By Ireti Awodele

Otunba Adebayo Alao-Akala, apparently genuinely moved by the allegations of rot in the civil and public service of the state, empowered a consulting firm called Captain Consulting to do an audit of the state public service. As it had been briefed, the firm did the job to the best of its knowledge and, upon the interrogation of the credentials of workers in the state, brought out a list of alleged forgers of school certificates, birth certificates, alleged ghost workers and workers who had disciplinary cases against them like stealing and allied offences.

They were about 4,000. Unfortunately for probity and good governance, the report came out at a time when election was afoot and Alao-Akala, bothered more about the quest to remain in office than instilling sanity in the system, kept the list under his table. Take that, as dramatists say, as Act One, Scene One.

Act One Scene Two: Alao-Akala even made a peremptory attempt to instill this rare sanity by sacking a negligible few among these workers, according to reports. He, however, buckled and kept the rest securely locked up inside his drawers. Act One Scene Three: Apology to William Shakespeare, Alao- Akala exeunt and his successor, Abiola Ajimob, enters the scene.

Act Two Scene One: Ajimobi swears to the people of Oyo State that he had come to protect the integrity of the Oyo public service and to take it away from the drudgery and insanity of the past decades that had conspired to stagnate its movement.

The whole civil service of the Western Region which makes up the states of the current South West of Nigeria, took their leave from the Oyo civil service of the Western Region. Thus, it is incumbent on this public service to show the way in probity and sanity. Ajimobi thus empanelled a committee, headed by the state Head of Service, Alhaji Tajudeen Aremu, to thoroughly scan the names he inherited from Alao-Akala.

In the process, many of the names were dropped by Ajimobi himself and the committee for ambivalent identification in the forgery triangle. The governor had earlier told the committee, based on the time-worn dictum of law and exegeses of the holy writ, that it is better for a guilty person to go scot free than for an innocent man to be crucified.

Act Two Scene Three: After summoning the consulting firm to his office, Ajimobi wrung off it a letter of indemnity to guarantee that the state government would not suffer from whatever mistake the firm might  have made. This produces a binary result. One, it makes the firm to know that it could not afford to be lopsided in its judgement and, second, it saves the state fund, in case of litigation.

Act Three Scene One: Upon all these four major steps he had taken to ensure that the innocent is not unjustly punished and to ensure that there is a thorough safeguard for them, Mr. Probity Abiola Ajimobi ordered that the letters of disengagement should be served on all.

If some hawks in the government had their way, the forgers of certificates and those who had been categorized as ghost workers would, by now, be cooling their feet in detention for the serious malfeasance of forgery but the man at the helms of affairs kicked against it, saying the government had instilled enough deterrent in making a public example of the victims.

To be fair to the conscientious people of Oyo State and many of those who were sacked, they accepted their fates with equanimity. They are even grateful that the government did not seek to retrieve the multiple billions of Naira they had collected over the years fraudulently or turn them over to the law because, in the face of law, those who were disengaged were never employees of government ab-initio.

But some unconscionable characters in the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in Oyo State have been instigating one of their own to  pillory this highly applauded government move. The character has been standing logic, truth, commonsense and equity in the face by impugning this highly lauded implementation of decency in office. His reason for this is not only laughable but obtuse.

One, he claims to be representing a group in the PDP which, as at today, is a non-existent and unrecognized construct in the party. Second, I am told that this visceral attack on every good policy of the Ajimobi government that this character has pursued in the last one year, the end product is to seek to squeeze some acquaintance from the ACN government. Third, many right-thinking persons have been asking themselves, how can anyone who claims to retain a modicum of humanity in him defend systemic corruption this unabashedly?

The rhetorical question, laced with innuendoes, posed by Ajimobi at the inauguration of another review panel to look into claims of those who say they were unfairly sacked has also received the blind and irrational harangue of this lickspittle. Ajimobi had asked the people of Oyo State, and I quote: “But, I say once again, ours is a listening government.

If this is the consensus of the good people of Oyo State that anyone who has stolen government money; anyone who falsified age; anyone who falsified certificates; anyone who is a ghost worker, we should leave them in the system, so be it.

We will respect the wishes of our people but I must tell you, if we do this, this state will not move forward.” But this character was either too dumb to penetrate this literature or too enmeshed in the rot of the past to access the sincerity of the statement. Surely, his certificates should be scanned!

I, and like many people in Oyo State, have been inundated with calls for mercy by many victims of the purge. All the requests have been towards asking for mercy. A particular man, whom we all know is 72 years old and who was sacked for doctoring his age, was forthright enough to own up to this misdemeanor, saying that he and many others falsified their ages at the time because it was a Nigerian phenomenon to doctor ages.

Our qualified graduates roam the streets jobless because many civil servants who were not qualified ab-initio have refused to leave, doctoring their ages and credentials. But, must this continue? Must we continue to salivate for the order of America, the candor of UK and not imbibe their process? This is a question that we all must answer.

In saner climes not buffeted by the un-enduring shenanigans of politics, this act of probity by the Ajimobi government would be on the lips of praise-singers forever. Nigeria must elect to either stand on the path of probity wholesale and reap the dividends of probity or stand by fraud and corruption and reap its maggots. We cannot desire the order of America and the process of an organized society and be enmeshed in the chaos of fraud and forgery. The choice, apparently, is ours.

*Awodele, an Oyo State indigene, lives in Davis, California.