- BY VENA IKEM- CALABAR
Do people still celebrate”Appointments”? I understand that there was a flood of over 400 appointments today!
I understand that of the Over 100 “Special Advisers” only about 15 have so far been paid.
Commissioners just received their first salaries and beginning from the month of March, despite being appointed in December.
The other motley crowd that laughs at themselves and their titles know that it’s all a joke! They are still doing “documentation”!
As the comedy continues and more names are being announced even as Ayade knows very well that he has no plans to pay anybody, the helpless citizen has no choice than to encourage himself in the hope that he will be paid. What’s the alternative? He hasn’t any. And so despite knowing that the man appointing him is not sincere with the appointment, he goes around trying to convince himself that he has something to hope for. He knows in his heart of hearts that he doesn’t.
Apart from Commissioners and some Special Advisers, most of the rest are still struggling with “documentation” whose requirements now include Tax Clearance and “Letter of Appointment”! In the process people are borrowing to pay taxes to access an appointment for which they may never get paid.
The “smart”way to keep some off the payroll is the demand for a letter of appointment which the appointing authority knows doesn’t exist! The appointments are all on Radio and Television! Yet more appointments are being added.
Now the scam is beginning.
What I see in the end is that this strategy of Appointment which is Ayade’s only claim to political “strategy” is the same that will eventually backfire and demystify him and expose his crookedness.
It’s not his fault. He doesn’t know what else to do. The easiest job he knows as Gov is making appointments! Everything else he tried has failed. No roads. No light. No water. No seaport. No Airport. Nothing! Just appointments. Why should he stop making more appointments? It takes nothing to just compile names and announce! Otherwise, What will be his scorecard?
Today’s Crude oil prices are reading $12 a barrel! The last month’s federal allocation Committee shared over N700bn naira. It is projected that the next allocation or the one after it might come below N200bn! No sensible State is making deceptive, reckless, childish pretense to mass appointments and mass employment. It takes a certain level of dubious exceptionalism to pretend that you have a solution when you are at the same time seeking to spend money from the Local Govt account which you know you are not entitled to!
Is it not logical to reason that if the state govt has enough money to embark on these frivolous appointments, she wouldn’t be seeking approval to withdraw almost N1bn illegally from the local Government account?
Is it not sensible for citizens to ask why the Local Govts have so much money when they are not allowed to embark on the simplest of projects at the local Level? Not a borehole?
In the end, there will be an endgame.
When everyone who doesn’t have a voice now will develop one!
When wind blow we will see wetin fada wear under him long dress!
Congratulations for accepting to be duped so willingly!
- NB.
Try and print this and add to your file for documentation. I will refer you to it next year!