On Sunday, November 27, Senator Ademola Nurudeen Adeleke, was sworn into office as governor of Osun State. Following this, the state has been making the headlines for good reasons. Right from the swearing-in ceremony, the new governor swept aside governance niceties and announced his intention to do away with some of the erratic policies and actions of the preceding administration, particularly those pushed through in the dying hours of that regime.
For all the four years the outgone administration under Chief Asegboyega Oyetola of the All Progressives Congress (APC) was in power, it never deemed it very important to employ people on a large scale and bear the burden of paying them. The wisdom that eluded it in this regard, the Oyetola administration found after it lost the election. It woke up one day and before the people knew what was happening, thousands of new employees had been engaged and deployed.
This was not all. In the same haste, the administration embarked on free will promotion. Some civil servants of various cadre were selected and were promoted to the rank of Permanent Secretary. The traditional institution got something from the sharing of spoils: three traditional rulers of lower classes were quickly elevated into first class, among many other hasty acts. Before these latest developments, the administration had been in collision with the opposition over decision to conduct election in the local governments in the state after having them administered under the notorious caretaker committee system for a very long time.
On this particular matter we see the oddity and desecration of standard of democratic principle, which has been playing across the country rearing its head in the Osun interplay. The state›s electoral body which in every state is under the direct supervision of state governors didn’t hesitate in carrying out the desires of the emperor on the throne. It didn’t matter that the concerns raised in timing and litigations in court that trailed the mischievous order, the officials carried on only for a High Court in the same state to quash the election of surrogates. If the exercise had been allowed to stand, it would have been a cog in the wheel of progress for the new administration. It wouldn’t have mattered to them if consequentially the people and their state suffered the most. It was a show of wickedness in high places.
Ordinarily, Governor Adeleke›s take-off with threats of policy reversals should attract concerns, and very serious ones at that for very obvious reasons. Good democracy precludes laying ambush or taking by surprise; cards are to be laid on the table. Straight outburst, especially by people at the helm is reminiscent of dictatorship. The trend has capacity to send a message that the leader has come to power without a clear vision of what he or she intends to do with power. This can be destabilizing no doubt. But in this instance, many are of the view it shouldn›t raise any such concerns and the reasons appear very sensible. Come to think of it, those who chose this path of taking rash actions in the dying days of incumbency have had enough to learn while in office about the basic principles of good governance. Among them is the place of discretion and sound judgment, especially as it would relate to activities in the dying days of a regime. Issues of overreaching in policies and actions by departing leaders and its negative implications are not new in world history, neither are they in governance in our country since Independence.
Many have done it in the federal and state governments and the results have been introduction of undue bottlenecks into administrative and development processes, sometimes leading to breach of peace and breakdown of law and order. Such acts in American politics are called Midnight Acts. In the execution of these midnight acts, we have seen governments at all levels over-employ civil and public service personnel in the twilight of their regimes without regards to vacancies and need; all they desired to achieve was to populate the civil and public service with their people and to satisfy themselves in the vain bid to enhance ethnic supremacy and self-agrandisement in the form they gave employments to their kith and kin while they were in positions of power and authority.
In the guise of running the state, those vacating power had also hastily sold off publicly owned property and corporations either to themselves, relations or unholy collaborators in the nefarious act of siphoning of the common patrimony. What is more, they undertook all those activities under the guise of the overall public interest without standard criteria and most annoyingly, at give-away prices. Many increased salaries and wages to a point they themselves could not have been able to pay if they were to be in office.
Nobody who treads this path should get away with it just because the law or convention allows the chief executive to exercise power and authority until the last minutes. That may be the convention, yet there is the unwritten law which also says loudly, «a true leader ought to also exercise circumspection in all matters of public interest, he should ensure that the policies and actions he desires to take would serve the far greatest good of the highest majority.»
When leaders employ so many persons in the dying days of an administration, superficially it may look great, especially with unemployment figures running very high, but in terms of the after effect of such and public good, it is the worst action to take, especially when weighed against the timing, vacancies and even ability of the entity to pay the workers› salaries as and when due. A new administration should have the added advantage of being able to technically assess her work and to take right decisions in line with what is discovered. If few days to go, a chief executive gives out contracts worth billions of naira and goes ahead to even pay the contractor, thereby promoting skeletal action just before handing over in few weeks, such would be a clear case of deliberate misjudgement, given the poor character prevalent in our politics. Moreover, intention to defraud may not be very far from the whole effort.
If the outgoing boss engages new political heads on the eve of vacating power that is pure wickedness. Inside the action is the obvious attempt to lay land mines, keep loyalists in strategic places, perhaps to enable the outgoing chief executive to keep a tab on the governance apparatus for possible political advantage. Such tardiness ought not to receive the support of anyone who means well for the larger society.
Effects of these acts are glaring for all who care to see. We are talking of the Oronsanye Report today which prescribes fusing of ministries and departments to curb duplication of functions and reduction in staffing. The genesis of what caused the mess is often never highlighted; the cause is found in the reckless midnight acts of departing chief executives, to be more specific – our presidents, governors and even local government chairmen. As things stand today the three tiers of government all over the country can›t pay salaries, pensions and gratuity.
We all blame reduction in federal earnings, yet this is not really the main cause. Rather, it has more to do with bloated workforce employed without scientific basis for it.
Truth of the matter is that the kind of issues Governor Adeleke began to handle few minutes after he was sworn-in ought not to happen if our leaders were, as should be expected, true graduates of history. They would have before now seen the futility of walking this path given terrible consequences, we have had doing same thing over and over again in the past. Many talk so much about law, yes legislation as important as it, all good human conduct cannot be the product legalism, else such a document would be so voluminous it becomes a burden on its own.
What obtains where good reason reigns is leaders apply self-restraint, including great introspection, especially when the matters at stake are about the well-being of society and of course public good. Once elections are done with, the outgoing administration becomes a lame duck. Except for very strategic developments, the remaining period is dedicated to tidying up and writing detailed handover notes so the incoming administration could have a smooth take off.
Some of us believe that some discomforting kinds of state malfeasance would require special solutions to deal with. There may be need to have a law which will make elected officials vacate office six months to the next election. This suggestion will end the penchant of the ruling party to abuse the instruments of power, state funds and facilities for electoral purposes. It is not the practice anywhere else but nothing says our country can›t make valuable contributions to world civilization.
Good can also proceed out of Nazareth. Yes, it can. For Governor Adeleke, I say kudos, but it is important he stops at this point and begins to demonstrate newness by initiating road constructions, new hospitals, urban renewal, education rehabilitation, mechanized farming and industrialisation, those are where the task lies. The people want fresh vision not acrimony. Muscle flexing muddles the atmosphere for all.
