On governors’ foreign trips and profligacy

Nearly 11 solid months have passed since the coming of this new administration with quite a lot of new people in the states as Governors especially from the APC in the 2015 Tsunami Elections that swept away power from the then ruling PDP after 16 years of unprecedented scale of bribery and corruption that almost […]

Nearly 11 solid months have passed since the coming of this new administration with quite a lot of new people in the states as Governors especially from the APC in the 2015 Tsunami Elections that swept away power from the then ruling PDP after 16 years of unprecedented scale of bribery and corruption that almost brought the country to its knees.
There is no gainsaying the fact that there were quite a lot of expectations for total change and a complete reversal from the then 16 years era of public funds mismanagement by a few privileged government functionaries in conjunction with their close associates, family members and friends in a bid to better the lives at the expense of the teaming population that voted them into office.
Unfortunately, what is going on at the moment is more of the age long proverb of “selling and old wine in a new bottle”. Could this be a strong assertion that they are all “Birds of the same feather” and so just having another golden opportunity to fly again together even from a different rests?
If the cover story of the Daily Trust Newspaper of Wednesday 4th May 2016 is anything to go by and which was jointly put together by team of about 15 reporters from across the different states in which they reported that the governors spend billions on foreign travels, then we are in for another season of wasteful period despite all the efforts of President Buhari to checkmate bribery, corruption and waste of public funds.
I have had course to say it times without number that I pity the president and his vice for it appears they are the only two and probably with very few others who are head bent on checkmating corruption while their other team members are also looking and laughing at them and working underground to see their down fall. 
A careful look at the lead story shows that nearly all the governors are involved in one form of foreign travels or the other in the name of looking for foreign investors and worst still with a large number of entourage all traveling in first class seats, huge hotel bills and fat estacodes good enough to pay the lingering 3 or 4 months outstanding salaries of workers in most of the states. 
And while still talking about foreign investors, who on earth will come from another country and invest his money in your state when the fact is still known that the people are hungry, are poor, are not motivated and in total lack of the basic social amenities and infrastructure that makes a human being lives with dignity.
Governor Tambuwal of Sokoto state who was once a national figure being the speaker in the National Assembly has since gone into the cooler and almost forgotten is reported to have travels in the last 11 months to about 7 different countries and needless to say with nothing to show.  
The Governors of Kaduna, Zamfari, Ogun, Jigawa, Kano, Imo, Katsina, Rivers, Bauchi, Plateau and host of others are all mentioned in the report to have traveled to so many countries. Lalong of Plateau State was reported to have travelled to Brazil for two weeks which he was reported to have said “was to pray for the country”. Wonders will never end. Two weeks of prayers for the country and in Brazil of all places. Why not Jerusalem for God’s sake? 
What is more alarming in all these findings is the fact as reported that “a first class return ticket to Dubai on Emirates Airlines is N888,743, while the same Airlines first class return ticket to New York is N1.4 million.
Most unfortunately, the findings also revealed that very little investment have been brought to these states despite spending so much on all those trips.
Eleven months out of 4 years even though not up to one quarter of the period of tenure should not be allowed to be wasted just like that. The people’s expectations are far from that and so far the approach is not in the right direction. Surely, we do not expect them to do some miracles by changing the system overnight, but what we expected was to see an approach akin to the 1980’s Andrew’s slogan of “Nigeria is our country and rather than checking out we must all stay here and salvage it together.
In other words, rather than spending huge amount of money chasing ghost investors, they should focus on harnessing the abundant God’s given resources, cut down cost of governance, stay at home and explore ways and means of addressing the issues internally, make the citizens understand how grave the situation is, advocate and mobilize for public participation in governance, make people busy no matter what, visit hospitals, visit schools and say hello to children studying under trees, associate with people in markets, churches and mosques and see if people will not appreciate your transformation agenda.
In all fairness, the time to stop this unnecessary foreign trips is now and to really focus attention on how to harness our internal resources, rely on our made in Nigeria goods, products and services, cut down seriously on high cost of governance, advocate and mobilize people for real development, lead by example, socialize and mix up with people.
Running away from the people who elected you into the exalted office will never be a solution to the enormous challenges. No matter on which party’s platform you are elected, now you are for all and it is your style of leadership and governance that can win for you the heart of the other people who did not vote for you in the first instance.
You still have three more years to change the tide in your favour.   
Hamzah, a public affairs analyst, wrote this piece from Abuja. He can be reached at [email protected]