By: Arakunrin Bolakale
Alighted from a white Hilux Jeep in a short Buba and Sokoto, tainted his eyes with a black shade and disappointed the cheerers who have been waiting in hundreds with drums and sycophantic stories. All sai Pounds! Sai Gomina!! 4+4 is certain!!! didn’t win my Governor’s attention. The Excellency must have arrived at the venue in a disagreeable mood.
The hall has no space for an ant, filled to the brim and the enthusiasm in the face of the attendees couldn’t be compared to anything other than a pious man who had never lifted the skirt of a woman and eventually had the night of the wedding to taste what Yoruba called Adun ma’ade Eke.
In attendance; Head of Service, Perms Secs, Directors and DGs, Labour leaders, Traditional Leaders, Religious elders, civil societies and other stakeholders. In all, civil servants held up 75% of the attendance. Stillness grabbed the hall, the mood changed and many mouths left opened as the powerful man walked straight to his perch. Men of the high table were only honoured with a hand’s waves. The Excellency must up to something and mean the business; people visualized. It’s the first meeting between the Governor and Civil Servants.
After different short speeches, the Governor had the podium and he began the most astonishing speech.
I welcome you all! As a cultured man, he honoured the traditional leaders, religious elders and all other stakeholders. *My Civil Servants are the problems of my state*! The serenity of the hall sauntered to the upper level. The sound of a fly could be heard clearly by the deaf. The civil service as an institution has failed. My Government is releasing billions of naira to the institution; office renovations, prompt payment of salaries with the implementation of New minimum wage, promotion examination has been steady, training of staff has been perfect but with all our efforts to redefine the system, our civil servants aren’t productive, efficiency and the return on investment isn’t encouraging.
A handful of my civil servants have moistened into politics and their loyalty isn’t to the state but their political godfathers. The Labour Union are becoming an agent of distraction and their patriotism is failing the sincerity test. What about the heads of MDAs? We release the money to them but little is what we get as productivity and returns on investment. In fact, my civil servants are robbers! because they are failing in some of their responsibilities.
Everywhere was calm as the Governor returned to his seat. Honour was bestowed on three people to speak. The traditional institution, religious elder to offer closing prayer and the labour union leader.
The spokesperson of the Traditional Council made a good appeal to the Governor and he couldn’t make any case for the civil servants, he agreed with the Governor that the civil service has a huge number of partisan politicians who do hold patriotism to the state.
Next to remark is the Secretary of the Labour Union. A Marxist, outspoken and handsome civil servant who has been in service for over 20yrs, written many books on workers emancipation and growth of the nation, delivered many lectures and could be best described as an advocate of justice. Named, Ashade Oshowo!
Bestowed honour and respect on the Governor, observed the protocols and pleaded for three minutes to make his short remarks. His Excellency was so eager to listen to him, Oshowo had made stimulating opening remarks and protocols. He got the nod and he began his short remarks.
We (workers) are robbers because we are failing in our responsibilities. We failed because we are unproductive and the return on investment isn’t encouraging. We apologise to the Governor who observed that and to the Traditional leaders and every other person that agreed with the Governor.
A few days ago, a bodiless head was found on the popular road in the state capital, not the first time though. Not less than five youths have lost their lives in the various cult clashes the state has witnessed recently. A lady was raped to death in Yanke and many unreported robbery cases occur at will. All these happened not because we don’t have Government or Securing lives and properties is no longer the constitutional role of the Government but because our Government is failing.
As civil service, we recognised our advisory roles on policy formulation and implementation. We have competent permanent secretaries, heads of MDAs but we are all under the directives of representatives of the Governor, the commissioners. As a leader in the workers union, I made bold to say that we didn’t have a contribution in the selection of the commissioners and we aren’t left in the lurch in the personality and capacity of our commissioners. The only challenge we usually encounter is parallel opinions. Our opinions as expected are always born out of experience, capacity and knowledge but we are relating with Ogas (commissioners) with a binary intelligence (my boss says yes, my boss says no). We receive memos and directives from people that can’t provide answers to any concern we raised. The response is always, just do it.
We appreciate our H.E for being honest with us, we shall appreciate him more if he would listen to our sincere statements. We have witnessed and still witnessing renovation across the board but people like me have worked with many Governors to know that Social and Economic development or better to say, the Gross Domestic Products of the state demands more than customised projects. We elected your Excellency with the power to weed out bad eggs in the civil service and encourage the good eggs. We know the power of the Governor and we are confident about the support of the people for your government. We have been expecting your action against the fugitives in the works ministry that contrived with the contractors against the state but you seem to be too charitable.
We in the civil service works with policy and standard procedures. We have seen and appreciated your investment in the renovations of our schools, the recruitment exercise and other interventions but we want to ask, where is the blueprint for education development? We understand the difference between schools and education. We wouldn’t like to speak on the board appointment of the KUBEB because we would not like to establish that governance without adherence to law is illegal and illegality is an action of armed robbers.
We appreciate the your decision to outsource the job of policy formulation to an Agric company. It wouldn’t be a bad idea if the same act could be replicated in the health and other sectors. You know the capacity of your appointees and we hope they would be able to supervise implementation.
Your Excellency, you have done well on the road rehabilitation but the quality of job hasn’t distinguished your administration from your predecessors. Every rehabilitated road expires in less than six month and we hope to have seen your action against some culprits in this mess.
While spending public funds is the easiest part of governance, we would appreciate to know the revenue sources your administration has created through spending of public funds.
Meanwhile, I wouldn’t be able to say if the failure of some of our members in their responsibilities makes them robbers, you Excellency, you are the leader of the state and the civil service, can we say You are their gang leader?
Oshowo ended his speech by congratulating the Governor on his wisdom in managing the crisis in his party and urged him not to be distracted in any way. He dropped the microphone and calmness enveloped the hall.
The closing prayer was said and everybody departed!