Governor of Gombe State Alhaji Ibrahim Hassan Dankwambo was reported last week to have appointed 229 Special Assistants (SAs). Acting Secretary to the State Government Mr. James Pisagih said the appointment of the new aides takes effect from the day they resume duty. This announcement caused shock and surprise to Nigerians because we thought the […]
Governor Dankwambo’s 229 SAs
Governor of Gombe State Alhaji Ibrahim Hassan Dankwambo was reported last week to have appointed 229 Special Assistants (SAs). Acting Secretary to the State Government Mr. James Pisagih said the appointment of the new aides takes effect from the day they resume duty. This announcement caused shock and surprise to Nigerians because we thought the era of appointing jumbo gubernatorial aides is now a thing of the past, given the prevailing economic recession in the country.
At a time when most state governments in the country are battling to pay workers’ salaries and meet basic obligations, such a large number of political aides added to the wage bill can only compound matters. During Dankwambo’s first term in office, his special assistants received salaries ranging from N33,000 to N80,000. This means the new aides will enjoy an average monthly salary of N56,500 even though they were not given any specific portfolios or special assignments. The SAs’ appointment also came at a time when 3,000 teachers in the state were refused five months’ salaries because they were suspected to be ghost workers.
Governor Ben Ayade of Cross River State was also reported last month to have appointed 1,000 personal aides. A statement by his spokesman Mr. Christian Ita stated that the appointments took effect from November 1, 2016. It said out of the 1,000 people that Ayade appointed, 800 of them are to man statutory bodies such as boards, commissions and agencies. However, the remaining 307 are special advisers, special assistants and personal assistants. These are way too many in these lean times.
It is true that high though this number of governors’ aides is, it is a much smaller figure than what obtained in the past. Between 2007 and 2015 for example, some governors were known to have appointed up to 2,000 personal aides. These were a mixture of special advisers, senior special assistants, special assistants, community assistants and liaison officers. There was a state governor in Nigeria that had a special assistant on rams and another special assistant on kola nuts. In most cases however these aides of governors have no specific assignments and no job schedules. They merely collect salaries at the end of the month.
While Nigerians frown at these appointments and see them as a drain on the public purse, governors see them as jobs for the boys in order to reward their campaign workers. While the governors are politicians and they need some leeway to take care of their campaign workers, they must find productive ways or doing so, rather than unloading the burden on the public treasury. Governor Dankwanbo is a former Accountant General of the Federation and we expect him to lead the way in erecting barriers to protect the treasury, not to surrender it to political pressure. The combined annual salaries of these new aides can buy over one hundred modern green houses for the cultivation of vegetables which would create entrepreneurs and engender business activities in the state.
Employing people as political aides without designated duties is not only harmful to the treasury but it hardly helps the individuals concerned in the long run. For, it encourages sloth and idleness. It is better to use the resources instead to provide jobs for all instead of rewarding indolence. We call on the Revenue Mobilization, Allocation and Fiscal Commission [RMAFC] to fashion an arrangement that would clearly define how many aides a governor can have and how they should be remunerated. This should bring sanity to the political appointments in government houses so that these could be based on need and competence. It will also help if state assemblies must approve these aides, just like they must now approve commissioners as well as the number of special advisers.
