Considering the alleged plunder of monthly allocations from the Federation Account by some governors, and the embezzlement of public funds as exposed by the ongoing court trials of some ex-governors, there is no doubt that the lamentation of the Senate over the possibility of some states going bankrupt will be taken by the discerning public with a grain of salt and be seen as crying wolves where none truly exists.The fact still remains that corruption has eaten deep into the fabrics of our society and our present crop of senators cannot claim ignorance of this.Apart from the Senate, it is also expected that the House of Representatives jointly find out why some states may go bankrupt, with a view to convincing the public that the statutory monthly allocations that accrued to them over the years were and are presently being transparently managed by past and present governors of the affected near-bankrupt states respectively.Until this is done, Nigerians, both at home and abroad, may refuse to be carried along on the call for merger of states as the way out of the impending bankruptcy, as reported in The Sun newspaper of Friday, October 28, 2011, where the states that are categorised as being on the verge of collapse include Ekiti, Ogun, Kogi, Ondo, Plateau, Borno, Edo, Adamawa, Cross River, Enugu, Taraba, Yobe, Ebonyi and Kaduna.Merger or no merger, so long as corruption continues to be treated with unhidden levity and grand laxity by governments at all levels, nothing will change, as the fear of bankruptcy by the would-be merged states will still continue to haunt us as a nation.Ironically, some of the states that are prone to bankruptcy are blessed with human and material resources, but it is rather unfortunate that there is still nothing to write home about on the standard of living of the people in those states.Greed, through power recycling, is a factor that is responsible for the present state of affairs in some of the states. It would be recalled that President Goodluck Jonathan once told Nigerians that greed, if not checked, may act as a catalyst to the disintegration of our nation.State governance is seen as a birthright of a particular ethnic group in some of the states and under such a state of affairs, one wonders how the best hands could be deployed in real development in all ramifications.The distribution of political appointments in some states is done in such a way that falls short of creating a sense of belonging among some sections of the indigenes. That is why it is difficult to see the round peg in a round hole situation coming to play in some states civil service.How on earth can a state be expected to develop when continuous and open marginalisation of other ethnic groups at the expense of only one ethnic group in a state has become the foundation upon which governance is built in many states'There is no doubt that despite the pervasive corruption in the country, there are still some governors whose achievements in terms of infrastructure development and improvement of the standard of living of the people are quite visible. However, when it comes to assessing all the local governments in the country, there is really nothing to write home about them and this is why voter apathy will continue to be the hallmark of local council polls in Nigeria.There is a need for searching of conscience by all the present and past governors of states not categorised to be healthy by the Senate, with a view to convincing themselves if their names will be written in gold whenever the history of corruption in Nigeria is written in the future.Joseph is Publicity Secretary, Lagos/Ogun State chapter of Okun Development Association.
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