Comrade March Oyinki
March oyinki
Emerging from the bitter and cruel marginalization experienced by the Ijaws in the old Rivers State, the founding fathers of Bayelsa, who included Prof. Kimse Okoko, King Geofrey Filinti, Dr. Amba Ambaowei, Chief Lambert Eradiri, Chief Thomson Okorotie, Senator, John Bambafra to mention but a few had a lofty plan, which they translated into a developmental blueprint for of the young State after its creation by military Head of State, General Sani Abacha on October 1, 1996.
Bayelsa was created out of Brass, Yenagoa and Sagbama, from which the name of the State was derived, a development that was received with a loud ovation and fun fair by the Ijaw people across the country and in the diaspora. They hoped and expected that for the first time an Ijaw indigene will steer the affairs of the Ijaw nation, and that will enable them to execute their master plan for the State, which will bring the Ijaw nation to lime light in the committee of States.
Quite disappointingly, that hope was dashed by the appointment of a non indigene as a Sole Administrator by General Abacha, in the person of Commodore Oladipo Philip Ayeni as the first Military administrator of the new State.
Commodore Ayeni in the usual military authoritarian character, jettisoned the master plan and unilaterally, ruled the new State until he handed over to the first civilian administration of the State in May 1999.
As an offshoot of the previous military administration the new governor, DSP Alamieyesiegha and his deputy, Goodluck Ebele Jonathan inherited the programmes of Commodore Ayeni, and the self- acclaimed governor general who himself was a former air force officer, gullibly towed the line of his predecessor, hence, setting the stage for a continuation of authoritarianism, abuse of the rule of law and a total absence of checks and balances that characterized later civilian administrations that came into office through an electoral process that were largely marred by mal-practices, violence and judicial manipulations.
This whole developmental blueprint carefully laid out by the founding fathers of the State was again abandoned by the incumbent. Arguably though, DSP as an Ijaw son, at some point in his administration made frantic efforts to introduce piece and pieces of the master plan that led to the establishment of the Niger Delta University and the initiation of the Bayelsa Airport project. The young State, which was at that time still basking in its juvenile boisterousness after its creation only a few years back, became quite conspicuously, one of the oil rich States in the Niger Delta region, next only to Rivers, Delta and Cross Rivers States in monthly allocation and derivation accruals from the Federal Account Allocation Committee (FAAC), which amounted to as much as N116.4 billion in a single month in 2002 at the peak of the Alamieyesiegha’s era.
The subsequent administration, which also came to power through a poorly conducted elections, that have become symbolic in the country, yet again produced another unpopular candidate in the person of Timipre Silva, who took the State through a long spat of mal-administration of lavish and reckless spending. The glory of all land at the onset reeked of oil money, and Bayelsa became the preferred destination for Youth Corp members and traders from the South Eastern part of the country, for obvious reasons.
Then Corpers were paid N12,000 extra bonus “allowee”, by the State government in addition to the N7,000 that was statutorily paid by the Federal Government at the time, making Bayelsa one of the States that paid the highest allowance to corpers in the country. As for the Igbo traders, there was no other State Capital, including Lagos that was more profitable to do business than in Yenagoa, because, there is a dogma that people in Bayelsa do not price market, they pay any price tag mentioned by the seller.
There was an economic boom for traders in the State and money was in circulation as politicians had access to funds and they stupendously lavished this money.
Then, Politicians were gifting houses and cars to ladies just for a one night stand. Celebration, festivity and lavish display of wealth was the order of the day. The State became host of several Beauty Pageants.
The flamboyant lifestyle of government officials was visible and outlandish. It is only in Yenagoa that people give direction by using the properties of wealthy Bayelsans as land mark. For instance, you hear direction such as, ‘go straight until you get to that green roofed- two storey building owned by the Commissioner of Chieftaincy Affairs, then turn left to the Street where the governor’s junior brother bar is just by the corner toward the end of the Street, opposite the big house with blue fence belonging to the former Perm Sec for Lands and Survey, Boloye, which house is just at the Street behind.’
Expectedly, the State reached the end of its grandiose appetite for self- aggrandizement by political office holders, and wasteful spending that resulted from the poor management of the State’s revenues. This recklessness plunged the once glory of all lands into the abyss of poverty, as contained in the recent report by the National Bureau of Statistics, (NBS) Multidimensional Poverty Index(MPI).
Without prejudice the Federal Government is to be blame for the poor performance and should take full responsibility for the failure of successive unpopular administrations that largely, emerged through an electoral process that is heavily flawed by violence and mal-practices, that have become synonymous with bad governance that lacks cohesion and an absence of checks and balances. This small State has continually had the misfortune of having a succession of unpopular administrations, spanning the Seriake Dickson era when federal allocations to the State government slumped drastically from three digits to two digits.
Sadly however, it is quite safe to argue that none of the previous and present administrations spent up to 20 percent of their FAAC allocations on capital projects, as 80 percent or more was spent on frivolous recurrent expenditures and special duties projects that served as channels for syphoning public funds.
The present administration of Governor Douye Diri came into office under similar questionable circumstances that had taken a better part of his administration attending to litigations, financial appeasement of opponents and settlement of godfathers that have left him starved of funds and leaving him unable to attend to the critical developmental needs of the State thus far.
The governorship- elections in Bayelsa will come up in November and the primaries have already produced three candidates of the top political parties. They are Diri of PDP, Silver of APC and Diens of LP. While I am not in support of Diri giving his precedence, Silver’s interest in the guber race is for me a spoiler and a no brainer. I will rather suggest that he secured himself a licence and establish a cottage or modular refinery in Bayelsa to help grow the economy of the State and not cause more damage returning as a governor in the State.
Regardless, provided the Federal Government continues to fail in its responsibility to deliver a free, fair and credible elections in the country, the ruling class in their usual characteristics, will perpetually abuse the rule of law, render the principles of separation of power ineffective, relegate to the background the core values of our democracy, hence, compromise the very foundation of good governance. The situation we are in the country now, is likened to the proverbial new wine in an old wine sack, whereby, unpopular candidates will continue to emerge from fraudulence electoral systems and processes that will immerse the country in a whirl winds of endless bad governance.
