Musician turned writer calls out President Buhari in he's new Article, He's got no chill at all...
Wake up, President Buhari. Get in the game; you have left the door open
for more Federal Government bailout. The question is, why would the
Federal Government get involved? And, beyond that, why should it? Can
the Federal Government really help a state like Osun? Hell no!! The
predicament of these states is due primarily to two causes. One is
mismanagement, which has amounted to billions of their total shortfall.
The second is the money that was borrowed through the years for unseen
projects and other unnecessary obligations. Disappearing jobs, empty
factories have all played a role, too.
There are so many reasons why bailing out cash-strapped states that
mismanaged public finances with over N7bn should be prohibited
henceforth. We are talking about public funds here and Nigerian
taxpayers need to watch their wallets. If not, there will be a call for a
federal bailout to finance the purchase of private jets for state
governors. The National Assembly should act now to ensure taxpayers
aren’t forced to pay for years of mismanagement by government officials.
Failure of some of these states to properly manage their funds might be
rooted in an unholy alliance between the governors and their
godfathers. The issue of ghost workers is another thing that should be
looked into. It is a fact that some of the commissioners liaised with
the permanent secretaries to milk the states by employing ghost workers.
Leaving aside the argument of the merits or demerits of federal relief
for these financially troubled states, the way these governors squander
public funds makes it morally troublesome and that’s to put it lightly.
It would have been understandable if this bailout was as a result of
natural disasters like earthquakes or outbreaks of terrible diseases
such as Ebola. Seeking federal bailout to pay workers’ salaries is
preposterous, especially when the said states have been receiving
regular monthly federal allocations. Osun State needs to lie in its own
poorly made bed; the rest of the country cannot be expected to pay for
the myopic misdeeds of a lazy government.
Consider an uninsured driver who negligently makes an illegal turn that
causes an accident with another car. Witnesses call the police,
reporting who is at fault; the police transmit this information to the
traffic offence unit. When they arrive at the scene and find that the car
of the driver at fault is uninsured, will they tow his car to the
workshop and have it repaired at the expense of the government? Let us
also pause and consider whether this bailout shows respect for ordinary
Nigerian citizens. The state governors having chosen to run their risks,
they deserve their misfortune, so society need not save them from it.
There are so many good reasons why the Federal Government shouldn’t have
offered a bailout to these states. That the government treasury is
empty is certainly one salient factor. Another is the issue of moral
hazard: if these states can turn to the Federal Government whenever
their finances go down, other states will have much less reason to
manage their money effectively and make tough but crucial budgetary
decisions.
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