AN OPEN LETTER TO THE GOVERNOR OF OGUN STATE, SEN. IBIKUNLE AMOSUN CON, FCA.

Your Excellency sir,
I write to you this morning as a concerned citizen of Ogun State, a tax payer, an electorate whose vote contributed to your victory at both the 2011 and 2015 governorship polls.your
I am writing to remind you of how you convinced us about Gbenga Daniel administration and the “surrogate” during 2011 electioneering campaign. Specifically you said that they had mismanaged public funds using certain people as “conduit pipes”. You told us of your resolve to rebuild Ogun State through your five cardinal points programmes. You promised to upset the backlog of salaries and allowances of workers, pay hazard, peculiar and excess workload allowances to deserving workers and an immediate reversal of the seemingly “corrupt” contributory pension scheme for workers. Your promises were so mouth watering that we were already feeling the breath of fresh air even before you were elected. We queued behind you and voted your party, the defunct Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) to send OGD and Obasanjo's protégés away.

No sooner than you emerged. The whole state was engulfed in controversies over the debt profile of the state under your predecessor. Some probe panel were set up to look into what your administration termed “financial recklessness and abuse of power” under Gbenga Daniel administration. In a nutshell, you made us realized, your predecessor plunged the state into huge financial debt and you will need some time to put the state on a sound footing again. Your aides used that to justify the reason why no project was commissioned in your first 100days in office and the 10,000 jobs promised our youths did not materialize. Instead of fulfilling the promised 10,000 jobs, workers employed in the twilight of the Gbenga Daniel administration were sacked.

The same excuse was put forward to start borrowing money endlessly from that time till now. It was the intention of the administration before yours to go for a bond for capital projects. During the campaign preceding the election that brought you into power you tagged the bond a bond of bondage” and you incited the people of Ogun State to reject the bond idea of your predecessor. Surprisingly you came into power and went for bond that you once condemned. You have on several occasion justified what you once condemned, even our lawmakers are now accomplices, given all manner of approval to all your very dark loan proposals.

Permit me to say that our expectations from your government that promised much but has delivered very little were dashed in your first term but you maneuvered your way with some projects in the later part to convince us on why we should give you a second term. We gave you benefit of the doubt with the believe you will consolidate where you have done well and correct your errors made in the first term since we are all human being.

Your Excellency sir, you have made several mistakes in the last 6 years but for the purpose of this letter, let me dwell only on your failure to pay workers salary, pension, gratuity and severance allowances of past political office holders.

Some are saying your government is not owing anyone, groups or institutions a dime as salary but I insist you are owing sir. You are owing workers deductions which is their savings to cooperative societies. This money is deducted from workers salaries from the source base on instructions given to cooperatives by cooperators on savings and loan repayments. Non-remittance of such money is tantamount to salary default. This was part of what led to the on going no love lost situation between your government and the leadership of Ogun NLC leading to industrial actions. Regrettably, you considered the demand by workers for their rights as effrontery, their leadership was visited with sack letters.

Your government recently announced its readiness to pay severance allowances to past political office holders. It turned out to be another deceit from your government to Ogun State people as many of the past political office holders from 2007 to 2015 went back home disappointed from a payment event your government announced on both the electronic and print media. Today, it is clear that the arrangement was to cover some tracks in the Paris Club refunds since the bulk of beneficiaries are yet to get a dime despite all the noise.

Having said all this, one will expect that you should now be finding a way to settle all debts as your administration clocked two years now. This your government has received several monthly allocations, IGR, bail out funds, Paris Club refunds. Why is your government yet to settled the state debts including what you owe all the government owned tertiary institutions .

What baffles me is the fact that your government is now completely losing focus in an attempt to install your successor and remain relevant beyond 2019. A source in your cabinet told me recently that you will begin to roll out as many political appointment as possible to prevent people from leaving your disintegrating political camp in order to save you from losing in 2019. Though I did not doubt the source, it is therefore not surprising to hear numerous political appointments coming out now as matter of political emergency.

Your Excellency sir, you have just appointed Patrick ‘Dare Ogunde, ‘Derin Adebiyi, Sola Ogunpola-Apampa and eighteen (18) others to join the long list of political appointees in your cabinet. Also, your administration over the weekend announced the appointment of ten (10) politicians per LGA/LCDA as “Consultative Advisory Committee”. A style you condemned when Otuba Gbenga Daniel's administration was in power. The immediate effect of this is the increase in recurrent expenditure on the already strained purse of the state and non perfuming LGAs. Again, the assemblage of jobless politicians with no value to the state to feed fat on monies generated by hardworking civil and public servants whose salary remain unpaid through outstanding deductions is very worrisome. Is this not the case of “monkey dey work, baboon de chop?” Why the need for this retinue of meaningless appointments midway to your administration's second term? What value are the appointees coming to add that the state has been missing since you emerged governor in 2011?

Your Excellency sir, may I humbly advise your administration to begin to look for a way to pay outstanding workers salary, pension and gratuity, severance allowance of past political office holders and complete all the abandoned projects that in the state instead of adding to the “vultures” already in government feeding fat on public funds.

Oluwo Lateef A.
May 30th, 2017
Obada Oko, Ogun state.