200,000 jobs promised, 200,000 excuses delivered: Godwin Obaseki’s tale of incompetence and mismanagement.
By John Mayaki
In Edo state, incompetence is on all fours, incompetence has mounted the roads, mismanagement fuelling its continued locomotion and Governor Godwin Obaskei is the man behind the wheels. He is detached, he is ruthless, and in the face of facts even, he remains adamant. Edo state is falling apart, mere anarchy loosed upon its good people and now more than ever, a timely intervention is direly needed.
The scourge is rising debt and attention to it was called by the assiduously working Coalition for Good Governance and Economic Justice in Africa. Edo state, as backed by statistical facts, is the state with the highest record of foreign debt in Nigeria, second only to Lagos state. Yet the economy thins and jobs continue to evaporate.
Governor Obaseki and his aimless administration has a very dark sense of humor. For a governor who became popular with the promise of 200,000 jobs but rather delivered, in a shocking dissappointnent, as proved by the findings of Nigerian Bureau of Statistics, 13,607 job loss, we have a man and an administration either incompetent or unwilling to serve the people.
Unemployment in Edo state now seats at 25.1% and underemployment approximated at 20%. A double barreled catastrophe that leaves people at the fringe, clinging to shaky hope or tipping into crime. With the coalition of unemployment and underemployment, we have a terrible situation of not just undervaluing and under-appreciation of the human capital; we also arrive at the menace of insecurity and lack of safety.
When the center collapses, the whole system in a ripple effect style, are at the risk of experiencing chaos. And this is the case with Obaseki and his collapsed administration. Carried away by irrelevant matters, vices resulting from unemployment grows its tentacle into the few self surviving sectors of the state. It is for this reason that the farmers, who are wise to pay no heed to Obaseki’s empty promises and properly engaged themselves in their agrarian endeavors, are scared of reaching their farms. The restless soldiers hatched by the dangerous combination of unemployment and underemployment are turning on their kit and kin for survival. Make no mistake, the blame do not belong to this needy humans who are barely trying to survive, who trusted their mandate to an unworthy man; but to a man who talked and talked that he even forgot, as it appears, that he promised employment and not the opposite.
Yet we must ask questions for therein lies the beauty of democracy: that our representatives shall and must be accountable to us who they are standing in for. Hence we ask Obaskei to explain to us, in clear terms, why the debt profile keeps towering high and yet, nothing is seen to be at its effect. To what end is the state resources employed? And for whose gain? The people of Edo will no longer have their resources applied to selfish ends and personal aggrandizment. Perhaps Obaseki’s incompetence has grown to the levels of improper record keeping, we are ready to provide independent audit services as he prepare himself for eventual trial in the court of his party and Edo people.
Obaseki and his handlers having proved thier mastery in propaganda and attentio威而鋼 n bending, can design countless excuses as they like but they should remember that their countless misgivings will hold them to ransom. One thing is clear at this moment and it is that, like his failed policies, Obaseki’s administration has failed too. It is simple, and requires no tertiary logic to deduce this fact. When a man allow things to go from good to bad under his watch, mismanaging resources and instead of delivering on promises, rather renegade on them and delivering denials and excuses, we unfortunately arrive at an imperative conclusion: no where is incompetence r威而鋼 ewarded with blind loyalty. Not in Edo State, not for Godwin Obaseki.
The die is cast!
