By Ugochukwu Ejinkeonye
In March 2014, while handing over to his
successor in Awka, former Anambra State Governor, Mr. Peter Obi, announced that
apart from ensuring that all salaries and allowances of public service workers
and pensioners were paid up to date, he was also leaving behind N75 billion in
“cash and investments” for the in-coming administration. In a normal country, where accountability and
responsible governance are normal expectations, where public service has not
been crudely reduced to mere organised banditry as is largely the case across Nigeria , this
should not attract any applause.
*Obi
But we live in an abnormal country where criminal accumulation and
wasteful spending have long been accepted as normal features of public service,
where public officers ensure that they empty government treasuries and erect
pyramids of debts before they leave office.
And so Mr. Obi’s rare example was widely applauded, and has been
extensively held up by several commentators to underline what decent and
conscientious public service ought to look like.
But last week, nearly two years after he was sworn in as the Governor of Anambra State, Mr. Willie Obiano, sought to insert a sharp pin in the balloon of public excitement about what many have come to accept as Obi’s exemplary tenure. At a press conference in Awka, the Secretary to the Anambra State Government (SSG), Prof Solomon Chukwulobelu, declared that “The N75 billion [which Obi claimed he left behind] was not there; it was not handed over to anybody. At best it can be half-truth…In the real sense, what the Obiano administration inherited from Obi was N9 billion cash and N26 billion near cash.”
He explained further: “…to provide a true and fair picture of the state’s net position on
March 17, 2014, the investments handover notes ought to have captured current
liabilities and contingent liabilities also borne by the previous
administration as at the time of handover. To put this in context, the total
portfolio of inherited projects valued at approximately N185 billion was
however not captured in the breakdown of the handover notes.”
According to Prof Chukwulobelu,
out of the N185.1bn owed contractors, Mr. Obi only paid the sum of N78.9bn as
at March 2014 when he handed over to Obiano, leaving a debt of N106.2bn.
These
are indeed very weighty disclosures, and if they turn out to be true, they can
only destroy whatever value Obi’s N75 billion was expected to add to the Anambra purse.
But Obi’s media aide, Mr. Valentine
Obinenyem, has called for a public, televised debate on this contentious issue.
I think this call is important and very necessary so that Nigerians can know
exactly who is saying the truth about this matter. The accusing party should,
therefore, put together a forum where both sides can come together with their
facts and figures before television cameras to prove the truth or otherwise of
their different positions. If they demonstrate any reluctance to organise this,
a national television or civil society organisation should (as part of its
patriotic duty to Nigeria
and Nigerians) take the initiative to organise this debate right away and
invite them. Although Channels Television has done well to feature
spokespersons of the two regimes separately in its breakfast show recently,
there is need for a moderated forum where they will meet together to iron out
the differences in their individual accounts. And should any of them develop
cold feet and shun the debate, the organisers should announce the party that
absconded to Nigerians and we will then know who among the two leaders has been
doing willful damage to truth and a badge of shame would promptly be put on
him. This is how matters of this nature are usually resolved in civilised
societies.
*Obiano
In a statement published in the
media last week, Obineyem stated that “on coming to office, Obi spent his first
year to complete all the contracts awarded by his predecessors. In some cases,
he had to start from scratch. Obi, for example, paid over 35 billion in arrears
of pension and gratuity. Though they [Obiano’s spokespersons] inflated the figures, but the point to note
is that the debt they are talking about in their press conference is contract
sum on projects yet to be executed.”
According to him: “They said that Obi left 106.2 Billion (wrong figure) overhang on
contractual debts alone. I challenge them to publish the schedule of the debts
and the companies being owed. As at the time Obi left office, he paid for all
the certificates generated on contracts awarded. Certificates are generated on
the basis of work completed. Are they saying Obi ought to [have
paid] for contracts yet to be done? The
same man saying this awarded 35 fresh [contracts for the construction of] roads within his first year in office at the
total cost of over 81 billion Naira out of which he has paid 10 Billion Naira.
On the other hand, Obi awarded [contracts for] roads totalling 93 Billion [naira] in his last year in office and paid
a total of over 51 Billion on those roads before leaving office. Most of those
roads were used to campaign for him during electioneering on the premise of
continuity.”
Obienyem gave the
breakdown of the “cash and investment” Obi left for his successor as follows:
N27billion in local currency;
N26.5 billion in foreign currency investment (foreign bonds);
N28.1 billion in Certified
State / MDS balances.
Then he said: “Even
in the final handover document, Obi deducted N10 billion approved federal
government refund as well as the salary, pension, gratuity, money on
certificates raised on contracts for the month of March, which all amounted to
N5 billion before arriving at the balance of over N75 billion he bequeathed his
successor. As a financial expert, Obi went to his end-of-tenure event with Gov.
Willie Obiano and said all this in the presence of all the Bank MDs in whose
banks the monies were. In fact, as at March 17th when he handed over, he got
all the certified statements of Anambra’s accounts from the banks these monies
were and handed them over to his successor.”
*Obi and Obiano
I think that these are claims that
are easily verifiable, so why the needless noise and generation of bad blood in
Anambra? By the way, did Obiano make any attempt to get Obi to clarify anything
that required some explanation in his handover note before asking his SSG to do
a press conference? Also, people have asked why Gov Obiano had to wait for
nearly two years into his tenure to make these damaging disclosures. While his
principal secretary, Mr. Willie Nwokoye, said on Channels Television last week
that Obiano was too busy with his work to start addressing such matters, the
National Publicity Secretary of the All Progressive Grand Alliance (APGA),
Chief Ifeatu Obiokoye, told reporters in Awka that the reason was that Obi was
all the while still a member of their party and so it would not have been
proper to embarrass him with a rebuttal.
This is how he put it: “I believe
Governor Willie Obiano was being cautious by coming up with the truth now
which, if he had done before now, would have embarrassed his predecessor.” In
other words, this has more to do with politics than the need to ensure
accountability. What one can deduce from this assertion, therefore, is that no
one in Awka would have bothered himself making these astounding revelations were
Obi still in APGA.
Well, I think that this ought to
be very simple matter if Obi’s accusers would bother to answer these few questions. Was there any
project completed before March 2014 that Obi did not pay for before leaving
office? How exactly do Obiano and his advisers define debts? Was anyone
expecting Obi to have paid for projects not yet completed as at the time he was
leaving office? Wouldn’t that be termed an unwholesome act? Is government no
longer a continuous process where a successor is expected to take over the
responsibilities of the office from where his predecessor stopped and ensure
they are fully and successfully discharged?
Okay, can Mr. Obiano get the Managing Directors of the banks where these
contentious funds were lodged to issue certified statements contradicting Obi’s
claims? Why should they expect any reasonable person to believe their mere
words of mouth refuting Obi’s claims
without any credible documentary evidence?
One point one has noticed in this
controversy is that whereas Obi had announced that he left N75 billion in “cash
and investments,” the Obiano people are harping on the misinformation that he
actually claimed to have left N75 billion cash only. And so, Obiano’s principal
secretary could question whether it amounted to good governance to have left
such an amount while there were some things to be done in the state. He also
accused Obi of announcing that he left the billions of naira for the state
without also disclosing the obligations
he left behind?
*Ngige
I do not know if Obi did not give
to his successor the list of the projects that were yet to be completed as at
the time he was leaving office (because that would really be quite strange in a
handover note) but my feeling is that these fellows were hoping to come into
government to play around and do nothing? Because, what is governance if not
the discharging of obligations? Haven’t the Anambra State
government been getting monthly allocations from the Federation Account and
Internally Generated Revenue (IGR) since Obiano took over? Or were they
thinking that there was a tree from which Obi was plucking money and which he
carefully cut down before leaving office? In fact, there is even only a
marginal difference between the figure Obiano’s principal secretary acknowledged
on Channels TV that Obi handed over to them and what Obi had announced which
they are challenging. In fact, one could easily see that the people
interviewing him were grossly unimpressed by his theatrics. I thought I saw
relief on their faces when his session was over.
When Obi assumed office, he wasted
no time in clearing the arrears of pensions and gratuity he inherited to the
tune of N35 billion and he seemed happy and fulfilled doing so. He also
hastened to complete all the projects left behind by his predecessor. But when Obiano
took over, he met no arrears of salaries, pensions and allowances waiting for
him to defray. He had no debts arising from completed but unpaid-for contracts
to offset, so what is his problem? Was he expecting Obi to have paid the
contractors upfront? What if Obi had gone ahead to do that and the contractors
later defaulted, who would carry the can?
Obiano announced in
Mkpor last week that he was seeking a second term in office. “I am
going to stay eight years in office and nobody can stop me!” he said.
That is a legitimate ambition which is within his rights as a Nigerian.
But he stands the chance of being the one to stop himself because of the kind
of needless, if not, puerile war he is waging against his predecessor. If he
thinks that the only way to stamp himself on the minds of the people is to
rubbish Mr. Obi, he would wake up to realize that he has been trapped in a very
long dream. Indeed, Obi may have left office but given his sterling performance
and noble character which have been widely acknowledged, he still has his teeming
admirers who remember his tenure with immense delight. Engaging in a pointless combat with their
hero may compel them to cast their votes in a way that might effectively bury
Mr. Obiano’s ambition. After all, Obiano could not have forgotten so soon that he
rode on the record of this same Obi to power, because, by the time he became
APGA’s governorship candidate, only few people could recall having ever heard his
name anywhere, yet he was able to defeat a formidable candidate like Dr. Chris
Ngige.
Now is it not demoralizing that at a time when the stories emanating
from most of the states of the federation are mainly about months of unpaid
salaries, empty treasuries, mountains of debts and strivings to obtain bailouts
from the Federal Government, we have in Awka a governor who could find the time to engage in a pointless
battle with his predecessor who had handed over to him a healthy state with NO
arrears of unpaid salaries and NO mountains of debts; a predecessor who instead
of billions of debts handed over to him a purse full of billions in “cash and
investments.” One of the foreign
investments made by Obi, according to his aide (and which has not been
refuted), has even yielded about N10 billion profit to Anambra State .
That’s probably why Obiano could find the whopping sum of N5 billion (as
also alleged by Obi’s aide) to mark his hundred days in office and buy all
those fleets of posh Prado SUVs and luxury pick-ups for each of these his
officers going about now running their mouths on his behalf. If Peter Obi had
wallowed in the kind of revolting profligacy allegedly flourishing in Awka
today, would he have been able to leave Anambra in such a healthy state? In Oyo
State today, for example,
Gov Ajimobi is even saying that the bailout he got from the Federal Government
is not enough to lift the crushing debt burden weighing the state down and that
he needs more. In
Katsina State, Gov Bello Masari had to lie to obtain an eleven billion naira
bailout from the Federal Government. Other more disheartening stories are
oozing from several states, but Anambra, because of Obi’s prudent management of
resources, does not have such tales of woes.
If many Nigerians today hold Obi up as a model governor,
he truly earned it. It was clear that he believed that governance should be a
more serious business than most people viewed it; it should be about quality
service delivery, instead of an opportunity for infantile and ostentatious
display of power, influence and glamour as seem to have become the norm in this
country. The “normal” Nigerian politician who was used to vulgar bacchanals,
obscene squander-mania at Government Houses, long, reckless, siren-blaring
convoys and fear-instilling bodyguards would probably find Peter Obi something
of an odd fellow. Instead of investing all that energy, resources and time in
needless and distracting advertisement of one’s obsession with indecent fanfare,
infantile exuberance and depraved pleasure hunting, he would rather wake up
daily and simply go to work.
One thing he was, however, regularly accused of during his tenure was his firm refusal to “carry long” the so-called elite in the state. Now, one might think this was one serious charge if one did not know what it meant. Indeed, what that meant was Obi’s blunt unwillingness to continue the unsightly tradition of throwing lavish parties for and sharing out Anambra money to an army of parasitic elite who also exist in several other states of the federation, and who depend on public funds to maintain the wasteful lifestyles they have become used to but lack personal resources to sustain. Obi’s philosophy that public funds were only meant for the execution of public projects and not to be squandered by a few privileged parasites won him some very bitter enemies, but it also won him the respect of decent Nigerians who mean well for the country.
At a time, Obi was almost the only
governor one could meet queuing at the airport to board an aircraft like
“ordinary” passengers like us (he also always flew economy class) while his
colleagues, some of whom would not have qualified to serve as his P.A. before he
and they became governors hopped about in private jets and wallowed in
unspeakable profligacy. This is one thing that deeply pains and causes
prolonged sorrow to decent and responsible Nigerians about public officers, and
the likes Peter Obi is a kind of consolation that all is, perhaps, not entirely
lost, that the whole place has not been totally overrun by ferocious locusts.
In his statement, Obi’s aide alleged
that the bacchanals and lavish reveling abhorred by Obi during his tenure at
the government house have returned in full force; the current governor charters
private jets to take him around (and this costs a fortune) and engages in
several wasteful spending that can make the hearts of Ndi Anambra who are used
to Obi’s meticulous and scrupulous use of funds to bleed? Now if all these avoidable expenses succeed
in gulping the billions left behind by Obi, is the sudden proclamation that the
funds never existed the most responsible response?
Before long, Obiano would go to the
polls to seek a second term as he has announced. The last time, it seemed
almost a walkover for him because of the solid reputation of his predecessor
with which he was marketed to the people. Today, he should realize that he is
entirely on his own and facing a no mean challenge. Right now, some people are
asking whether his party, APGA still exists; so, what is Obiano doing to
refurbish and refocus the party or is he planning to run on a different
platform? Also, given the nature of the elections already conducted under the
ruling APC, he should know that he would be facing a very unusual opponent.
Even if the APC finds it difficult to browbeat the Anambra people to give it
their votes (due largely to President Buhari’s undisguised unfriendly
disposition towards the South East), the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) will
not be any easy opponent to confront. I think that this should constitute more
worry to Mr. Obiano than devoting precious time and resources hauling weak and
often contradictory and self-damaging allegations at a man who is not running
against him in an election (since he is longer constitutionally allowed to run
for the office of governor) and whom he has not been able to accuse of any form
of financial mismanagement.
*Ugochukwu Ejinkeonye, a regular contributor to this blog, is a syndicated columnist (scruples2@hotmail.com; twitter: @ugowrite)
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