The Peoples Democratic Movement (PDM), Niger State chapter, has faulted the impressive score awarded by the state government to the cabinet in its first year in office.
The party, through its state publicity secretary, Malam Yahaya Mohammed scored the cabinet abysmally low contrary to the claim by Governor Abubakar Sani Bello that his team deserved 60 per cent.
In a statement, the PDM sympathised with the people of the state, especially civil servants who had to bear the brunt of insensitivity of the government by not paying workers’ salaries even at the dawn of Christmas and New Year festivities.
“We have reviewed the score of 60percent given by the state governor to his cabinet at the end-of-the-year cabinet meeting and realised that he has over-scored his cabinet by over 150 percent. The performance rating of Governor Abubakar Sani Bello’s cabinet can at best not be above 20 per cent.
“On a sectorial review, we realise that all the sectors have deeply nosedived in performance;worst-hit is the human resource development, which should be the bedrock of all development plans. We are deeply worried that Nigerlites are now living from hand to mouth, and highly demoralised,” the PDM said.
While identifying with the civil servants over their predicament, the PDM particularly noted the precarious condition of local government workers, whose salaries had not been paid for months.
“We are aware of the challenges Nigerians and especially the people of Niger State are facing in meeting up with their daily need of food, shelter, electricity and even water, not to mention school fees, sky rocketing petroleum product prices and healthcare costs,” it added.
The party commended the people for staging a public protest the electricity distribution company premises to denounce the poor power supply to the state for more than a year with the government not coming to the aid of the citizens.
“As the year 2016 exits, we call on all concerned Nigerlites to also review their lives in the hands of ‘chain agents’ and see for ourselves if we are better off or worse off. If you are part of the latter group, it is time to commence the process of giving the “chain pilots” a safe landing instead of allowing them a crash landing,”the PDM said”.
For his remaining two years in office, the PDM urged the governor to reach out to more innovative and creative individuals, irrespective of party affiliation to help him take the state to the next level before 2019.