By Austin Ogwuda
FRANKLY speaking, a State like Delta, which is one of the major oil producing States in South South region of Nigeria, created 32 years ago, is no longer a toddler.
As the State marked the anniversary of its creation and going by the deluge of congratulatory messages, it was, indeed, different strokes for different people.
In an attempt to appraise the journey so far, some of the analysts were merely playing to the gallery and so forth while some were objective by their postmortem, clearly stating the obvious facts backed up with imperical evidence viz : goals scored as well as areas that recorded shoddy or abysmal failure.
We still have a group of analysts whose write ups “smell pepper soup”, who can use flowering language to turn night to daylight, justifying their masters’ pay.
There is another group of hired mercenaries carrying out the yore man’s job by hacking down perceived enemies through jaundiced writeups for revenge.
This Reporter has taken the pain to point out what’s going on especially these days where we have ’emergency journalists’ who take to the social media once they can load data and write ABC in English language.
The rudimentary training and the burden of abiding by the Code of Conduct as a gatekeeper are regarded as not important. Pedigree?
Who cares, not also considered important.
Therefore, when few persons with objectivity at the back of the mind put pen on paper, alarm is immediately raised, you start hearing “off your mic..” syndrome.
I have to vigorously lay this background to enable you first of all, understand which group of analysts this Reporter belongs to.
As a ritual, a governor while swearing in new Commissioners as cabinet members, addresses them.
Hear is what Governor Sheriff Oborevwori told the 26 Commissioners during the swearing in ceremony recently.
“I note with pleasure that this State Executive Council is an inspiring blend of youths and experience hands, and meets the requirements of competency, spread, and sectoral representation.
“The youth represent a breath of fresh air while the old hands are needed for their maturity, wisdom, mentoring, and stability of the system.
“Being a Commissioner does not make you superior to others. So, you must shun pride and arrogance.
“This appointment is simply a call to higher responsibility, and you must justify the confidence that has been reposed in you with good judgment, tenacity of purpose, compassion, and unwavering commitment to the development of the state and the welfare of our people.
“As stated in my inaugural address, the M.O.R.E agenda of this administration is designed to ADVANCE Delta through inclusive and sustainable economic growth and private sector job creation, strengthening the human capital, building an enabling infrastructure, and improving governance and accountability systems for improved service delivery.
“The successful implementation of these programmes calls for drive, focus, innovation, fiscal discipline, and judicious allocation of resources on your part.
“A lot is expected from this administration in the light of the massive support we received from the electorate in the general elections. Hence, you must roll up your sleeves and get to work immediately because there is no time to waste.
“This administration is almost three months old and we must make every day count for our people. It is especially important that as commissioners you constantly monitor the progress of projects under your ministry and institute a mechanism for feedback and evaluation.
“As heads of Ministries, your personal example is the most powerful leadership tool you possess. You must be role models in punctuality, discipline, hard work, excellence, honesty, transparency, and accountability. People will do what they see you do, not what you say. Hence, you must endeavour to match your words with actions.
“Let fairness, equity, and justice guide your actions, and you must give every citizen equal opportunity to benefit from our programmes and services.
“In this regard, you must shun ethnic politics and divisive tendencies. You are to maintain an open-door policy in your ministries and be accessible to all and sundry”, the governor added.
Kudos to the script writers. Well couched, well delivered too.
But for the purpose of this write up, I am particularly going to dwell on this charge from the governor contained in one of the above paragraphs.
It states thus: “….we must make every day count for our people. It is especially important that as Commissioners you constantly monitor the progress of projects under your ministry and institute a mechanism for feedback and evaluation”.
The importance of monitoring and evaluation of programmes and projects cannot be over-emphasised.
This Reporter can still recall that one of the previous administrations in the State once created a Directorate of Project Monitoring and Evaluation with Barrister Ejaife Odebala in charge.
It is through proper monitoring and evaluation that can actually show whether a given ministry is progressing or not.
Gone were the days when a Commissioner would sit back in the air-conditioned office, drink tea and coffee and when the time comes to defend his or her Memo at EXCO meeting, ghost projects are mentioned as ongoing; whereas that project being presented either had not taken off or executed in a shoddy manner outside the approved specifications.
That was why I gave kudos to Governor Sheriff Oborevwori in my earlier piece tilted – Gov
Oborevwori, walking the talk?
In that report I did commend the governor for taking practical steps to ensure that there are no ghost projects or projects fully paid for, but shoddily delivered.
He decided to personally move to the field to see things for himself.
Shortly after assuming office, while many people were asking Mr. Governor when are you appointing your Commissioners, he shut his ears, put on his jeans trousers and was fully out on inspection tours.
He made it clear that “In the transition Committee’s Report, there are short term, medium term and long term reports which we are also studying to see what we can do.
“That is why I am going round to inspect projects. I know the ones that we can inaugurate. We can’t rush to inaugurate projects that are not properly executed.
“We will inaugurate projects that are executed according to specification so that when people see such projects, they will indeed know that we have inaugurated well executed projects”, stated the governor.
Now that the governor has appointed his Commissioners and having charged them to roll up their sleeves, The Town Hall Media, will be keeping tab in seeing how the Commissioners will follow suit, monitor, evaluate and report back to the governor.
Therefore, it is the concern of this newspaper to advise that the methodology of Key Performance Indicator ( KPI) be activated.
With this measure in place the governor can monitor from the dashboard which ministry is doing well and which is not performing.
And what is the appropriate and right thing to do is to show the way out to any layabout Commissioner to give way for a better, productive and focus- driven Commissioner when the need arises.
A performance indicator or key performance indicator is a type of performance measurement. KPIs evaluate the success of an organization or of a particular activity in which it engages. (Wikipedia)