‘Critics of Gov Bello don’t mean well for Kogi’

The administrative secretary of Okene Local Government Council of Kogi State, Mr Abdullahi Shehu Lukman, has said that only corrupt past leaders would not support the state governor, Yahaya Bello, in his transformation policy to make the state better.

He accused them of failing to transform the state despite the ample time they had to do so, stated that the citizens would resist any of their attempts to sabotage the current government in the state.

The council secretary, while speaking in Abuja, noted that security threats in the state had been reduced, following proactive steps taken by the governor.

According to him, more than over 18, 000 ghost workers were uncovered by the government in an exercise which he said saved the state about N1. 4 billion.

Lukman stated that any complaint about non receipt of salary could only come from a ghost worker or a worker who did not submit complete biometric verification number during the verification exercise as well as a worker who must have forged his certificates.

“So, the person needs to go to the state capital to clarify himself. Your money is there; nobody is eating your money,” he said.

He said, “When the governor came on board, he met a state in shambles and we know that before going into any developmental programme, you have to first of all find out what the problem is and that is what the governor did.

“He noticed that even to pay salaries of state and local government workers was a problem. The previous government couldn’t pay. What it did was just to pay 25 percent of the salary.

“Imagine that you worked a full month but was given 25 per cent of your salary. You know how bad that was.”

“If you are in Lokoja as far back as last year, you will notice that what we call a state capital was more or less a village in some states. The roads were so bad; you won’t believe that is state capital.

“But when he came on board, the first thing Alhaji Bello did was that he made sure that there is accessibility to Government House. All the roads in the capital were awarded for rehabilitation and that was done immediately,” he said.

Speaking further, the council scribe said apart from making roads within the council motorable as well as assisting the state government for the staff screening exercise to be successful, the council had mapped out some places where portable water was needed.

He said, “We have lands‎, we have people who are ready to go into agriculture. All they just need is empowerment.

“We are waiting for federal government’s empowerment and immediately it lands in our own area, I am telling you, give us one year, we can feed the nation, not even Kogi State alone. All we can do is to provide land and human capacity and all those are intact.”