A group, the Audu/Faleke Political Organisation has lamented that despite being in the office for 100 days, the administration of Governor Yahaya Bello has allowed the state to continue reeling in poverty, want and misery owing to lack of direction and ineptitude on the part of the present state government.
In a statement yesterday by its Director, Media and Publicity, Hon Duro Meseko, the group scored the government low in development initiatives but high in fiscal indiscipline and recklessness, regretting that despite spending 100 days in office, Bello has achieved nothing in terms of infrastructural development.
The statement reads in part, “Despite repeated warnings, the administration of Alhaji Yahaya Bello has continued its grandstanding by throwing caution to the wind and engaging in mind blowing financial recklessness to the detriment of the long suffering people of Kogi State.
“Only recently, precisely the third week of April, reports indicate that Bello’s government secured another loan of N400 million from the Zenith Bank under the subhead of security votes! This is different from another N450 million he secured in early March.
“More worrisome is the government’s alleged withdrawal of N200 million every week from an Abuja Zenith Bank branch still in the guise of security vote. Pray, how can the state make any progress in this unfortunate situation? Can our own dear state ever witness any infrastructural development or growth with this spate of financial recklessness? Is it even logical to take loans for security?” the group queried.
“We challenge Bello to show us what he has achieved within this 100 days as per infrastructural development. Nothing is happening in Kogi except chaos in all the sectors of the state.”
Reacting to the recent bailout approved for the state, the group said the, “Yahaya Bello administration should come clean on the current staff strength of the state vis-a-vis the staff strength before he took over. The governor has been boasting of the success of his staff verification programme, so let him tell us the staff strength now, what he will pay them from the bailout and what he would be paying back to the CBN”.
Noting that the Idris Wada administration applied for the N50bn bailout based on some statistical data during his tenure, the group asked: “Now that Bello has secured part of the bailout and has a reduced staff strength based on his verification exercise, what is he going to do with the extra money, how much were we paying as salaries before and how much are we going to be paying henceforth?
“Or is Alhaji Bello going to be paying the same salaries as paid under Wada administration? The people of Kogi demand answers to these posers in order to engender transparency in the application of the bailout funds.”
On how the Governor was able to get the House of Assembly’s approval for the bailout funds despite the fact that the Assembly was not in session, the group claimed that it was the result of “the temporary triumph of impunity and lawlessness over decency and rule of law”.
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