Newly sworn in council chairmen in Niger state have accused the state governor, Alhaji Abuakar Sani Bello for non release of funds to them one month after their inauguration.
The Chairmen are therefore threatening to relinquish their mandate if by June, no fund is released to them to run their various councils as the situation is capable of tarnishing their political career.
It could be recalled that since the inception of the present administration in the state, only N20million was released to the 25 local government councils in the state apart from the payment of salaries of the local government staff.
The N20million, it was gathered was only released to the caretaker committee chairmen a week before the last local government election in the state which produced the current chairmen.
Some of the council chairmen who spoke to the media on the condition of anonymity, said that since their inauguration, they have not been able to go to the office as there is no fund to run the council, describing the situation as unacceptable.
According to one of the chairmen, since after taking over, he has not gone back to the office because there is no fund to run the office, adding that “this is not what the governor promised us. I don’t know what anyone can do without fund, and all we keep hearing is that there is no fund.
“Some of us may have no choice than to relinquish our mandate if the situation continues like this till June. To even make the matter worse the governor asked the house of assembly to reduce our tenure from three to two years.
“We never knew about this until we were sworn in and the question now is what will an elected officer do within two years in office, this amount to killing ones political career because there is nothing you can do for the people”.
The governor, during the inauguration of the council told them that they should hit the ground running in their various local governments, urging them to imbibe the culture of doing things right, “the people you will serve are very well known to you and their plight also conversant to your knowledge”.
But the President of Nigeria Union of Local Government Employees, NULGE, Niger state chapter, Comrade Saidu Aliyu Kala said that there was a setback on the issue of none release of cash to the local government by the state government.
According to him, “we are not after only payment of salaries of local government staff, but we are also after the development of the councils.
“When we look back to the time when the councils were collecting allocations from the federation account directly, when there was no joint account between the state and local government, they were doing better than now.”
Source: pilot