OGUN AND MERCHANTS OF FIGURES
The recent reports in the media, with the headlines, “Figures on the rise, infrastructure deficit persists,” as well as “States overshoot borrowing limits”, make interesting reading, especially the aspects that relate to Ogun State. It seems our country is being turned into a figuremarket. It has now become the stock-in-trade of the opposition elements to bandy about any figure that suits their fancy as the debt profile of Ogun State. Unfortunately, the current government is not interested in buying or selling in that fake figure-market of the opposition parties. From N300 billion they alleged just before the last election, it came down to N200 billion towards the end of 2016. Since then, it oscillates between N70 billion, N100 billion and N150 billion! Could it be that Governor Ibikunle Amosun had a money-making machine which he suddenly used to offset a large chunk of the alleged N300 billion to leave an alleged balance of N70 billion, N150 billion or N200 billion? The fact is, these political detractors are not interested in the verifiable figures that the government repeatedly provides at the height of their figure-manipulation hysteria. So, what do you do as a focused government? You simply ignore them and allow them to clap with one hand. The public is not deceived. The masses appreciate the commitment of the Amosun administration to their security and welfare.
Imagine the latest figure manipulation! One report, for instance, says, “Delta State’s debt profile rose from N93.3bn in 2011 to N331.95bn in 2016; that of Ogun State rose steadily from N4.5 billion to N103.75 billion; and Plateau State moved its own from N24. 2bn to N104 billion, all within a period of five years.”
What a colossal lie! The unreconciled debt inherited by the Amosun government was N62 billion. After further reconciliation, the actual debt was in the neighbourhood of N80 billion. So, from where did the figure of N4.5 billion in 2011 emanate? One also wonders how N102 billion became N103.75 billion! It is equally surprising that the report did not mention the monthly Internally Generated Revenue of N6 billion, a milestone achieved under the Amsoun administration. It means if the government were to theoretically freeze the development projects, which are still in high demand across the state, it could wipe off the debt in about six months!
Even the report that listed Ogun among states that exceeded the debt/Federal Allocation ratio did not factor in the fact that the state, under the Amosun administration, had long depended less and less on the central purse and focused on its rising IGR, which has now put it in a position to clear any debt in less than a year if it ever chose to halt development projects. Besides, the report, which has now been upended by a few voices, clearly stated that the “data had not been compared to the Gross Domestic Product of the states.”
One wonders why the so-called Labour Party, which exists on the pages of newspapers, should dissipate its energy through an unrestrained campaign of calumny against the Amosun administration. One should expect the party to start mobilisation for the next election so that it can take over from the party in power and then take the state to its fantasised heaven of bliss! But how do you win an election when you have no structure on ground? The Labour Party could not even produce candidates for the last council polls in the state, let alone win a councillorship position. Yet it cries the loudest on the pages of newspapers.
Just as different debt figures are bandied about by the opposition, the world-class model schools constructed by the current forward-looking government have not been spared of the figure manipulation.