Don’t give Yahaya Bello return ticket, Kogi APC stakeholders tell Buhari

The Kogi APC Stakeholders Forum have petitioned President
Muhammadu Buhari, asking that Governor Yahaya Bello should not be
given a second term ticket for alleged mismanagement of the state
resources.

The petition, signed by the convener of the forum, Alex Kadiri,
said Mr Bello received about N344billion in the last 38 months but
refused to pay workers’ salaries.

“Governor Yahaya Bello was never elected by the good people of
Kogi State. The death of Abubakar Audu made it possible for Bello
to be Kogi State Governor. He has shown everyone that he lacks
leadership abilities. He can’t fight for the rights and privileges
of Kogi people.

“We request you to step down your support for the candidature of
Governor Yahaya Bello for the forthcoming election in Kogi
State.

“If the party fields him as a candidate, we are sure of losing
the state to the opposition.”

“For the past 38 months including February 2019 Governor Yahaya
Bello has not paid full salaries to the workers of Kogi State,
despite the fact that the state received full allocation from the
Federation Account as detailed below: Statutory allocation, Excess
Crude and Value Added Tax (VAT) (N132b); Internally Generated
Revenue by the state(N51b); total allocations to local
governments(N111b).

“Total funds received by the state and local governments: N294
billion. The other funds received by the state are as below: Bail
Out (N20b); Paris Club refunds 1, 2, and 3 (N19b); and refunds for
road construction by previous governments (N11b).

“The governor had conducted multiple staff screening for both
the state and the local governments. And from the report of the
screening, the monthly wage bill (state, local governments and
pensions) at the inception of the administration stood at N5.8
billion. After screening, this figure reduced to N4.4 billion.

“From the table above it is evidently clear that the total
revenue received by the state government was more than enough to
settle all salaries, pensions and gratuities with huge balance
remaining for overheads and capital projects.

“It is very instructive to note that even without bailout and
other funds received outside statutory allocation, Governor Yahaya
Bello could have still paid all salaries including pensions without
conducting multiple screening and inflicting pains on Kogi State
and local government workers. This must hurt APC at the polls.

“Even after the screening, all salaries and pensions payments
were paid using arbitrary percentages, thereby still owing workers
huge outstanding salaries.”

The stakeholders said they had tried to seek presidential and
party interventions to call Bello to order, but to no avail.

They added: “We respectfully write to bring to your esteemed
attention, the following facts and issues associated with our party
and the governor of Kogi State.

“We had earlier, during the life of your administration
petitioned against our governor, Yahaya Bello, on several
occasions.

“The party, as a result, set up the Tony Momoh Committee to work
on the issues in our petitions in Kogi State APC. The result of
this committee’s work is kept secret in the cooler without the
party or the government addressing any of the issues to date.

“Another committee was setup under the chairmanship of General
Garba. We appeared before the committee, and made far-reaching
recommendations, till this day, that report is still also kept
secret and under lock and key and no action taken by the
party.”

But in reaction to the allegations of mismanagement of
resources, the spokesman for the governor, Kingsley Fanwo, said on
Sunday gave justification as to why the state government is owing
salary arrears.

“Every financial statement has both income and expenditure. It
is the height of mischief to push out the income of the state
without juxtaposition of expenditure to set the idea for public
perception.

“The Governor has only been in office for 39 months but has paid
salaries for 38 months; including four months before his
inception.

“Salaries take the chunk of our revenue as a state. However, we
have been able to invest heavily on the other sectors of the
economy.

“To check insecurity in the state, we bought over 200 brand new
vans, over 500 motorcycles and gadgets running into hundreds of
millions of Naira.

“We gave teeth to the Vigilante Service in the State through a
well coordinated training and mobilisation to complement the
efforts of the conventional security agencies. Today, the security
narrative we met has changed.

“The multi-million Integrated Rice Mill at Ejiba is 92%
completed and will be one of the biggest legacies of our
Administration.

“The administration has also made Lokoja and the other towns and
cities in the state saner, cleaner and more habitable. We have
completed the Ankpa Township Roads and many others are ongoing with
quality jobs.

“The revolution to make water available to Kogites have paid off
as the administration has delivered a lot of high-worth water
facilities across the state.

“With all the development projects we are doing, it must also be
mentioned that we are repaying loans taken and wasted by the
previous administrations in the State.

“Sanitising and digitalization of our civil service didn’t come
cheap. But the administration is proud of what has been achieved in
that sector.

“We have also electrified about 40 communities across the state.
We have improved infrastructure in our schools, hospitals and
Primary Health Centres.

“The Administration put in place, bumps to check financial
misdemeanors and will be remembered after 2024 as the most
disciplined administration in the history of the state.”

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