Nigeria is a Republic, operating a federal system of government, with a composition of 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory as the administrative headquarters.
Section 176, subsection 1-2 of the 1999 Constitution as amended provides that; there shall be for each state of the federation a Governor, and the Governor of a state shall be the Chief Executive of the state. This constitutional provisions entails how important is the position of state Governor in the Nigerian political settings. In furtherance, the Governor is the Chief Security Officer and at the same time Chief Accounting Officer of the state, he shall therefore be responsible for the betterment and security of lives and properties in the state, by providing basic social amenities to the teaming citizenry and maintaining law and order.
What we witnessed overtime in almost all the Nigerian states is a derailment on the part of the state governors from their core responsibilities. The activities of governors turned disappointing, because the expectation was that state governors will drive the democratic dividend to the lowest community level, going by the huge financial grants allocated to them by the central government, and the internally generated revenue accruable within individual state. The past decade especially as the country turned to democratic rule, Nigeria recorded a huge financial inflow, this was largely derived from the sales of crude oil whose price and output reached the highest peak in the Nigerian history. To the rest of Nigerians, this huge cash inflow will do nothing other than change the course of things, by way of bringing rapid development, generate massive employment, revive agriculture and solid minerals, connect urban centres and rural through construction bridges and road networks, rural electrification, pipe borne water supply, educational and recreational centres, industrial development among others. But years down the line, such assumptions and expectations were not met, people's hopes were eroded. Consequently, urban centres were left semi-developed, large chunk of districts, villages and hamlets were also left untouched, with high level of poverty, lack of access to basic social amenities, unemployment, agricultural and mining incentives deficit, diseases, hunger, petty and high level criminal activities.
There is no denying the fact that governors have derails away from their core responsibilities, monies meant for bringing succor to the lives of the suffering ordinary people were misappropriated, siphoned and misapplied by the power that be in our states. Recent revelations on the activities of state governors, indicates that apart from money sent for salaries and capital projects to states monthly, disbursements were also made in form of financial bailouts to augment states financial shortfalls, the purpose which is to aid states pay outstanding salaries, pensions and contracts claims. In an effort to further salvage the deteriorating economic situation of state, local government workers and pensioners, the central government further disbursed more money to state governments as a refund of a Paris Club Loan which almost all the state's are entitled to. Astonishingly, the new monetary disbursements have been misappropriated and embezzled, living the beneficiaries; the pensioners, and those owing salary arrears unattended, and continued facing economic hardship due to an intentional denial of what is ought to be theirs. This revelations, proves how greedy, selfish and wicked some state governors are, and the extent to which public funds have become personalised, and state governors refused to adhere to the directives of Mr President to judiciously utilize the funds by using 50-50 sharing formula for workers and pensioners benefits settlements and capital projects executions. These apart from years long taken of most state's local governments hostages, by hijacking their finances and dictating almost all the local government ought to do as a third tier of government by the state governors, leaving local government underdeveloped and impoverished. The rising insecurity in most states coupled with incessant armed robbery, banditry, kidnapping, communal, religious and ethnic clashes indicates that state governors are not doing enough to safeguard lives and properties of citizens within individual state. In most states, there are too many apprehension and concerns on whether the governors are in tune with reality and have the vision to change the course of things by delivering their campaign promises, with some facing party-infighting leading to using divide and rule tactics to conveniently stay and finish their tenure in office. Some governors have also been accused of impunity, recklessness and highhandedness in performing their official functions. These and lots more posed the question of whether the caliber of state governors are responsible enough to lead their individual state.
Finally, it is of greater importance that our state governors especially within this change democratic dispensation to as a matter of urgency fine-tune way forward, by finding solutions to the myriad of problems bedeviling their individual state. The time is now that state governors shall strive to provide succor to the teaming impoverished and poverty ridden populace, by providing gainful employment opportunities, address shortages in agricultural inputs such as fertilizer, pesticides and credit facilities, and provide enormous opportunity for those with formal education to be employ into government formations to contribute their quarter to the development and service delivery of such establishments, to address challenges of infrastructure deficit by linking villages and hamlets with bridges, road networks, modern market stalls, standard centres of learning, security of lives and properties of people should be guaranteed and lots more. Governance shall be people oriented and no longer self-serving phenomena. Until these and lots more can be achieved in our states, the question of responsible governance by our state governors will remained unanswered.
Umar Muhammad
mumarlere@gmail.com
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