Ondo: Aiyedatiwa’s Retinue Of Aides

In August, Governor Lucky Aiyedatiwa of Ondo State approved the appointment of 1,000 aides, comprising 90 Senior Special Assistants and 910 Special Assistants, reportedly to strengthen governance and improve service delivery throughout the state.

The aides are appointed to various portfolios, including Women Mobilisation; Forestry; Community Engagement (one each for three senatorial districts); Students Affairs; Volunteer Services; Oil and Gas; Youth Empowerment and Job Creation; Public Engagement; Scholarship; Grassroots Mobilisation; and Non-Indigenes.

Does Governor Aiyedatiwa need 1000 aides to function effectively? Why is the appointment coming on the eve of an election year, a month before the official flag-off of presidential and gubernatorial campaigns? What sort of advice or assistance does the governor require from this retinue of aides?

In 2025, the Ondo State Head of Service, Mr Bayo Philip, said the state government employed about 2,830 civil servants across key sectors, including health, education, justice, works, and forestry. Given how the Nigerian civil service operates, it is likely that most of these workers have no clearly defined schedule. Yet the governor is embarking on another wasteful spree by appointing 1000 aides.

It is clear. Aiyedatiwa’s massive appointment of aides is a political strategy, as most are being positioned to support the governor’s preferred candidates in the forthcoming election and to work for his 2028 re-election. The nomenclature makes that very clear. When a government appoints aides to portfolios such as community engagement, women’s mobilisation and other odd portfolios, it has laid bare its intent, especially when such appointments are made on the eve of an election year.

There is only one way to describe Governor Aiyedatiwa’s decision to appoint 1000 aides: a misplacement of priorities. Any governor who needs more than 1,000 advisers and assistants to work, especially when that governor is in a state with 18 local governments, most of whose staff are redundant, is clearly on a path to wasting the state’s scarce resources.

Nigerian governors have a penchant for appointing a retinue of aides, most of whom are paid for doing absolutely nothing. There are clear signs that these aides are appointed in a clear attempt by the governors to promote indolence and godfatherism.

We are concerned that Governor Aiyedatiwa sees nothing wrong with appointing a retinue of aides, most of whom, despite receiving monthly salaries, will add nothing of value to the state. It is even more disconcerting when one considers that this sheer financial rascality, through needless appointments, is taking place in Ondo, which, like most states, depends largely on federal allocations.

In a nation struggling to address the high cost of governance amid an intolerably high rate of poverty caused by economic despondency, appointing a retinue of aides, as Governor Aiyedatiwa did in Ondo State, is a serious disservice to the people.

We can hazard a guess. These aides will be paid salaries for doing nothing, as there is no indication they will even be given clearly defined work schedules. Does the state even have adequate office accommodation for these aides? There is clearly no reason for a governor to embark on such a wasteful venture when there is a plethora of demands clamouring for the state’s scarce resources.

Governor Aiyedatiwa seems to be in a race to appoint a retinue of aides, alongside Governor Douye Diri of Bayelsa, who appointed 2,000 aides; Hope Uzodimma of Imo, whose record is about 650 and still counting; Maimala Buni of Yobe State, who appointed about 640 aides; and Governor Abba Kabir Yusuf of Kano, whose record appointment of aides stands at over 400.

The most jejune excuse for such reckless appointments is that they will create jobs. Nothing could be further from the truth. No amount of gaslighting can change the fact that no job is created when a person is appointed without a defined schedule.

The extent of waste in some states is alarming. And that is why, despite the removal of the subsidy and the attendant increase in inflows to states from the federation account, citizens have not felt the impact.

Perhaps the time is ripe for a constitutional amendment that will limit the number of aides each governor may appoint. Governors have consistently exploited the constitution’s silence on this important matter.