…Analysts Describe Appointment As Waste Of Funds
The Kogi State Governor, Usman Ododo, has approved the appointment of 1,192 additional aides.
A statement signed by the Secretary to the State Government, Dr Folashade Ayoade, stated among the new aides is Yakubu Abdulhakeem who is appointed as the Executive Secretary, Kogi State Office for Disability.
“The aides include Yakubu Abdulhakeem who is to serve as the Executive Secretary, Kogi State Office for Disability, 165 Senior Special Assistants, and 36 Special Assistants.
“Others on the list approved by the governor are 574 Ward Special Assistants and 290 Local Government Special Assistants,” the statement read.
The state governor also approved the appointment of Alhaji Ibrahim Abdulsadiq as the Director of Protocol, First Lady Office.
While congratulating all the appointees, the governor urged them to put in their best to serve the state and humanity at large.
The statement added that all the appointments take effect from September 1, 2024.
But findings by NewsNGR revealed that each Ward Special Assistant will earn about N150,000 monthly while the Local Government Special Assistants are to earn N350,000 monthly.
The financial implication of the appointment is that the state will spend over N86m monthly for payment of the Ward Special Assistants and over a N100m for Local Government Special Assistants.
When annualised, the state government would require about N2.2bn to pay the salaries of these appointees.
Speaking on the development, the Registrar of the Chartered Institute of Finance and Control pf Nigeria, Godwin Eohoi, said the number of appointees is high at a time when there is clamour to cut down the cost of governance.
He added that the financial implication will be heavy on the state, which is struggling to pay workers’ salaries.
He said, “From the list, I saw SSA on Grassroot Mobilization and also saw another SSA on Grassroot Sensitisation. Can’t the one for mobilization do both jobs? Infact the SSA for both offices were more than two.”
Also speaking, a Developmental Economist, Afeez Agboola said that the high cost of governance had impeded economic development in the country.
He said that the budget of some state government was not making much impact because most of the money was spent on recurrent expenditures like salaries and overheads.
But explaining the reasons behind the appointment of 717 Ward Special Assistants, the Kogi State Commissioner for Information and Communications, Kingsley Fanwo, stated the appointments were made to deepen democracy and ensure participatory governance among the grassroots population.
“The Governor is determined to ensure grassroots participation in governance. He doesn’t want to be detached from the hopes and aspirations of the grassroots. We have learnt from past experiences and should be able to put those lessons to use.
“In the past, many of the appointed Special Advisers and Senior Special Assistants lived in the state capital and did not relate with the grassroots people. There was a gap between the pulse at the grassroots and the impression of the government. But with this novel appointment strategy, the people at the grassroots are already jubilating over the commendable inclusive governance.
“Those appointed are those who sleep and wake up in those Wards. They don’t live outside their Wards, and they will be the foot soldiers of the government in achieving the Consolidation Agenda of the Ododo Administration,” the commissioner said.
He explained that the high number of the assistants does not translate to a high cost of governance, adding that the salaries of three Ward Special Assistants amount to what one Senior Special Assistant would have earned.
“What the Governor did was to share one SSA salary to three WSA, meaning that the cost of governance is not increased as a result of the high number of WSA.
“Now we have at least three State Government Officials in each 239 Wards with significantly reduced salaries and allowances. This is smart governance. The Governor has been silently reducing the cost of governance as a shrewd manager of resources,” he said.
A former governor of Cross River, Ben Ayade had in 2021 appointed 38,000 political aides to tackle poverty in the state.
The former governor had said the appointment is to afford him the “emotional and social temperature” to discharge his duties.
In November 2022, barely six months before the expiration of his term of office, former Rivers State Governor Nyesom Wike doubled the number of his Special Assistants on Political Affairs from an already staggering 100,000 to 200,000.
At the inauguration ceremony of the additional 100, 000 appointees, Wike justified the move as the “implementation of the policy of stomach infrastructure” aimed at “putting money in the hands” of his constituents.