Bodija explosion victims, FG N30 billion intervention fund, and Makinde’s hypocrisy, by Oladeinde Olawoyin

The Oyo State Government under Seyi Makinde will go down in history as the most nakedly hypocritical in its poorly veiled mendacity since the begining of the 4th republic in that state. And this mendacious tendency—enabled by an opposition in disarray, a conspiratorial local media, and an equally janus-faced civil society—is nauseating in its juvenile insipidity.

I stopped talking politics, either at the centre and most especially in Oyo state a long time ago (principally because even the very little people that are most affected by poor governance have shown that it’s a complete waste of time) but nothing has riled me in recent months like the juvenile alibi put forward by the janus-faced Makinde administration, with respect to the Bodija explosion drama, yesterday.

First off, after its initial denial and subsequent Màrá Dance around the facts of the matter for days, Oyo government finally admitted that it received intervention support. Then yesterday, the government claimed that upon receiving N30bn of the N50bn reportedly promised by the FG, in its never-seen-before ingenuity, it left it untouched and deliberately decided to “wait and see” before deciding what to do with the money.

And it did wait, wait, and wait—–for one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve… twelve months—and was yet to “see”, until the drama unfolded.

Wonderful.

Again, the government claimed the remaining N20 billion has remained withheld by the relevant federal agencies for reasons that have not been communicated to the state, yet it never escalated it in public statements even as it struggles to provide succor for affected victims. That way, the state handlers have, in their usual ‘Madaru Alabosi’ way, subtly thrown up allegations of demand for kickbacks by FG/MDA officials, without being explicit. It’s a way of throwing up allegations without necessarily alleging, so it perhaps may not be asked to provide proof. Mendacity.

Now, it’s highly plausible that FG officials indeed demanded bribes and kickbacks for the release of the N20bn; in fact, what would be shocking is that they never did. But equally amazing is that all of these happened behind the scene and the government didn’t deem it fit to escalate it somehow until Ayo Fayose’s whistleblowing gymnastics. Wonderful.

To be sure, Fayose would rank lowest in my estimation of those I consider public accountability advocates. His intervention, important as it turned out to be, was motivated by dark politics. Simpiciter. That clarity is important. He wouldn’t have gone that route were they still friends and allies in their PDAPC-leaning G5 theatre group.

But for a state government that perenially dresses itself in the hypocritical robe of transparency, accountability and welfarism, it’s a shame that it took Fayose of the ‘Se Adiye Ti e o Kin Yagbe?’ infamy of the Obasanjo years to beam the lights in the direction of their mendacious bum-bum.

What’s most nauseating in this ugly, ugly, ugly “Wait and See” alibi is that while the government reportedly left the money in the coffers, waiting and seeing, many victims of the Bodija explosion were crying for help amid allegations of neglect and poor intervention.

And, pray, who keeps a N30bn disaster intervention fund idle in a non-interest-yielding account and maintains criminal silence ahead of an election year when heavy spending is expected to begin while potential beneficiaries of said money languish in pain and misery occasioned by said disaster?

Obviously, an Ijoba Mekunu like Oyo’s.

Again, it’s not as if these things matter to me any longer (unlike a few years ago when it did) so like Makinde, his finance geniuses in Oyo government, and their 2K-per-tweet fawning stormtroopers, I am joining everyone to “Wait and See”—–on the sidelines.