Last week, workers in Enugu State, under the aegis of the Joint Public Service Negotiating Council, formally kicked against the alleged decision of Governor Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi to procure Toyota Prado Sport Utility Vehicles, worth N11.5m, for each of the commissioners and House of Assembly members in the state.

Exactly one week ago when I was leaving Nigeria for Switzerland to attend an international conference on “news media development and sustainability in Africa”, I had imagined that my absence from the country for this period might hinder my search for a good article of public interest for this column.

The main breaking news of Saturday October 10, 2015 was the death of a former Governor of Bayelsa State, Chief Diepreye Solomon Peters Alamieyeseigha, more popularly known as DSP and Governor General of the Ijaw nation. One week later, how he died has remained unknown as several claims counter each other on the subject.

During colonial rule, the British evolved a convention that Nigerian public servants were expected to be seen but not heard. The convention facilitated the inclusion in the General Orders and later the Public Service Rules (PSR), the requirement for public servants to take oaths of secrecy not to disclose any information obtained in the course of their duties. The pioneer civil servants imbibed the convention and handed down to posterity, the culture of secrecy for official business in Nigeria.

Many of Nigeria’s 36 states are still in turmoil over unpaid workers’ salaries. Although the fall in oil revenue which drastically reduced government income accounts for the present situation, those who are unable to appreciate the dilemma of the states cannot be blamed, considering the pattern of recklessness of some governors in the nation. If the affected states had made salaries their priority as soon as they observed falling incomes, the situation would not have been this bad.