Local government council chairmen and councilors in 25 Local Government Areas (LGAs) of Delta State have cried out over what they claim to be the unlawful and corrupt remittance of N325 million from the coffers of the councils to the State House of Assembly Speaker, Monday Igbuya on behalf of the leadership of the House.
Local government council chairmen and councilors in 25 Local Government Areas (LGAs) of Delta State have cried out over what they claim to be the unlawful and corrupt remittance of N325 million from the coffers of the councils to the State House of Assembly Speaker, Monday Igbuya on behalf of the leadership of the House.
The development, which is already causing an industrial crisis across the council areas, was carried out sometime in 2015. The council chairmen decided to remain silent and cooperate with Speaker Igbuya in order to avoid being framed like the council chairman of Uvwie, Henry Baro.
Confiding in SaharaReporters under the condition of anonymity, one of the local government council chairmen in Delta Central stated that the remittance started last year. He explained that each council chairman was instructed by the speaker to remit money to the House leadership once a month.
Thus far, this remittance occurred three times, amounting to N325 million being sent to the speaker on behalf of the House leadership.
The anonymous source described an atmosphere of fear, and expressed regret that the constant demands for funds by Speaker Igbuya meant that many council members could not pay their staff.
"Immediately after the Speaker’s demand for his monthly allocation the council chairmen began to turn everywhere to procure the funds. Due to these demands we [council chairmen] are finding it difficult to pay council staff and councilors salaries. The House leadership gave us chairmen instruction to be taking N3 million monthly as our security votes and their interest must always be represented. Because of intimidation and fear of what happened to our colleague, the council chairman, Mr. Baro, who was suspended since last year, we decided to be cooperating with the speaker," the chairman council stated.
SaharaReporters reliably learned that the aggrieved councilors from various LGAs are ready for a showdown with their council chairmen and the leadership of the State House of Assembly, which they have view as a house of fraud and corruption.
A visibly angry councilor described the Assembly leadership as perpetually fraudulent and corrupt, stating that the House has been transformed into a den of intimidation and blackmail.
"These crop of our House members are heartless, fraudulent, and corrupt. How can they be collecting money from each councilor knowing fully well that for over 5 months now we councilors are owed vast sums not to mention the payment of our workers’ salaries.
“Yet ,they continue to blackmail the chairmen to cough up the money,” the council chairman revealed.
The anonymous source then went on to warn that if this current trend continues there could lead to a State-wide crisis. He called upon Governo Ifeanyi Okowa to stop Speaker Igbuya’s abuses.
It was gathered that the situation has already caused a crisis in Ethiope West LGA, where the councilors demanded that the chairman, a cousin of the former Governor James Ibori to stop any further monthly deduction. Their actions led to a chaotic fight with the chairman allegedly mobilizing his thugs who beat up some of the councilors and left some of them in the hospital.
All efforts to reach the State Chairman of the Association of Local Governments Of Nigeria (ALGON) who doubles as chairman of Isoko South LGA, Malik Itiakor Ikpokpo for comments proved fruitless as he did not return calls and messages sent to his mobile line.
When contacted, media aides to Speaker Igbuya could not give any convincing reactions but only said that they would forward provide a proper response which they never did.
It will be recalled that for the past few weeks Speaker Igbuya has been embroiled in a variety of allegations of fraud and corrupt practices. The most recent being his alleged demand of N1 billion from the Managing Director (MD) of the Delta State Oil Producing Areas Development Commission (DESOPADEC), William Makinde in return for the passage of the commission's 2016 budget.