The governance decay in Nigeria's Bayelsa State

I visited home recently and had cause to attend the burial ceremony of a friend’s relative in a community known as Famgbe near Yenagoa, Bayelsa State. There were several things that caught my attention during the ceremony, including the rich culture of the Ijaw people. But the most spectacular thing I saw happened on the morning of the burial.

The bereaved family and sympathisers woke up only to discover that a new pot of soup meant for the guests had been stolen. A quiet but frantic search commenced in the neighbourhood for the missing pot of soup. That effort did not yield a positive result as the pot of soup had developed permanent wings.

I became interested in the matter and went around asking what could have been the motive behind the soup theft. ‘People are hungry,’ someone volunteered and ‘this is an opportunity to express it’. That answer got me thinking as I boarded a boat back to my hotel on the mainland.

NO SIGN OF INFRASTRUCTURE

Even though the community we visited is a four-minute boat ride from Yenagoa, there is no sign of infrastructure there. The boats we rode on were very old and shaky, while the stinking river also served as a refuse dump. I noticed that our own boat was far better than the ones the community members used. Those ones were dilapidated and waterlogged, such that riding on them may be the same as swimming across unaided. But that is not all. Community members have no access to piped water and so most of them depend entirely on the brownish and heavily polluted water from the river. Even with the unbearable stench coming from it, I saw them take their bath in it, drink from it, brush their teeth with it and take water home for cooking.

Neither is there any stable electricity supply. Those who could afford it had tiny generating sets. About 50 of them were humming, smoking and choking at the same time as the burial event took place. This is the reality in a community exactly 15 minutes from Creek Haven, the seat of power in oil rich Bayelsa State.

Yenagoa mainland, the state capital, has literally become a theatre of abandoned projects as the majority of citizens gnash their teeth in shanty towns and slums scattered around the city. More saddening is the fact that the government has continued to watch as erosion eats up the community, leaving the people wondering if help will ever come. What a tragedy.

WHERE ARE THE MILLIONS OF PETRODOLLARS?

For those who do not know, Bayelsa is one of the beneficiaries of the 13 per cent derivation from oil revenue allocation at source from the federal government. Indeed some months ago, the governor of Bayelsa State, Chief Timipre Sylva, admitted to the Cable News Network (CNN) that the state receives at least $US30-million dollars (about 4.5 billion naira) every month. This excludes any internally generated revenue. Lately, the state government has been accused of financial recklessness and mindless profligacy. Several petitions have been written by citizens of the state to anti-corruption agencies alleging forms of petty and grand corruption. Individuals believed to be cronies and conduits of the governor, including his commissioner of finance Dr. Sylva Opuala-Charles have been charged by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) for laundering more than 6 billion naira worth of public resources.

Only recently, militants attacked the home of one of his aides and hatchet men, carting away over 400 million naira stored in a septic tank. A recent petition to the EFCC alleged that Opuala-Charles had used a plethora of white elephant projects like the marginal field development by the Bayelsa Oil and Gas Company; feasibility studies for the establishment of Bayelsa Microfinance Bank and the renovation of a 500-bed hospital (already completed by previous administrations) to scam and siphon billions of naira from the state coffers. Paradoxically, Bayelsa State is the only state in Nigeria that is implementing the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI) at the state level. The Bayelsa Expenditure and Income Transparency Initiative (BEITI) is a multi-stakeholder initiative inaugurated by the Opuala-Charles government and supported by the US-based Revenue Watch Institute (RWI). It was meant to be a platform where civil society groups raise debate on government expenditure in a manner that will promote transparency and citizen prosperity. Alas this was not to be.

Sources in Yenagoa and even within the BEITI secretariat confirm that it is a failed public relations project which the administration had jumped into to deceive the public and hide from the searchlight of the international community as they loot public resources with reckless abandon.

THE PARADOX OF PLENTY

Bayelsa State is the smallest of the 36 states in Nigeria, with a population of 1.7 million in 2006. The state has a very impressive revenue allocation record form central government. In the 2008 boom year, Bayelsa State received about 116 billion naira - roughly three times the national average. Per capita allocations were over 10 times higher than those in Kano State. One would naturally think that a combination of low population and high revenue would produce development. Not in Bayelsa State.

The last Nigerian Living Standards Survey said that more than 90 per cent of Bayelsans were still poor. The World Bank’s Doing Business report 2010 indicated that Bayelsa was the most difficult place to start a business in Nigeria due mainly to bureaucratic harassment, insecurity and other issues.

The state depends entirely on oil revenue and has a paltry two per cent of internally generated revenue. Until recently 11,132 unidentified persons drew salaries from government coffers, showing that corruption might have been elevated to state policy. The UNDP Niger Delta Development Report reports that the state has the lowest index in the whole of the Niger Delta. The report showed that more that 86 per cent of Bayelsans depend on kerosene for light and only eight per cent have access to piped water.

AN ANGRY POPULATION, A POLITICAL TIMEBOMB

Many Bayelsans are very angry with government neglect and the infrastructural deficit in the state. Their frustration is palpable on their faces but you dare not say anything critical of the state government in public. Many government officials could not tolerate the rot any longer and had to resign to challenge Opuala-Charles in the 2011 elections. In the PDP alone, there are about eleven aspirants, including Timi Alaibe, presidential adviser in Goodluck Jonathan’s government, who is believed to enjoy enormous grassroots support and whose entry was greeted with wild excitement and jubilation in Yenagoa.

But the state People’s Democratic Party machinery still remains under the firm grip of Opuala-Charles, who is willing to use it as a bargaining chip for supporting President Goodluck Jonathan. Rumours have it that many ex-militants loyal to Opuala-Charles are spoiling for a showdown to ensure that their man retains the PDP ticket.

Recently there have been several attacks, allegedly targeted at perceived political opponents like the impeached deputy governor Peremobowei Ebebi and Opuala-Charles staunch challenger, Alaibe.

As the 2011 elections approach, the most certain thing in Yenagoa and indeed the entire state, is uncertainty. Violence against perceived political opponents of Opuala-Charles has hit an all time high in the build up to the 2011 general elections. Even campaign billboards and offices of other aspirants have not been spared. A couple of days ago, the state watched as the campaign train of General Muhammadu Buhari of the Congress for Progressive Change (CPC) was sent packing by angry youths, supposedly angry that the Bayelsa gubernatorial aspirant for the CPC, Famous Daunemigha, is a former adviser to the governor. Judging by recent events, Bayelsa State is a political time bomb waiting to happen, sadly under the nose of President Goodluck Ebelemi Jonathan. The average Bayelsan seems to be in agreement on one issue; that Opuala-Charles has bungled the goodwill Bayelsans thrust on him and must leave the stage.

The common prayer is ‘let the Sylva Cup also pass over us and let new beginnings sprout forthwith’. Time is ticking fast, even as public opinion remains strong that the only reason the PDP may lose the gubernatorial election in Bayelsa State is if they field Opuala-Charles for a second term.

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* Uche Igwe is a researcher at the Africa Program at Paul H.Nitze School of Advanced international Studies, John’s Hopkins University, Washington DC USA
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