Chuma Okoye > OGUN STATE TODAY A DEPUTY GOVERNOR and the rest of us!! Every one time something politically serious happens, it does not surprise politicians because they all would have known about it. It is only the cases that they find themselves unable to manage that eventually make it to the public forum. They give us something to talk and fight about. So when we heard a deputy governor wrote the press to complain about his boss, it was clear that a circus was beginning. Two things you can be sure of. It is about them not me and you They will not tell you everything They will not curse or punch each other but me and you…we will curse and possibly fight When we have these issues like this, no one and no comment can be impartial. You are may be with the deputy or with the boss. Some will support the deputy not because he is making such load of sense, but because anything that spites Amosun is their delight. Some will side up with Amosun, not because they believe the deputy has been fairly treated, but because anyone who despises Amosun is their foe. Few will be partisan for the truth. We take different positions and write updates that are hopelessly lopsided and then wait in the wings to abuse anyone who tries to knock our argument. I also am partisan. Not for APC or for PDP or LP or SDP or whoever. I am not for Governor Amosun, or ex-Governor Osoba, or Deputy Governor Adesegun, or ex-Governor Daniel or whoever. I am interested only in TASCE. I write on behalf of TASCE and for justice for us. Why should I be excited and join in firing at the governor because he has not given his deputy some things? What the deputy is complaining about are the I, ME, MY, MINE things. Not one of his demands has to do with me. I would have carried a placard for him if he had included any ONE of these in his grudges: The delay in release of TASCE salaries must stop The arrears owed TASCE should be paid XXX instalments, starting in immediately. Somebody in government should visit TASCE and see their struggle in that concentration camp Take TASCE out of Omu or immediately upgrade Omu to fit the status of a COE If it is all about his petrol, diesel, vehicles, apartment, job description etc, why should we bother. But I give him his dues. He is a Deputy Governor and that is no small achievement. Whatever is due to him should be given to him. We will not stand in his way (not as if we could) but this is really just politicians playing their games and trying to draw us in. He want his electricity, which is free. He want his diesel, which is free. They have to be delivered to his house which is free. And he wants his vehicles, which are also free. Give me one logical reason why I should get on the streets to fight for him to get these. He saw me on the street and said nothing. The point I am trying to make, and which you may find very annoying, is that he is a part of this government. When things went right, we heard nothing. If Governor Amosun is doing well, it is his glory and the glory of all his team. If Governor Amosun is doing badly….get this….he is part of it… they are all part of it. He has not resigned. They have not resigned. They will blast their boss and at the end of the month, head to the bank and get their pay from the failure of a government. If the governor in frustration decides to give his deputy all these entitlements in one day, will he refuse any of them? Why should he? They are his by right. He has a voice and a followership and he can talk and the state will stand still. Does anyone know what it means to work in Omu and have no voice? When you speak nobody notices! A student told me we are too greedy. She said, ‘is it not only two months?’ When this government came in, a fact-finding committee came to TASCE Omu and found facts. Since then, these facts have remained dead facts. They told us pointedly that we had “slept on” our rights. Because we did nothing while we were being ill-treated. How would the Deputy Governor and his supporters respond if anyone tells them that the deputy governor has slept on his rights? If they catch whoever says that, they will not be kind. But fact is that he waited three and half years. Nobody who has been with Governor Amosun’s government can come and tell us at TASCE that Governor Amosun is stubborn and insensitive and has wasted money on senseless projects and expect us to applaud. We will not applaud. Our own political association is TASCE. We think TASCE before we think Governor Amosun’s former and present friends. The point is that money is owed us and no one is fighting for us. Why then should we fight for anyone else? The governor for owing or ill-treating anyone cannot be defended. It is wrong and there are no two ways about it. But I need to clarify this. We do not see only Governor Ibikunle Amosun and former Governor Gbenga Daniel as owing us. The list is longer. Anyone who has held position since 2008 when TASCE was rusticated is part of the people owing and hurting us. The governors since 2008 are our oppressors The commissioners and other key officers since 2008 are crushing us The policy makers since 2008 are ruining us The legislators since 2008 are grinding us Their political affiliations in power since 2008 are killing us by instalment And if there are people in this list who have been with the two administrations, they owe us double. Why should anyone expect TASCE to go to war on the side of someone who owes them and refuses to pay. We should in fact be laughing and saying, “do you see how it feels”? I have long since stopped trying to understand what politicians plan and how they think. I can never understand them. However, one thing stands out, NONE OF THEM CARES ABOUT ANYONE OTHER THAN THEMSELVES. On TASCE issues, nobody can draw a line between the governor, his deputy, his legislature and their political parties. They disagree on a lot of things, but when it comes to punishing us at TASCE, they are in the same boat. Even in the face of this crisis, they meet, and shake hands and probably belong to the same clubs and associations. They want us to believe now that all the while, they have never been in tandem with Governor Amosun. It was three sweet years before all went bad. Now, they want us to forget the three years and focus on the six months. The sharing formula has torn politicians apart and now they want to recruit us to fight their battles. They recruit young people to come to Facebook with their Tecno devices and swear and curse people. All day long on Facebook and Twitter, we go back and forth ‘exposing’ the ills the other camp has done while justifying the atrocity we are doing. From TASCE, we have only one message. YOU ALL OWE US. PAY FIRST and then you can come and see if we will join you to fight your enemies. As for now, you all look the same to us.
Posted on: Wed, 19 Nov 2014 15:36:04 +0000
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