The appointments are outrageous and wasteful
The recent appointment of 4,800 special assistants by Governor Lucky Okpebholo of Edo State as part of efforts to deepen the participation of All Progressives Congress (APC) members in his administration has continued to elicit debates about the essence of our democracy. “We don’t have any other party than APC. So, we are taking governance to the grassroots so that whatever is from the top will also go down to the bottom”, Okpebholo told the people of his state while justifying the decision. “Appointing 4,800 SAs is not an issue because we all worked for this victory.”
To be sure, the governor may not have legally transgressed on his constitutional latitudes. But there are critical public interest issues raised by his action, and pertinent questions beg for answers. Is the cost for the appointment of these political jobbers captured in the Edo State budget for 2026? Why is this exercise not done with recourse to Section 196, sub 4 of the 1999 Constitution (as amended) which covers the procedures for such appointments? Why will a state fritter scarce resources when many retired workers are still being owed their pensions and gratuities? In which offices are these special assistants supposed to be reporting at the moment? And where is the Edo State House of Assembly in all this?
We know for a fact that Edo State depends mostly on allocations from the federation account to keep afloat. Yet the governor can afford these curious appointments that are evidently not geared towards improving productivity at a time when critical socio-economic problems in the state require urgent attention. This is unconscionable. Rather than deplete the Edo State treasury in order to pay the salaries and allowances of his Special Assistants, the money would be better deployed into providing social services like education and healthcare as well as improving on decaying infrastructure. The governor is therefore better advised to create more sustainable ways of rewarding supporters and stakeholders instead of imposing a heavy burden on taxpayers.
We do not question Okpebholo’s right to exercise the powers of his office in making appointments. What we do question is the rationale for such decisions. At a time like this, a job-for-the-boys approach to governance does not show an appreciation of the problem at hand. Unfortunately, Okpebholo will not be the first governor to make such appointments. In fact, that seems to be the order of the day in many states of the federation today as governors reward friends and cronies at the expense of common sense and public decency. Indeed, his predecessor, Godwin Obaseki hired 186 special and senior special assistants. As outrageous as that was, if Edo could function with 186 aides for the governor under the last administration, one is entitled to ask what has changed to justify a workforce more than 25 times that size today.
There is also something instructive in the governor’s own words. When he insists that “the party is our party” and that whatever comes from the top must trickle down to the bottom, he all but confirms that this exercise is driven by partisan reward. This is where the governor missed the point. Public office is a trust held on behalf of every resident of Edo State, not a war chest to be shared among party faithful after every electoral victory. When political patronage is repackaged as grassroots governance, it is ultimately the ordinary taxpayer, APC member or not, who foots the bill for a scandalous scheme.
The Edo State House of Assembly owes the people a duty to interrogate this decision, given the scale of public funds involved. More broadly, Nigeria needs a sober, nationwide conversation about placing reasonable limits on political appointments across the 36 states, so that the size of a governor’s entourage stops being mistaken for the depth of their commitment to good governance. Until then, taxpayers will keep subsidising armies of aides while roads, schools and hospitals are neglected.