MUCH ADO ABOUT THE PAYMENT OF DERIVATION
By Joel Odhomo Salubi (Mr. JOS).
These are not normal times. The political space is acrid. We are witnessing nights of long knives. Commentators and pseudo-commentators are having a field day. Half-truths and ill-digested facts are being peddled. In this season of political anomie, we are experiencing the re-enactment of the newspeak of George Orwell in his book, 1984. Political opponents are baying for fresh blood to service the ogre of their quest for power, while their e-rats are recycling malodorous effusions by way of sharing incongruous and inchoate information.
The recent claim of the Governor of Rivers State, Nyesom Wike , on receipt of derivation proceeds from the Federal Government, has added extra effervescence to an otherwise putrid political environment. But for Nyesom Wike’s impasse with his party, nothing would have been heard about what he got from the Federal Government. In order to play the ‘bad boy’ and appear to be the poster child on how to utilize funds and undermined his Niger Delta brother Governors, he is making a mountain out of a molehill from the derivation fund. This may just be much ado about nothing because developmental parameters are different from State to State.
In Delta State, for example, education is a prerequisite for development hence the primacy placed on it by Senator, Dr. Ifeanyi Okowa’s administration.
Again, development is democratized in Delta State and resources are duly shared in the three senatorial zones. Roads are constructed with huge resources without spending equally huge amounts to commission such. Vulgar advertisement of what one was elected to do is like thanking ATM for attending to your financial needs. It is peremptory for any Governor in Delta State to concentrate development in his own zone to the detriment of other zones. The hype of the development in Delta North may be an indictment on previous Governors who may not have done much for the zone.
The Federal Government, which in the first place, held on to the legitimate monies of the States in the Niger Delta, jumped into the fray, by purportedly releasing the figures of accruals to the States. While the timing of this pseudo-transparency is suspect, it remains to be seen what the Federal Government has done with its own share of monies in the said period. Apart from the miraculous feeding of school children during the Covid 19 period, we have noticed that all indices of development have nose-dived in this regime. It is laughable for the Federal Government to call out the Governors in the Niger Delta States where the punishing ecological terrain is a bane to development, and by extension, adds to the costs of projects.
Politicians outside the Niger Delta region, have always seen the political gladiators from the region as prodigal. While it is true that some politicians in the region have failed their people, we cannot use the same brush to paint everyone. Indeed, the propaganda against some Governors of the south-south in general and undue effort to cancel the laudable achievements of Governor Okowa, in particular, by the hirelings and spin-doctors of the Federal Government and their local comprador, is a part of a well-oiled attempt to de-market his potential Political capital.
This, just like other banana peels thrown on his path will fail. There is no doubt that transparency in governance is essential, but the wave of media onslaught, is just a means to an end. The Governor is accountable to his people and not the ‘Presidency’. Let’s put the cards on the table without necessarily overacting in order not to play into the hands of traducers. In any case, the Governors in the northeast received humongous amount for the development of the war-ravaged, but self-inflicted insurgency in the zone. Have they accounted for this? The trouble is that, we, politicians from the south-south are slavish in mentality in the fleeting quest to be acceptable to our perceived ‘political overlords’. We allow outsiders to run us down because of greed. We support others against us. With the quantum of financial resources in Lagos and the apparent challenge of managing such, our brothers in the press, play the Goebbels for them. Let’s do more to showcase our achievements. When they fly low, let’s up the game.
