Editor: The official press release issued by the Enugu State Government office is that the governor, Mr. Chime was on his accumulated leave. If so it is clear now that the governor has accumulated at least 4 months of leave. This immediately raises the question: how many days/weeks/months/years of accumulated leave does the governor have in about 13 years of service (8 years in Mr. Chimaroke’s administration, 5 years as governor)? Assuming that he is entitled to one month of leave for every year of service this means he could be out for 13 months before exhausting his accumulated leave allowance.
I assume he never took a day’s leave and that proper records are kept.
Under this scenario Mr. Chime would be within his rights if he shows up in November 2013. This must be the information available to bishop Onaga when he asked Enugu people not to ask questions about the whereabouts of Mr. Chime.
I started my second professional career as an accountant/auditor and one of the things we looked at when we looked into executive staff was if vacations were taken when due. If this was not the case we recommended that the officer should proceed on leave. The reason is obvious. Many times executives failed to take vacations because they were sitting on a cover up which would be revealed if somebody else sat in their office. So the first question becomes why has Mr. Chime not taken vacations as they became due? Why has the government auditors not drawn attention to this questionable practice?
One of the reasons for vacations is that the law of diminishing returns applies to all normal and devoted workers. They work at their pick for sometime and they get tired and would burn out if they do not recharge. Vacations provide the “recharge valve.” These workers also have other things in their lives and vacations provide them the time to attend to those other matters. Mr. Chime, not taking a vacation in years, implies either that he has god like abilities or has not been a normal and devoted worker.
Could it be that he had been not working hard?
We know that most world leaders often go on vacations sometimes just to take their family out.
The rumor mill has it that Mr. Chime is ill. Many people had pushed this to such an extreme that bishop Onaga equated it to death wish on the governor. Mr. Maxi Okwu in a press release said that his investigators had traced Mr. Chime to a London hospital. We do not, at this time, know the truth. But if we accept Mr. Okwu’s story, what would be extraordinary about the fact that Mr. Chime is sick? The only reason for keeping it a secret would be that some people believe that Mr. Chime is endowed with godlike qualities and he can therefore not be sick.
Alas, this plays into the hands of mischief makers for they believe that they are God and often behave and weld god like powers over their fellow human beings
Whatever the truth about Mr. Chime is, it will eventually come down to the fact that he has played very childish games. He cannot be god; he can get sick; he should have taken vacations here and there; he should have not just disappeared from his place of work; he should have trusted his citizens more.
By doing all these things he would have demonstrated self confident governorship qualities. The game he is playing seems to indicate a lack of confidence.
Benjamin Obiajulu Aduba
Boston, Massachusetts
January 19, 2013
