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The above is a corrupted form of ‘peculiar mess’ .…..or shall we say a Yoruba version?
Adegoke Adelabu, a pre- independence politician who belonged to the NCNC had the copyright to that phrase.
But I only referred to the phrase because what is happening in some states is nothing but PECULIAR MESS.
Can anybody imagine that certain governors in some states of Nigeria, with its fantastic oilwealth, are yet to pay public servants their salaries.
Mind you, we are not talking of just a month. Some are owing up to seven months’ pay.
Our problem starts from fear. We have been so militarized that we even fear those who are supposed to be serving us.
I believe that the affected governors are not gentlemen. If they are, they would not have broken an agreement.
A worker deserves his pay, even in a country where inflation is making a mockery of civil servants’ pay.
I am made to believe that some of them are even withholding workers’ cooperative remittances.
Some workers contribute to Cooperative Associations in order to save for the rainy day. Some contribute as much as eighty per cent of their salaries to their cooperative associations.
They are getting the shock of their lives!
They can not collect loans from their cooperatives. Normally, the cooperative should double whatever a worker has, when the worker requests for loan.
The bitter truth is that some state governors have stopped remitting the cooperative deductions. If nothing is deducted, nothing will be received.
To make mattes worse, the workers can not stop their contributions. Even those who have finished paying their loans are forced to be paying.
The workers are the ultimate loosers.
If governance is a contract, there is no doubt about the fact that such governors have broken their own part of the agreement.
But God give us men with courage. If people could be happy with a situation of ‘suffering and smiling’, they simply lack the ‘hearts of stone’.
I want to move that any governor that is owing a month’s salary should be impeached. I have always said that no matter the number of roads you construct, if you don’t put food on people’s tables, you have not only failed, you have failed woefully.
This peculiar mess must stop!!!
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