WHY GOVERNORS EMBEZZLE OUR MONEY

1. Most people who govern our various states especially from 1999 till date are not patriotic enough.

1. They believe that Nigeria can never be good again. Then their being in government is seen as opportunity to take their last share of Nigeria and probably relocate overseas with their family members.

1. They deceive the masses by giving them fake manifestos/promises, bags of rice, money, noddles, clothes, etc. When they get into office, they collect their money back without measurement. That’s why some people sell their properties to contest election. Some governors use public fund to “buy” reelection votes. Some gets funds or loans from godfathers and must pay back in folds.

1. Because of desperation, so many of them soil their hands with blood. Some make a lot of commitments and promises to various shrines. All these commitments make them useless, visionless, myopic, powerless and confused in their first tenure. They will start by making wrong choice of advisers, state excos, board chairmen etc. People under them will be siphoning government funds without their knowledge. Top civil and public servants will be using their brains by misleading them. Before they could know what is happening, three years have elapsed. They will end up using public fund to buy votes to win second tenure election by fire by force.

If we are actually with our common sense, how can someone who wants to serve you will bribe you to win your votes?

1. Governance is service but today, people win elections for business not for service. That’s why politicians loot government treasury with impunity.

1. Your governors are your servant leaders. Stop taking them as if they are gods. They are entrusted with the state funds which they cannot use without your approval. You are therefore expected to investigate how they use the state funds through your lawmakers. How many of us do this? The reason why you don’t have powers to checkmate your governors is because of the money they offer you during the elections. Again, our traditional rulers and PGs who should be doing these on our behalf are also committed. Their hands are strongly tied because of peanuts they collect from governors illegally. They see but they can’t talk. Our governors embezzle our money because they know we can never ask why and how?

1. How can you vote a man or woman who doesn’t live or work in your state as your governors? He has no business in your state. His family doesn’t live in your state and you expect him/her to build roads, schools, hospitals, or industries for you. Is he a father Christmas? This is the highest mistake Nigerians make. Have you ever seen a man voted as American president or state governor who does not live in America? White man can never make such mistake. No wonder why they call us black monkeys. Go to America and Europe and see the dictionary meaning of DEVELOPMENT. How can you vote an African man who has no investment in your state to be your governor, and you expect him to create jobs for you, build good roads and give you portable water? Stop being fooled!

His children are not here, and you expect him to build good schools for you? Hmmm!. It’s a lie! Highly impossible! Rather, they will use your money to buy houses or hotels in America, Europe and Abuja abandoning you the next minute after handing over to his successor. If genuine people like us talk, they will ask you to shout us down. This is how they end up uselessing the lives of Nigerian youths who have resorted to crime in order to survive.

1. Let me shock you by telling you that the money used to construct a single road in Nigeria can be enough to fix five roads or more. These governors waste a lot of money because of the caliber of people you vote as your lawmakers. A these governors collect a lot of percentages per contract, atimes more than the contractors to the detriment of the state treasury. We must call a spade a spade. Some of your state lawmakers are rubber stamps.

If you vote irresponsible people as your lawmakers, you will have irresponsible government. Most of them aid state governors in looting our treasury. Some of them threaten state governors to bribe them before getting budgets passed. When they collect bribe before passing a budget or bill, they will definitely lose their powers to carry out their oversight functions. A governor who is not checkmated by the lawmakers will also lose the power to ask the lawmakers how their constituency project money is being spent. This is the reason why your state is not moving forward

1. Most of your state governors are lazy. And the mistake is from you that voted them in. It took Micheal Okpala and Akanu Ibiam less than eight years to build Nkalagu Cement Company, ACB bank, stadia, breweries, textile mills, ceramic industries, paper mill, hundreds of secondary schools, tertiary institutions, hospitals, palm oil, coal mining, and roads network you see today in present day Anambra, Enugu, Imo, Abia, Ebonyi, Rivers, Delta, Cross Rivers, Akwaibom states without depending on federal allocation. Today our governors feel too big to work hard to feed the nation rather they sit and wait for federal allocation and revenue. They embezzle the taxpayers money to build houses in America and Europe where they will live the rest of their lives. This is a sin. The universities founded by our past heroes are now on strike for over six months and our governors are not protesting at all. Most of the secondary and primary schools are now decaying. ACB bank is gone. Nkalagu Cement Company is gone. Where are the coal, ceramic and textile industries? What about the paper mill? Our roads are nothing to write home about? Do we still have water board again? In fact the labour of our heroes past are seemingly now in vain. What a shame!

Instead of using the money to build industries for the youths employment, they take the money to banks abroad. They have infected our youths with laziness and corruption. All they know is how to rig elections. They use our money to rig in councilors, local government chairmen and state lawmakers from their political parties so that they can have total control of the state fund for their selfish gains. This is wickedness. Worse than banditry and terrorism!

Okeke CHIKA JERRY
(Onye Ozi Chukwu)
Former Governorship Candidate
BOOT PARTY
Anambra State