NATIONAL LIGHT CLOSURE: matters arising

The unprincipled and thoughtless and irresponsible closure of the Anambra state owned newspaper, National Light has served to throw up all manner of Maladministration in the state. Of course this is not astonishing because Nigeria is a primitive enclave where the elected officials brazenly dump Rule of Law which they swore to uphold during the swearing in ceremony.

The marked difference between civilized countries and primitive enclaves like African countries is simply strict obedience to the Rule of Law. That is why the former continue to develop while the later retrogress to the point of being a Banana Republic, as it were.

Blatant disobedience to the Rule of Law started far back in Anambra state and enlightened people chose to be “Tongue-tied marionettes” while the House of Assembly chose to be in the pocket of the Executive arm of government. Shameful indeed!

Take for instance the Law guiding Pension Harmonization which states unequivocally that Pension should be reviewed every five years OR whenever there is new Minimum Wage then pension harmonized would be made ostensibly to enable pensioners to cope with the rising price index in the country in addition to purchase drugs for their natural declining health.

Sadly, you have to talk about pension harmonization in Anambra state. It was only Dr Chris Ngige that had compassion on the wailing pensioners and when he was approached on the matter he quickly harmonized pension within six months. Since then, all the rest of the governors brazenly dumped pension harmonization which is twelve years now.

In the issue of National Light newspaper closure, what the Governor, Professor Chukwuma Soludo should have done is to set up a committee on rationalisation of Ministries, Agencies and Parastatals as was done by the the former president of Nigeria, Good luck Jonathan.
Jonathan perceived the need to reduce the ballooning cost of governance and thought it expedient to set up “Steeve Orasoye Committee on harmonization of MDAs”. Unfortunately or because of the directionless Buhari administration who preoccupied himself with Islamisation agenda, did nothing to implement the Report of the Committee.

It would have been reasonable for Soludo to establish a Committee on harmonization of MDAs when he assumed office. Instead of doing that, he only observed that National Light newspaper does not bring money to “the table” (that is adding to the revenue of the government as if state government owned newspaper are meant to be Revenue source of government).

Anambra newspapers and printing corporation ANPC was established by the Edict made by the Anambra state House of Assembly in 1993. Respect to the Rule of Law ought to have dawned on the Governor that if he didn’t like the existence of National Light newspaper, he should firstly write to the House of Assembly and explain his reasons.

Members of the House are the representatives of Ndi Anambra state and majority of them know surely know the essence of state government owned newspaper and to that extent, they would throw away the request and ask him to bankroll the expenditures of the newspaper organization into the annual budgets, expressing surprise that ANPC was not captured in the 2023 budget.
As I said earlier, Governments the world over subsidise certain services and commodities which are critical to the weal and welfare of the people, and state government owned newspaper is one of the critical services for the planning for the socioeconomic and cultural growth and development of the state.

It was amusing that the largely ignorant staff of National Light newspaper begged the Governor not to sack them but ‘distribute’ them to ministries. Fact remains that the Governor has no right to sack workers because the Public Service Rules PSR has procedures for the exit of worker in the ministry and agencies established by Law. Having ‘distributed’ to the Ministries, they thanked him because according to the union leader, they don’t want to suffer the fate of the Water Corporation staff and Anambra Wasted management staff who were thrown out of the service with over fifteen years unpaid salaries and allowances, this is the degenerated state of Rule of Law in the state government.

Of course those agencies went to the Industrial Court and won the case even as the Judge lambasted the State Government for not observing the Law on employment. It is wrong to say that employees of government agencies and corporations should generate money for them to be paid. This is a primitive mindset of government in Nigeria. This outright craziness should stop.
The reasonable thing to be doing is to be conducting Audit Report on the agencies and corporations and scrutinize the style of leadership of the heads but this has never happened in the state.

In conclusion, it is shameful that the Anambra state House of Assembly has chosen to be Tongue-tied marionettes in the closure of National Light newspaper even as they have complete information on the controversial issue which has been published in the media. But it is not surprising since in Nigeria, legislators have chosen to be inside the pockets of the Executive arm of government and this has become the bane of governance in the country.
By Polycarp Onwubiko, JP, Author and public policy analyst