Shambolic exit offerings

We have for some while been in that season of curious haste when outgoing executives in power – in the present instance, state governors whose tenures are up – say they are ‘finishing strong.’ To that end, they’re unveiling a rash of projects aimed at padding up their record of achievements in office, but which on reality check are suspect in terms of economic relevance, durability and legacy values.

In some cases, more projects got dizzyingly commissioned in the closing weeks of their excellencies’ respective tenure than in all of the years they’ve spent in office, even for two-term governors. But that in itself is not the beef. The challenge, rather, is that many questions are thrown up as to the true financials / cost-effectiveness of those projects, the thoroughness of their execution and survival strength, not to mention how those projects fit into the whole architecture of each state economy. It is suspected in some instances that those projects are really smokescreens for cleaning out the treasury, leaving an incoming administration to begin with sourcing its own funds. Worse, some of the projects are funded with borrowed funds that is bound to mortgage the revenue of an incoming administration and constrain its performance, if only initially.

There have been reports of road construction projects involving tens of kilometres of stretches being purportedly commissioned, whereas for real only a few metres from the designated point of ceremonial tape cutting are thinly made over with bitumen. There have been huge facility projects commissioned with the loud fanfare, even though the facilities in truth will not be ready for public use until much more extensive construction and finishing work is undertaken by a succeeding administration. Where the new government is not so disposed, you have perfect candidates of grand white elephants in sight. In short, there are many projects already ceremonially unveiled that are in reality no more than gilded tombs.

To be sure, in a number of cases it isn’t that fraud was intended by their excellencies (in other cases, though, it is outright and premeditated fraud), and some may indeed make the rare cut of passing the probity test in an audit of applicable financials. ‘Could be it is only that there were no sufficient funds or time left in the tenures to perfect those projects and the executives simply couldn’t bear successors coming in to finish up and claim the credit for their initiatives, and so they resort to commissioning the projects half-done. In which case you can’t discountenance the implied factor of grand deception. A bigger issue, however, is that many of these ‘delivered’ projects are deodorised by the state chief executive inviting prominent statesmen, monarchs and indeed the Muhammadu Buhari presidency – whether it be the President in person or Vice President Yemi Osinbajo – to come perform the commissioning. And they oblige, even so with generous words of commendation for the ‘great performance’ of the concerned state governor. Sometimes you would wonder if these commissioniers bothered to probe beyond the façade of ceremonial finishing into the actual state of the projects being unveiled and loudly celebrated.

‘Buhari’s statue in Owerri is…avoidable waste of public resource that the president should speak up to dissuade other potential gifters from’

The profiles I have outlined afore apply in random strokes to many projects lately staged by exiting state executives whose tenures will expire barely 48 hours hence. And we really should question the rationale for an individual public official appropriating for himself all glory for projects executed with public, not personal funds. He is a steward and not a benefactor, isn’t he? But that is just by the way.

Done with that, a different point is to be made that Imo State Governor Rochas Okorocha is in a different league altogether with the sheer pettiness of his governance offerings: be it in policy ideas or legacy values of his concrete deliveries. It was this outgoing governor who came up late in 2017 with the peculiar idea (at least, in the Nigerian context) of a ministry of happiness and purpose fulfillment to which he named his biological kid sister, Mrs. Ogechi Ololo, as commissioner. Considering disputations over substantive economic benefits that have accrued till date to Imo people, it is uncertain how much of happiness and purpose fulfillment has been afforded them by that bureaucratic brainwave. Actually, with the level of bile trailing the governor’s political career at the moment, it is doubtful he has himself been much impacted.

Then, there is the Imo governor’s seeming fixation with sycophantic gifting of personality statues. Last week, he had to by himself unveil a statue of President Muhammadu Buhari in Owerri, the state capital, after the president pulled the rug under a scheduled one-day state visit on Tuesday to commission projects, among which was the said statue. Other projects he was reportedly billed to commission include the Sam Mbakwe International Cargo Airport, an ultra-modern police headquarters and a prison complex. The state government announced last minute ditching of the presidential visit, saying in a statement that he had not returned from Saudi Arabia where he was on lesser hajj.

Many would say it was only helpful for President Buhari’s austere image that he did not make the scheduling to unveil the statue he was being gifted by the Imo governor. Barely a week earlier, Vice President Osinbajo was in the state to commission projects that included the Imo International Exhibition Centre said to have been renamed after him, the Odenigbo Guest House, the new Governor’s Lodge, the Government House clinic, Sam Mbakwe road, Assumpta road and Nnamdi Azikiwe road among others. And before the vice president’s visit prominent monarchs, including Sultan Mohammed Said Abubakar of Sokoto and Ooni Adeyeye Enitan Ogunwusi of Ife, had during a summit of traditional rulers in Owerri also commissioned some projects that included structures in the palace complex of Eze Imo.

Unveiling serial projects within a short run is perhaps commendable, and there is no argument true development of society must be comprehensive and multi-dimensional. Yet, we could interrogate the relevance of some projects to ordinary Imolites’ personal economies. In other words, for a state administration that by its own judicial testimony – given before a Federal Capital Territory high court in Abuja early this May – that it was in arrears on workers’ salaries and retirees’ pensions among other commitments, you could ask whether those projects are mere showpieces or they are pivotal to the state economy as affects ordinary residents who constitute the electorate. Then, the peculiar streak of multiple personality statues being randomly erected by the outgoing governor takes the question of economic logic to a whole new level.

Okorocha has the distinction of having installed in the Imo capital statues of some world personalities whose relevance to the Nigerian nationhood experience is highly questionable. In October 2017, he erected a giant bronze statue of former South African President Jacob Zuma, which he brought the man all the way to come unveil. Whereas he said he was honouring Zuma for his life’s example that offered motivation even to generations unborn, the statue’s unveiling occurred in the thick of xenophobic killings of Nigerians in South Africa and on the heels of a unanimous verdict by that country’s supreme court binding Zuma to trial for 783 corruption charges. The anti-apartheid icon has since been flushed out of power and is presently standing trial for corruption.

Besides salaries and pensions that Okorocha’s government confesses owing, there are reports that Imo State’s debt profile ballooned under his watch. Figures from the 2017 State of States report by non-governmental group, Budgit, showed the state’s debts quadrupling from N7.3billion in 2012 to N28.9billion in 2016. Buhari’s statue in Owerri is thus needless exercise in flattery and avoidable waste of public resource that the president should speak up to dissuade other potential gifters from.