Father Alia and his first two weeks in office

By Sesugh Akume

In his first two weeks in office as the Benue State governor, Reverend Father Hyacinth Alia, as far as media reports go, has done four major things.

Firstly, he made a few appointments, mainly of his personal aides, namely chief of staff, principal private secretary, and chief press secretary; as well as secretary to the state government and head of the civil service.

Secondly, he has ordered the dissolution of boards of all extraministerial departments, and agencies. Thirdly, and most recently, he has nullified all recent appointments into the state civil service made by the outgone administration from May 2022 to date. In addition, he ordered retired officers who are yet to vacate their offices or duty posts, either due of an ‘extension’ or contract appointments, to proceed on retirement, and those due for retirement but are yet to tender their notices of retirement to do so and proceed on retirement. He further stated that all promotions to the rank of permanent secretary from January 2023 to date are invalidated and the officers are to revert to their previous designations. In like manner, he nullified all postings and transfers made in the state civil service from October 2022 to date and ordered the affected staff to revert to their former stations or offices.

Fourthly and lastly, he has been trading words with the opposition People’s Democratic Party (PDP) and his predecessor, Samuel Ortom, allegedly accusing them of looting the state whereby not even a single official vehicle was left for him, as all were taken away. Also, Fr. Alia has protested that he did not only inherited an empty treasury but inherited N187.56 billion in debts.

To begin with, it is critical to note that none of the things he has done in these first two weeks has any direct useful, beneficial effect on the good people of Benue State, who invested so much hope in him. However, the very first moves that one makes on assumption of office are usually quite significant and symbolic.

Apart from the appointments he made, which are rather coming in too slowly, I think that the “cart” was put before the “horse” with the board dissolutions and reorganization in the civil service. With regard to the board dissolutions, it would have been much better to announce replacements to the boards—after all, he had three months (March to May) to know who fits where best—rather than sacking the existing board members, leaving boards vacant and creating vacuums. Nobody knows how long they would remain so, but the business of government must continue round the clock.

Someone prayed on social media that he hopes with the changes in the civil service, the sons and daughters of “nobodies” who know no one would be employed based on merit in a fair and transparent process. My response was that we pray too much on basic, pedestrian issues. This prayer would have been needless had Fr. Alia simply handled it better, and answered the questions that would naturally be on people’s minds. It is not just about sacking people. Was there a staff audit with the public made aware of its outcome (the staff strength of the state, the number of ghost workers found, how the ghost workers got on the pay roll in the first place, how to prevent the reoccurrence)?
Making the public aware of the wage bill, with ghost workers and without, and whether Benue State has a sufficient work force (it is clearly inadequate) would have been helpful.

Furthermore, there is the question of the amount owed in remunerations and pensions, and how to make up for these. There are workers who haven not been promoted, some for five years or more, and this audit ought to have covered these and offered assurances.

Then, for those to proceed on retirement, what is their fate? When are they getting their severance packages? Even those whose appointments have been terminated were duly employed (irrespective of whether some have issues with the process) and the state government owes them. Would there be a new and merit-based recruitment in a fair and transparent process to make up for the shortfall in the staff requirement? In my view, this is how to carry people along, and this would be more meaningful, leaving no one in doubt or hoping and praying.

In contrast, there isn’t one single mention on these from pronouncements of the new government in Benue State, only a statement that reads like a military order with repeated uses of ‘forthwith’, ‘with immediate effect’, and the likes.

This seems as if it is all an appearance. All puff with no substance. In my opinion, these issues enumerated above are more urgent and important than sacking people to give an impression to the public that one is working.

The action of sacking people itself was a knee-jerk one, not well thought out, with unintended consequences to manage afterwards.

For instance, school is presently in session. Among those sacked are teachers, what becomes of the schoolchildren they teach, their exams in the next few weeks, etc?
How would the adjustments be made for these schoolchildren to not miss out on anything? I believe that were this considered and the teachers replaced during the holidays, for instance, nobody would have felt any inconvenience nor would it have been too late to make the changes.

From the above, I also fear that Fr. Alia may be overreaching and wanting to run everything all by himself, as has been done since 1999, instead of letting the system run like a proper bureaucracy. What, for instance, explains the recent decree issued from Government House about the reorganisation in the state civil service, when there is a substantive head of the civil service to handle that, while the governor handles bigger issues he alone can?
I also fear that Fr. Alia is setting himself up to appear as the victim, who inherited a rotten system in the manner that Buhari blamed the “16 wasted years of PDP” for 8 years and, in the end, left Nigeria in a worse shape than he met it. In other words, Fr. Alia’s excuses and blame games have started too early in the day.

If the outgone regime took away all official vehicles, how many were they and what does it take to have them returned if he is stranded and can’t go about with his duties? Isn’t it better to retrieve the vehicles rather than having the accusation hanging on the neck of the outgone regime in order to have something to hold on to, to keep blackmailing them?
The outgone governor has replied to Fr. Alia that taking along all vehicles is the (wasteful) tradition that has been in place since 1999, as all his predecessors did same; that the last state executive council approved their doing so, and so it is perfectly legal and lawful; and that the usual tradition is for the outgoing regime to procure vehicles for the incoming one, but Fr. Alia had declined the gesture, preferring to procure vehicles suiting his taste upon his inauguration.

In another development, Fr. Alia has asked PDP to seek forgiveness from the people. I wonder what forgiveness he is talking about after the people issued their “non-forgiveness” verdict at the polls by voting PDP out, and voting him instead! It is beginning to appear that Fr. Alia’s strategy is to keep taunting PDP and the outgone regime and eliciting responses from them to keep Benue people busy with the needless, fruitless exchanges as an alibi for nonperformance.
Everybody knew Benue State was heavily indebted, and that is why he was voted in as governor to sort out and, hopefully, not incur more bad debt due to greed and avarice. Everybody knew there was a rot in the system, that was why the people invested their hopes in him to fix it.
In his first two weeks, Fr. Alia hasn’t shown that everyday people in Benue are the centrepiece of his policy by connecting with them by his speech and actions. The words and actions have no direct bearing on the people. He hasn’t yet demonstrated capacity to inspire confidence that he knows what he is doing, and has not carried the people along to arouse the hope that he has got his priorities right and is ready to deliver on his mandate.

Hopefully, he will get his acts together, as he is just two weeks in office.

Akume, a public policy analyst, writes from Abuja.