22nd June, 2015
By Lateef Raji
In the politics of the 4th Republic, especially in the South West geo-political zone, some characters have eminently distinguished themselves as politicians who should not to be taken seriously. They don’t represent anything that is believable. They are agents of retrogression who stand for nothing and as such are ready to go for anything. Their sole aim in politics, and in any endeavour, for that matter, is to promote parochial and self-seeking interests. Though their names might ring a bell, it is often for the wrong reason.
Senator Iyiola Omisore, a serial gubernatorial election contender in Osun State, belongs to this class of personalities. One of the glorious eras in the history of Osun State was between 1999 and 2003 when Chief Bisi Akande was at the helm of affairs in the state. To date, Chief Akande ran one of the most prudent and transparent governments in the 4th Republic. It was his administration that constructed the present Osun State Government Secretariat, a project it embarked upon through stringent financial engineering. Unfortunately for Chief Akande, his albatross was his deputy.
Unknown to him, while he was busy cutting cost of governance and blocking loopholes to wastage of government resources, his deputy, Iyiola Omisore, was not on the same page with him. His purpose in government ran at a cross-purpose with that of his principal, and like it is often the case, Omisore rebelled against Chief Akande. Thus, began a calculated campaign of defamation against Chief Akande with Omisore as the Chief hatchet man. Like they say, the rest of Omisore’s dastardly acts during that period are now history.
However, in the ensuing political row between Omisore and Chief Akande, the late Chief Bola Ige, who was then the leader of the Alliance for Democracy, AD, in Osun State, and a revered political figure in the country, was ridiculed by Omisore. The height of it was when one of Omisore’s thugs humiliated Chief Ige right at the palace of the Ooni of Ife by removing his cap. One thing led to the other and Chief Ige was eventually brutally assassinated by unidentified gunmen at his home in Ibadan. Naturally, Omisore became one of the chief suspects for Ige’s death. He was arrested and detained for some time. However, like most assassination cases in the country, nothing has come out of police investigation into Chief Ige’s death. Hopefully, Chief Ige’s murder case file would be reopened so that people like Omisore would soon have their hands full.
Ever since, Omisore had tried in vain to govern Osun State. The last attempt being the decisive electoral humiliation he suffered in the hands of the incumbent Governor of the State, Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola. Not satisfied with his apparent rejection by the Osun electorate at the polls, Omisore took his case to the election tribunal where he was further humiliated for the lack of merit in his case. Insisting that he must ‘reclaim his (phony) stolen mandate’, the Court of Appeal and the Supreme Court were his next ports of call. But, again he lost barefacedly on these platforms. Since his electoral and legal losses, Omisore had been relatively quiet on the political scene. Who wouldn’t, given the enormity of the loss he suffered? His whereabouts suddenly became a subject of intense controversy as some claimed that he had relocated to neighbouring Ghana. But like a bolt from the blue, Omisore suddenly found his voice again. And he is not just talking; he is actually singing like a Red-eyed Vireo bird which sings more than 20,000 songs a day. One particular subject that Omisore has suddenly found fascinating to sing about is the current workers’ salary imbroglio in Osun State. In his characteristic ‘talk is cheap’ fashion, Omisore claimed that Osun State Government under Aregbesola has borrowed more than N480 billion since he assumed office in 2010. According to him, the loan burden and the alleged continuous wasteful spending by the governor are some of the reasons the administration has been unable to pay workers for the past five months. He equally claimed that the governor also wasted the state’s resources on political campaigns during the last governorship poll and the just-concluded general election. Though Omisore did not state what the governor’s security vote is, he, nevertheless, advised him to reduce his security votes as well as spending at the Government House while also advising him to stop giving Osun money to his Lagos visitors.
Like it is with dubious politicians who love to play to the gallery, it is not surprising that Omisore is attempting to bounce to relevance on the wing of the current Osun workers’ salary issue. And, it tastes sour. No responsible person would cash-in on the misfortune of a group of people to score cheap political points. In the past four years, when the Aregbesola administration was transforming the state through several capital and human capital development projects, Omisore’s voice was never heard.
What is, perhaps, quite absurd is his penchant for rumour mongering and peddling of falsehood. Where on earth did he get the N480 billion debt profile figure he mischievously branded from when the total debt profile is not up to N70 billion? What exactly does he want to achieve by trying to hang Aregbesola based on the workers’ salary imbroglio when it is a common knowledge that about 24 other states are facing similar problem? Like the mischief maker that he is, Omisore did not tell his audience which of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, governed states has not borrowed to execute capital projects.
The fact of the matter is that Osun State, just like many others in the country, is currently facing economic challenges whose nature transcends local rationalization. Prior to the dawn of this present national economic predicament, the state had faithfully discharged its responsibilities to its workers. For a period of not less than 30 months, there was no record of rancorous moment with its workers. Indeed, the state, despite its lean purse, is one of the few states in the country that paid its workforce a 13th-month salary every December.
Things actually became complicated when dwindling national revenue began to affect monthly allocations to states. For instance, in February 2013, Osun State got a total sum of N5 billion as allocation from the federal government. But, by April 2015, the State’s monthly allocation sharply dropped to a mere N466 million. This is a verifiable fact that is in public domain. Between November 2010 and December 2014, Osun State got a total statutory allocation of N108.3 billion with a wage bill of N120.4 billion and a total deficit of N12 billion. This, to any rational mind, aptly captures the dire financial strait of the state and, indeed, the country as a whole. Indeed, the Central Bank Governor had publicly given reasons why states of the federation could not pay salaries citing the same reasons Aregbesola offered to the workers and people of Osun.
What Osun State needs at the moment is not the idle, meddlesome, crass opportunists like Omisore. The state can actually do without Omisore’s opportunistic rabble rousing for it leads to nowhere and adds no value. No matter how far lies travel, truth would definitely catch up with it somehow, some day. Osun workers are not in the dark concerning the financial position of the state. Very soon, they will smile again. And very soon, Omisore and his ilk would not be able to find their voice again. Like before, there would be nothing for them to howler about.
•Raji is former Special Adviser, Information & Strategy, Lagos State.