achieve as part of the zeal to bail Nigeria out of her predicament occasioned by mis-governance of, at least, about a decade and a half now, it is equally pertinent to ensure that those who engage in crusades to bring about the needed change in our affairs do so with sincerity, in-depth knowledge of the underbelly of our situations and the capacity to identify the real problems lest they dissipate energies on inanities, chase shadows and eventually achieve nothing in their self-appointed rescue mission.

I doubt if the author of the above article understands issues of governance vis-a-vis revenue generation, allocation and national resources. This, if he does, would have helped him comprehend better how Nigeria got to her present state on the issue of workers’ salaries.

The author failed to tie the prevailing situation back to what obtained some two years ago before the inability to meet obligations to workers assumed such a sore point that has become a national crisis.

Had he done that, he would have discovered that the present excruciating revenue situation affecting payment of salaries is a direct outcome of the lack of transparency and the inept management of the national economy that has hallmarked the outgoing Peoples Democratic Party-led government.

Some governors, we must remember, raised the alarm on the dangerous slide in the economic fortunes of the country arising from sleaze to avert the present situation. Governor Rauf Aregbesola of Osun State stands prominent in these visionary calls for immediate arrest of the situation. It would therefore be unfair to blame the same governors for what they saw coming and were vociferous about.

However, the author must be commended for recognising that integrity played a major role in the emergence of the President-elect, Muhammadu Buhari and his deputy, Yemi Osinbajo, hence his pity for the two over what he expects to be another culture of sleaze under the new dispensation.

Unfortunately, this is where Obiaraeri unfortunately punctured his own argument expecting the duo to be lone rangers in the midst of corruption “sharks” and kingpins.

He needs to be told that the President-elect and his deputy are two good ambassadors of the very culture and tendency they represent. The same camp had fought relentlessly in the last 16 years of our political history to wrest power from the PDP.

If anything, what is required for a genuine rescue mission is adequate understanding of the issues, genuine readiness to support the new government to untie the knotty and complicated issues already created by many years of misrule.

Kolawole ‘Lawon

Ojodu, Ikeja, Lagos

kolawolesemmy@yahoo.com