There is disagreement over the appropriateness of Governor Seriake Dickson’s measures to heal a troubled and divided Bayelsa State since his second return, reports Mike Odiegwu, Yenagoa
Bayelsa State Governor, Mr. Seriake Dickson, is facing the toughest test of his political life. His second term in office is replete with challenges and people are watching to see how he will wriggle out of myriads of problems confronting his administration.
Some observers are finding it difficult to believe that Bayelsa, a small oil-producing state with about 1.8million people, has gradually gained prominence in the list of states unable to pay salaries of workers. People believe that Bayelsa is supposed to be a model even if other states in the country are struggling to pay their workers.
As stated by a recent report, Bayelsa tops the list of states unable to pay salaries. Dickson owes workers for about five months while Akwa Ibom, Edo, Rivers, Delta, Cross River and most of the states in the northern and eastern parts of the country do not owe workers. Even Taraba and Ebonyi states are stated to be heads above trouble waters.
Critics say the present Bayelsa State Government has no excuse not to pay the civil servants. As stated by them, the inability of the governor to pay workers is a breach of his second term campaign promise.
A resident told The Nation that “the situation is life-threatening. Civil servants, local government workers and even teachers and lecturers in academic institutions are owed many arrears of salaries and allowances.
“There is no gainsaying there is endemic hunger in the state. People are dying following their inability to pay critical bills and many business concerns and families are relocating to other states because of hardship,the type that had never been experienced before in the state.”
Labour crisis
Already, some local government secretariats and ministries, departments and parastatals had been shut down and deserted by workers. Also, some of the oil-rich state employees have resorted to begging for survival.
The condition has also worsened the security situation in the state. House-to-house armed robberies, burglaries and violent attacks on residents by angry and hungry youths have become the order of the day.
The state Chairman, Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), Mr. Ndiomu George-Diepre, stated the congress was not happy with the development. Regretting the economic situation in Nigeria, he begged the governor to pay the workers to enable them meet their personal and family obligations.
He disclosed that the workers’ strength was about 45,000. George-Diepre said: “The congress as usual is still on the struggle. Right now, we are on the air, calling on the government to pay the unpaid salaries.
“While we understand the economic situation in the country and how it also affects the states, we are still asking that the government should pay all the outstanding salaries of workers, particularly the pensioners and of course, the local government workers.
“There are also a lot of scams and ghost workers suspected in those areas, and the governor is saying he wants to do verification and after that they will pay. But the Labour is saying that they should be paid because they have suffered for a long time.”Recently, the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) and the Senior Staff Association of Nigerian Universities (SSANU), in the NDU derided Dickson, for failing to pay them arrears of salaries.
Also, the Non-Academic Staff Union of Educational and Associated Institutions (NASU) and the National Association of Technologists (NAT) in the university, joined in condemning what they described as Dickson’s insensitivity to their plight.
The position of the university’s unions was contained in a communiqué signed by Chairman, ASUU, Dr. Stanley Ogoun; Chairman, SSANU, Wilcox Fakidouma; Chairman, NAAT, Ekipre Dienagha; and Chairman, NASU, Kenneth Akpofagha.
They stated the inability of Dickson’s Restoration Government to pay them salaries had made lives unbearable for them, adding that the development made it difficult for their members to meet their parental obligations, resulting in their children and wards dropping out of schools.
The groups said: “The development has resulted in families of our members going hungry, our children being driven out of school in the last term, the sick uncared for and evicted by landlords due to expiration of house rents.
“Also, there is increased rate of hypertension and related diseases arising from members’ inability to provide food on the table and worsened by no means of credit facilities.”
The groups noted that though they supported the state government’s staff verification as a means of exterminating payroll fraud in the system, the timing of the exercise was wrong. The aggrieved unions argued that Dickson initiated the exercise as a calculated attempt to further worsen the already critical state of the people.
They called on the Dickson-led government to immediately pay their salary arrears on the basis of the Bank Verification Number (BVN) they submitted earlier while the current verification exercise continued.
But Dickson has been engaging workers and appealing to them to be patient since he came back from his long vacation. Immediately he returned, the governor set up a Judicial Commission of Inquiry to probe alleged payroll fraud in the state.
Dickson insisted that the state’s payroll must be sanitised to determine the authentic wage bill as part of measures by his administration to pay five-month salary arrears owed to civil servants.
A statement by the governor’s Chief Press Secretary (CPS), Mr. Daniel Iworiso-Markson, stated the governor made the proposal when he engaged labour in a crucial meeting.
A state divided against itself?
In fact, there is no gainsaying that Bayelsa, the Jerusalem of Ijaw nation, with only eight local government areas and the state of the former President, Dr. Goodluck Jonathan, is highly divided. Analysts believe the last governorship elections, especially the campaign thrusts of politicians and their political parties, compounded the disunity in the state..
After the election which was concluded on the altar of heavy financial inducement of voters by both the APC and the PDP, Dickson became the second governor to get a second term in office.
So, bloody and cantankerous poll, Dickson now has a huge task of uniting warring brothers and giving everybody in the state a sense of belonging. But fear that peace may remain elusive for much longer heightened with the ongoing face of between Dickson and the labour movements.
Now that Dickson is back from what his aides described as a well-deserved rest, he is expected to begin to apply the right pills to heal the ailing economy of the state and seek ways to complete many of his abandoned projects because his second term clock has already started ticking. It is indeed a difficult task considering the continual dwindling of revenue accruing to the state.
.....The Nation