Moving on swiftly as we bring you news from the America. The US city of Detroit made history as the first to file for bankruptcy. The once upon a time budding industrial hub in Michigan suffers from the burden of chronic financial yoke with debts in excess of $15 billion. This is beyond my comprehension, so we move at snail pace and paint a picture in an attempt to bring it home by drawing parallels. First of all, we ask a question, ‘what does it mean for a business concern to file for bankruptcy? In simple term it means they have gone moribund! So how does that relate with a county or local government in Naija’s parlance? I cannot categorically say, but from a layman’s perspectives, especially someone who attended night school, I think it is a situation where the county cannot meet her financial obligations like paying ‘ghost and non-ghost’ workers salaries, creating new jobs, paying pensioners their benefits and little stipends upon retirement, providing health insurance, inter alia. It naturally follows that the government at that level is unable to provide services and social infrastructures as well as public utilities. Public Private Partnership is fast becoming the latest trend in the development of communities. A bankrupt government cannot come up with their own counterpart funds! The ‘ossussu’ is not just available and most financial institutions will not want to provide such a government with letters of credit because they are simply – bad market, as our Warri brothers will say. Government most times depend on loans from financial institutions and foreign government, agencies and NGOs to meet critical needs. Some of these ‘ossussu’ comes in the form of aids and grants which are ‘awoof’ and are not repayable, but are mostly tied to specific areas of interventions. But we must ask the question, ‘what about those that are not awoof but interest generating loans? How do the creditor nations or financial institutions get their ‘ossussu’ back from a nation that has declared herself insolvent and has filed for bankruptcy? Honestly that’s a tough call and that’s the truth. How does a bushman who attended a village night school come up with the solution to that question? Anyway I can categorically tell you that the problem is not to serve the monkey drinking water in a plastic cup, the ‘wahala’ is how to collect the cup from the monkey after the Orangutan species has finished drinking the water. Once a business enterprise files for bankruptcy, they become government property, and they are protected by the relevant Act or Law from further harassment by creditors who may want to take over the business. I believe the same also applies for a bankrupt county. Coming back home, we again ask the question,’ is it possible for a local government, a state in Naija or Naija itself to become insolvent to the extent of filing for bankruptcy? I tell you YES, most definitely with all my mouths wide open and categorically speaking. Nigeria has that potential and a strong tendency exist that in future, we may go the way of Greece if our leaders do not quickly put on their thinking caps and stem the tide, especially with the current wave of transformational begging which has plunged the nation into a $3 billion and $300 million ‘gbese’ from China and the World Bank within the week in addition to other debts. So what will happen if Naija go the way of Greece? Who will provide us bailout packages? When this happen, printing more money like Idi Amin Dada of Uganda will not bail us out nor remedy the problem, just in case someone is thinking in the reverse direction, because printing more money will be no different from tissue paper good for the septic tank after pooh-poohing! And that’s just the way it is! By the way, did anyone listened to the Coordinating Minister of the Economy, Dr Ngozi Okonjo Iweala with one ear or two ears the other day as she was reading from the book of Lamentations, when the budget imbroglio was on between the Presidency and the Lower House, over certain amendments by Igwe Chimezie of Otuoke to the 2013 apropriation? She alerted us that we should call on our Legislators to put national interest above personal interest and pass the 2013 budget swiftly as amended by Mr President, otherwise the government will not be able to pay salaries and buy fuel for the ship of state, and what that means is that our transformational journey will come to an abrupt halt! And that’s just the way it is because ‘ossussu’ is involved. Let us swiftly go back to the starting line but still on the matter with a different perspective. Whether bankruptcy or no bankruptcy; Detroit, NYC, here I come. Am off to Detroit to go and purchase relics of industrial spare parts to start up my transformational small business enterprise so as to move the Ministry to the permanent site. Last time I checked most of the ‘jegugujera Gominas’ strutting across the landscape like peacocks have not completed the Industrial parks that they read out to the masses from their party’s manifestoes during the electioneering campaign jamboree. E be like say all of dem copy the same thing! Talk of copying and pasting wrongly! How come, they were all talking about industrial parks? Case in point, the ‘’Food Basket Nation,’’ talking about Benue state. Last time I checked the Benue state government has been building an Industrial park along the potholes infested Makurdi – Ankpa Federal Highway, for over 14 years now. The last time I travelled to my village of Iga-Okpaya, in Ochekwu District of Apa Local Government in the Food Basket Nation, in 2009, the Ministry had to change the two back shock absorbers of my jalopy and this tore a very big hole wide enough to accommodate 80,000 pieces of shekels of ‘ossussu’ from the Church’s treasury. I want to use this opportunity to appeal to whoever is responsible for the calamitous state of that road to please have the fear of God and do something before something do somebody! Most especially now that the Ministry is moving to Detroit, in the state of Michigan to go and shop for cheap industrial spare parts. I heard with one ear while I visited the Government House, as two Ogas at the top were speaking, that lack of spare parts and raw materials for industries is what is delaying and slowing down that noble project which is designed to make Makurdi the Taiwan of Africa. It is most unfortunate that the project has since became a looting avenue in the last 14 years. Do not be surprised if you check the ‘’Food Basket’’ annual budget in the last 14 years and you find the Makurdi industrial park like a recurring decimal swallowing ‘’ossussu’’ like the Lagos-Ibadan expressway while the place remained covered up with grass during the raining season and rats during the dry season. We must stem the drift! Makurdi Industrial park must see the light of day! The Bishop is off to Detroit in the quest for industrial spare parts. It is a mutually beneficial journey – The Mayor of Detroit County will take my ‘’ossussu’’ which they badly need like oxygen, in exchange for industrial spare parts which the Food Basket nation requires to complete the Makurdi Industrial park! Shikenan! See you as the ship docks when my containers arrive Apapa Wharf through the high sea, for onward clearing and forwarding of my consignment to the Food Basket capital. Detroit is bankrupt!
Posted on: Fri, 19 Jul 2013 19:19:39 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015