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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