By Oyibo Salihu
Lokoja
Chairman of the Association of Local Governments of Nigeria (ALGON), Kogi state chapter, Aloysius Okino, has described as false and malicious a publication in a national newspaper that there was massive fraud in the local councils in Kogi state.
He said that the hatchet job of the reporters has no value other than the sensation it has created, adding that It is nothing but a fiction that has been presented as facts.
“For the avoidance of doubt, the crisis in the payment of salaries in the Local Government Councils pre-dates the current administrations in the state.
“The issue is an inherited problem which His Excellency, Capt. Idris Wada, in his characteristic manner has is tackling frontally with the active involvement of the council chairmen”.
According to him, the imaginary people, Isaac Ibe and Mallam Hassan Otse, which the reporters presented as staff of Igalamela/Odolu and Ijumu Local Government Areas, respectively, are mere ghost names, invented to buttress concocted lies and evidence.
The chairman further said that the claim by the authors of the ill conceived piece that allocations have quadrupled is illogical, noting that the writers had earlier admitted in the early part of their report that allocations to councils have dropped drastically in 2012 as a result of the fall in oil price.
“The claim is not only contradictory, but a case of approbating and reprobating. Allocations to local government councils have not quadrupled, but have been dropping progressively.
“While the duo of Theophilus Abbah and Usman Bello who wrote the report created the impression that local councils in Kogi State receive an average of N180 million per month, they presented a table showing many local government areas receiving only about N120m.”
He described this as an invented mathematics to mislead readers, saying that even if the average of the figures presented is calculated it will not add up to N180m, saying that the councils deal with actual and not imaginary figures.
He noted that the declining revenue from the federation account, implementation of the new minimum wage without a corresponding increase in the allocation to councils were also responsible for the non-payment of full salaries.
Okino, who noted that the issues have been slanted to cause odium and opprobrium to the state, advised that due caution be exercised in the conduct and deployment of the much avowed and time honoured press freedom.
