How Some New Governors Are Suffering Silently Because Of The Mess Left By Their Godfathers

Many new state chief executives are suffering silently in pain as their greedy godfathers or predecessors who helped them get to their  present position left an empty treasury for them.

Most of the governors cannot speak up against them because of the roles played by their predecessors in helping them to power.

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While the other governors who got there without any godfather have been slugging it out with predecessors over their state finances, the likes of  Udom Emmanuel (Akwa Ibom), Darius Ishaku (Taraba), Akinwunmi Ambode and Okezie Ikpeazu (Abia) appear to have accepted their fate.

Although the new governors are said to have inherited accumulated debts running into billions of naira, they have refused to declare war against their predecessors like their counterparts in other states.

Analysts who spoke with BusinessDay opined that it is either that such incumbents are gagged by the circumstances that brought them into office, or their personal decisions not to start a war early in the day.

The states which are owing workers, according to the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) are Abia, Akwa Ibom, Bauchi, Benue, Cross River, Ekiti, Imo, Jigawa, Kano, Katsina, Kogi, Ogun, Ondo, Osun, Oyo, Plateau, Rivers and Zamfara.

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The governors who are openly complaining are governors that emerged from the opposition party, while those that were anointed by their predecessors have maintained sealed lips.

Considerable wage arrears in eighteen out of the thirty-six states in Nigeria are related to their technical bankruptcy due to short-sighted borrowing policies of the state governments.

The state governments, who have to pay interests on previous bank loans, simply don’t have enough money to pay salaries – and that’s why they take new loans, worsening their own financial situation even more.

The inability of states to pay salaries is as a result from their heavy dependence on federal budget allocations while state governments themselves are unable to find source of internally generated revenue.

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Governor Adams Oshiomhole of Edo state, has fired back at immediate past minister of finance, Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, over claims that she did not spend N2.1 billion from the Excess Crude Account without authorisation. 

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