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Tag: Bayelsa State

  • Herdsmen, farmers’ clash looms in Bayelsa as group begins mediation

    Herdsmen, farmers’ clash looms in Bayelsa as group begins mediation

    There is tension in some parts of Bayelsa State following a looming clash between the Fulani herdsmen and farmers in the state.

    It was learnt that the farmers were angry at the activities of the herdsmen who allegedly allowed their cows to graze in their farmland destroying their crops.

    The development was reportedly breeding bad blood between the herdsmen and the farmers with angry youths in some of the areas threatening to confront the cattle rearers.

    Already, the herders and the farmers were said to have clashed with some of them sustaining injuries.

    To avert a repeat occurrence, advocacy groups, Nigeria Reconciliation and Stability Project (NRSP) of the British Council and the Bayelsa State Peace and Conflict Management Alliance (BSPCMA) waded into the controversy at the weekend.

    The groups decried the way farmers were being attacked by the Fulani herdsmen across the country.

    The leader, BSPCMA, Mrs Elizabeth Egbe, who spoke after the meeting in Yenagoa, with farmers and victims of the attack in the state said there was a need to find a lasting solution to the increasing attack.

    She said that the attacks on farmers by the Fulani herdsmen in the state were calling on the relevant authorities to step up action to avert the recurring situation.

    Egbe said: “Our move to check conflict between herdsmen and communities in the state has become necessary in order to ensure more peaceful co-existence and promote the country’s vision of self-sufficiency in food production.

    “We have heard that there is tension already in some communities in Bayelsa such as Biogbolo, Yenuzie-Epie, Okutukutu and Epie in Yenagoa Local Government Area of the state, where some farmers were attacked by the herdsmen.

    “We are here to find out the root of the matter and way forward for the betterment of our people and Nigerians.

    “The farmers, who were attacked are here with us; some of them were beaten up and left with bruises recently while in their farms and some were cut with knives.

    “We have had a meeting with the security agencies to tackle the issue here in Bayelsa. So, we are urging the government to provide a grazing field for the Fulani herdsmen in the state – a place, where they can settle rather than moving from one bush to another.”

    One of the farmers and victim of the attack, Mrs. Margret Samuel, said during the attack, she was given a knife cut on her hand.

    She urged the government to protect the farmers against cruel attacks by Fulani herdsmen through an enabling law.

    “My hands were nearly cut off by the herdsmen during a recent attack. The attack was cruel and it must not be allowed to continue.

    “I was suprised when I saw a group of herdsmen in my farm on that faitful day and before I could say a word, they started beating me,” Samuel alleged.

    One of the herdsmen at the meeting, Suleman Abubakar, said that those fueling the attack were not herdsmen based in Bayelsa.

    Abubakar said: “I do not know where the attacks are coming from because I have never been part of it. I move my cows from place to place and do not find people’s trouble. I can tell you emphatically that we (herdsmen) in Bayelsa don’t know who is causing the problem in the state.

    “Those causing the trouble in Bayelsa are not herdsmen based here. We suggest that the relevant authorities should carry out more investigation to unravel those behind the dastardly act.”

  • Reflection on Bayelsa State

    Bayelsa State is a quintessence of how crisis of social values is at the root of the economic underperformance of societies and nations. Speaking on television networks in the first week of this month, Governor Seriake Dickson ascribed his inability to pay the workforce in almost half a year to humungous debts accumulated by his predecessors. Many governors borrow massively from banks and issue to the accountant general of the federation an irrevocable standing payment order (ISPO) to deduct the loans from source and pay creditors. “I did not see what they did with all the monies they borrowed”, Dickson bemoaned. Though he did not reveal his predecessors who put Bayelsa in peonage, the list may include Diepreye Alamieyeseigha.

    If the list does indeed include Alamieyeseigha, then Dickson must accept responsibility for the state’s economic mess. Only last April, he organized a high profile state executive council meeting in honour of Alamieyeseigha, attended by former President Goodluck Jonathan and Alamieyesiegha’s widow, where he proudly announced the renaming of the state’s banquet hall and the road linking the state capital of Yenagoa and Alamieyeseigha’s hometown of Amassoma in Southern Ijaw Local Government Area for the late former governor. He also announced that a mausoleum would be built for Alamieyeseigha in ijaw Heroes Park. At the requiem service on April 19 for the former governor who was jailed for plundering the state (not Nigeria), Dickson called him repeatedly “a true hero”.

    The governor-general of the Ijaw nation, as Alamieyeseigha was fondly called, was one Nigerian public officer whose looting is fairly well documented. In 2010, seven years after he was impeached, the British government returned to Bayelsa State a whopping five million pounds stashed away in the United Kingdom by Alamieyeseigha who had been arrested in September, 2012, at Heathrow Airport for money laundering. Alamieyeseigha had purchased five properties in London, kept one million pounds in raw cash in his London home and left $2.7m in an account with the Royal Bank of Scotland. He also had houses in the United States and South Africa—all acquired while he was governor of one of Nigeria’s poorest states. While being tried in London in 2005, he escaped to Nigeria where he hoped that the constitutional immunity conferred on him as a governor would save him.

    Many Africans do not seem to appreciate the correlation between high ethical standards and economic development. A society which allows its people to indulge in massive corruption cannot develop economically. In 1958, the distinguished American sociologist, Edward Banfied, called attention to this reality through his seminal book, The Moral Basis of a Backward Society. Banfield did a study of southern Italy which is called the Third World of Western Europe because of its economic backwardness, unlike northern Italy which is as developed as any other part of the First World. The cultural values in southern Italy enable criminal organisations like the Mafia to reign supreme in cities like Sicily and Naples.

    This great work by Banfield practically faded from the radar screen of many western scholars until in 1997 when Francis Fukuyama published his second book entitled Trust: the Social Virtues and the Creation of Prosperity in which the polyvalent intellectual argues that the difference between poor and rich societies is the difference in the levels of social capital. By social capital, Fukuyama means the stock of values like honesty, loyalty, integrity and trust. He calls societies with a substantial stock of these values high-trust ones and societies where the reverse is the case low-trust. The examples Fukuyama cites for explaining why many nations in the Third World cannot build big businesses which outlive the founders and their families and consequently contribute significantly to national economic well-being are arresting, but beyond the scope of this essay.

    As a new millennium was about to dawn, Harvard University organized in 1999 a symposium to interrogate the powerful place of cultural values in societal and national development. Papers delivered at the symposium were published the following year in a book edited by Lawrence Harrison and Samuel Huntington entitled Culture Matters: How Values Shape Human Progress. In a penetrating introduction, Huntington, author of the magnus opus, The Clash of Civilisations and the Remaking of World Order, provides a glimpse into why Southeast Asian nations like South Korea and Singapore have recorded fantastic progress, despite the absence of natural resources, but not African countries like Ghana, in spite of the superabundance of resources like cocoa and gold. Writes Huntington: “South Koreans valued thrift, education, organisation, and discipline. Ghanaians had different values. In short, cultures count”.

    Despite its low population and relatively sparse population, Bayelsa receives one of the largest allocations from the federation account every month because it is a leading oil-producing state. Still, it owes workers for several months. In contrast, a state like Anambra which receives almost an infinitesimal amount from the federation account and has a large population and a huge workforce, not only pays workers before month end but even increases salaries, employs more workers and continues with the construction of a large number of roads and state of the art aesthetic bridges. Why wouldn’t Bayelsa be in financial doldrums when Dickson insists on holding up Alamieyeseigha as a role model in a state with personages like Larry Koinyan, Gabriel Okara and Mrs T. K. Agari, among numerous others who can hold their ground anywhere in the world intellectually and morally? It should come to no one as a surprise that the incidences of contract padding and ghost workers in Bayelsa have been proved to be the worst in the whole country since Dickson, compelled by the ongoing economic crunch, began to check several leakages in the state’s treasury.

    The terrible crisis of values is not peculiar to Bayelsa. A major public housing estate in Abuja is named for Ibrahim Abacha for dying on a presidential jet on January 17, 1996, while frolicking with his girlfriend. The Kano State stadium is named for Sani Abacha, a pathological buccaneer, with the millions of dollars he looted still being returned to Nigeria, 18 years after his death. In Anambra, the military regime changed Achalla Road in the capital to Prince Arthur Eze Avenue, after Eze had received $110m and a huge naira component from the African Development Bank for rural water supply and rural electrification in old Anambra State and the building of an industrial development centre in Awka but did practically nothing. Eze took over the chairmanship of Premier Breweries, the biggest industry in Anambra State and third largest brewery in Nigeria, and ran it aground.

    In typical Nigerian fashion, President Jonathan awarded him a high national honour.  About two months ago, the University of Nigeria at Nsukka bestowed an honorary doctorate on him.

    It is a shame that most Nigerian public officers do not know the close relationship between values and economic development. Worse, our universities are steeped in a profound moral cesspool.

     

    • Adinuba is head of Discovery Public Affairs Consulting.
  • Violence can’t solve Niger Delta problem – Bayelsa elder

    Violence can’t solve Niger Delta problem – Bayelsa elder

    An elder in Bayelsa State and Chieftain of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Mr. Christopher Abarowei, Thursday, said that violence is a major factor militating against the development of the Niger Delta region.

    Abarowei in a statement he sent to The Nation in Yenagoa advised the Niger Delta Avengers (NDA) and other aggrieved youths to halt their attacks on pipelines and other oil installations in the region.

    He noted that each time a pipeline is ripped off  the progress and development of the region take a quantum leap backward.

    Abarowei who is the Coordinator, APC Integrity Group (AIG) said the ongoing destruction of pipelines was affecting mainly the economy of the states in the region lamenting that Bayelsa could no longer pay salaries of its workers.

    “It is night time the avengers realized the fact that their activities apart from creating environmental degradation and pollution in the region are also negatively affecting the entire people in the zone making it impossible for a state like Bayelsa to pay salaries,” he said.

    Abarowei wondered why the activities of the avengers were only restricted to Bayelsa and Delta and called on the governors of the two states to assist the Federal Government in finding a lasting solution to the problem.

    While advising youths to champion the course of the region through intellectual engagements, he advised the avengers to embrace the dialogue proposed by the government.

    He said: “Violence and criminality will not eradicate or address the issues of years of neglect of the oil-rich Niger Delta region. We must adopt a more civil and articulated attitude towards changing the face of the struggle.

    “This is urgently required to see the agitation succeed with the support of other ethnic nationalities. We cannot continue to destroy our homes in the name of agitation that lines the pockets of a few and impoverishes the entire masses.

    “The silence of the elites in Bayelsa is becoming too worrisome as their silence indicates a tacit support to the activities of the avengers whose militant agitation was on sabbatical during the six years our brother, former President Goodluck Jonathan held sway”.

    Abarowei appealed to the militants to give the administration of APC and President Muhammadu Buhari a chance to fulfill their marks of development in the region.

    He said the President had demonstrated his eagerness to solve some of the problems in the region beginning with the clean-up of Ogoni which their brother Jonathan refused to initiate.

  • Banks grumble as Dickson pays half of April salary

    Banks grumble as Dickson pays half of April salary

    Management of different commercial banks in Bayelsa State, Tuesday, kicked against the decision of the state Governor, Mr. Seriake Dickson, to pay civil servants half of their April salaries in cash and cheques.

    Investigations revealed that instead of paying the civil servants through their various bank accounts, Dickson opted for cash and cheque payment apparently to avoid deductions of workers’ financial liabilities by their various banks.

    Bayelsa has been in the throes of hardship following the inability of the state government to pay backlog of salaries it owed to different categories of workers in the state.

    The government is owing civil servants about six months, local government workers about 13 months and pensioners about eight months.

    Dickson could not fulfill the promise he made last weekend to pay workers half salaries, shifting the pay day to Monday, though he said he queried the Head of Service and the accountant for flouting his order.

    It was gathered that civil servants went to their various pay points in their ministries to collect half of April salaries by cash and in cheques on Tuesday morning.

    One of the civil servants said she collected half of her one month salary in cash describing the money as grossly inadequate.

    “I went to my pay point and I was given just half of one month. In fact, I was paid half of April salary. I am confused because I don’t know when other arrears will be paid. We have not received salary since January, others since December”, she said.

    She confirmed that some ministries issued cheques to their workers adding that the government moved cash to ministries’ accounts and asked them to withdraw the money and pay the workers in cash.

    She admitted that workers were owing banks huge sums of unserviced liabilities arising from months of unpaid salaries.

    But it was learnt that by paying cash to the workers, the government had pitted them against their banks.

    A bank manager who spoke in confidence said the development was a violation of an agreement banks reached with the workers’ unions and the government.

    He said in several meetings, the banks and organized labour worked out modalities and new percentages of deductions before the half salary was paid.

    He said: “We held many meetings with government representatives and labour unions. Initially when full salaries were paid, we used to deduct 50 per cent to service liabilities of the civil servants.

    “But based on the prevailing economic problems in the state, we agreed that when the half salaries are paid, we will apply 33 per cent of deductions for the liabilities. We were shocked to notice that the agreement was not obeyed.

    “Instead, the government decided to be paying cash to our customers. It is affecting our cash flow but for now, we are still watching”.

    He said there would be punishment for default unless the workers on their own return the 33 per cent of the money to service various loans they collected and other liabilities.

  • Ambassadorial nominees:  Senator raises alarm over omission of Bayelsa State

    Ambassadorial nominees:  Senator raises alarm over omission of Bayelsa State

    The Senator representing Bayelsa Central Senatorial District, Emmanuel Paulker, Tuesday raised the alarm over the omission of Bayelsa State in the list of ambassadorial nominees submitted to the Senate for confirmation and approval by President Muhammadu Buhari.

    Senator Paulker noted that he was inundated with calls by his constituents and other concerned Nigerians who drew his attention to the fact that no nominee from Bayelsa State was included among the ambassador designates.

    The lawmaker said that he carefully went through the list sent to the Senate and discovered indeed that there was no nominee from Bayelsa State.

    Paulker said that the non-inclusion of a nominee from Bayelsa State is made more painful when it is realised that some states had three nominees while others had two.

    He prayed the Senate to mandate its committee on Foreign Affairs to take up the matter to ensure that justice was done to the state.

    President Buhari had on June 9th, 2016 forwarded a list of 47 ambassadorial nominees to the Senate for confirmation and approval.

    Paulker said, “Mr. President, just as we left here (Senate) at the close of work (on Thursday June 9th, 2016) my other two colleagues and I were inundated with calls drawing our attention to the fact that no nominee from Bayelsa was reflected on the list of ambassadorial nominees sent to the Senate.

    “Mr. President initially I thought those calls were misplaced but we have gone through the record and discovered that the calls were not misplaced.

    “Mr. President, facts are available to us that even in the Foreign Affairs Ministry at least we have two Bayelsans that are on the level of deputy directors.

    “I believe that these two personalities can fit into where these nominees came from.

    “Equally in the list there are some states that have up to three in number. Non-inclusion of any Bayelsans on the list is a clear violation of the Constitution.

    “My only prayer is that before the committee considers this list, I implore you and my colleagues to tell the committee and in fact communicate to the Presidency about the omission so that justice can be done to the state called Bayelsa.”

    Senate President, Abubakar Bukola Saraki noted that in line with Senate rules Senator Paulker discussed the matter with him.

    Saraki added “You know according to our rules under Order 43, there would be no debate but however I am happy that the chairman committee on Foreign Affairs is here, they will take note of this observation while they carry out their work on this matter. By tomorrow (Wednesday) we would have committed that to the Foreign Affairs Committee to work on it.”

  • Two pensioners die, three others slump in Bayelsa verification exercise

    Two pensioners die, three others slump in Bayelsa verification exercise

    Two old pensioners died and three others slumped in Yenagoa, Bayelsa State capital, during a verification ordered by the Bayelsa State Government, it was learnt Tuesday.

    It was gathered that the incident occurred on Monday and Tuesday at the Samson Siasia Sports Complex at Ovom area of Yenagoa, the state capital.

    Among the collapsed pensioners, two reportedly survived while one was said to be in a coma at a private hospital in the state capital.

    Prior to the incident, the pensioners who had not been paid many arrears, were said to have complained of stress, hunger and dehydration.

    The inclement weather occasioned by heavy downpour reportedly contributed in exacerbating the hardship of the pensioners during the exercise.

    But the retirees complained that the exercise had many hiccups and wondered why the government would subject them to fresh exercise despite other verifications conducted in the past.

    Sources said the unnamed two dead pensioners were first taken to the Federal Medical Centre (FMC), Yenagoa, but their remains were later taken to an undisclosed morgue at a private hospital in the state following the ongoing strike at FMC.

    The Chairman, Nigerian Union of Pensioners (NUP), Bayelsa Action Group chapter, Chief Bodi Amaran, confirmed the incident Tuesday.

    Amaran clarified that four pensioners slumped on Monday but that two died while the other two survived.

    He added that, another pensioner collapsed and went into a coma.

    He decried the plight of pensioners in the state, saying that they were being treated as refugees.

    Amaran said the pensioners were owed nine months by Governor Seriake Dickson lamenting that many of them were hungry while others who were on drugs could not buy their medications owing to the deplorable conditions.

    He said: “Four pensioners collapsed on Monday. Of the number, two died and the other two were revived. On Tuesday, one elderly pensioner slumped. He is in a coma as I speak.

    “The Monday incident happened in the afternoon while that of Tuesday happened when the rain was falling. The number of pensioners was many. For nine months, we have not been paid.

    “The conditions of most pensioners are pitiable.  We are being treated as refugees. The last month we got paid was in September 2015.”

    Another pensioner, Mr. Daniel Ogobugha, said he was not happy with the method adopted for the verification adding that the government would have combined the payment of the arrears with the exercise.

    He said: “Yes, we have been here since morning, many of our people have fainted, some critical ones have been rushed to the hospital; the government is helping but this exercise is very stressful to us.

    “Most of us are aged, some can no longer walk but look at us here for verification; well, if it is the way to fish out fake pensioners, is okay but I must tell you that this is not good due the health of some of us.

    “Some of us are being owed for over six months, we can’t pay our children school fees, with the current harsh economy, feeding have been a huge challenge to some families”.

    Another retiree, Mr Richard Epiri, urged the state government to expedite action in paying the backlog of their pensions.

    Confirming the development,the Chairperson, Bayelsa Pension Board, (BPB) Mrs. Jane Aleke, said the the pensioners collapsed because of exhaustion.

    He confirmed that the affected persons were rushed to the hospital.

    Aleke said that the exercise was not aimed at stressing the retirees but to enable the government get actual figure of pensioners.

    She appealed to the retirees to be calm and promised that every pensioner in the state would be captured in the exercise.

    “This is about management of wealth and you know in paying them, the state government cannot just begin to pay with a gauss number, so, we cannot do gauss work.

    “We are ready to reach all the Local governments in the state, we have started with Yenagoa; for those of them, who are sick and cannot walk, we will definitely go to their house,” she said.

  • Bayelsa: Corps member killed for refusing to surrender his phone

    Fresh facts emerged Monday that the slain member of the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) in Bayelsa State identified as, James Onuh, was killed by his assailants for refusing to surrender his mobile phone.

    Suspected cultists at the weekend shot and killed Onuh, at Obele, a suburb of Yenagoa, the Bayelsa State capital.

    The bandits reportedly fled the area after sporadic gunshots that caused panic among the residents in the area.

    The late Onuh, a graduate of the Federal University of Agriculture in Markurdi, the Benue State capital, was attached to the Bayelsa State Ministry of Works for his primary assignment.

    A friend of late Onuh who identified himself as Daniel said the deceased was a Batch B corps member who was expecting his passing out in September.

    Giving more insight to the circumstances that led to the unfortunate incident, Daniel said his friend boarded a commercial tricycle to Obele.

    He said unknown to him, other occupants of the tricycle were cultists who were out in the fateful evening to rob people.

    He said: “When he got to Obele junction where he wanted to alight, they confronted him and demanded his mobile handset. He resisted them. Maybe he didn’t know they were armed.  As they were dragging the phone, one of them pulled out a gun and shot him”.

    He said the hoodlums took the handset and fled adding that the victim was rushed to the hospital but later gave up.

    He lamented that Onuh who hailed from Benue State was the only son of his parents.

    Investigations revealed that the gruesome murder of Onuh shocked many corps members in the state and was a dominant topic of discussion among them.

    There has been increased in violent crime among the youths in the state following economic hardship blamed partly on the inability of the state government to pay arrears of salaries owed different categories of workers.

    The Police Public Relations Officer (PPRO), Mr. Asinim Butswat, said the police were following a lead to arrest the killers of Onuh.

    He said the police were committed to the security of corps members and appealed to them to go about their normal business without fear.

  • NSCDC wades into industrial crisis in Bayelsa

    NSCDC wades into industrial crisis in Bayelsa

    The Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps NSCDC), Bayelsa State Command, Saturday, organised a stakeholders’ meeting to resolve the protracted crisis among producers of table and sachet water in the state.

    The meeting was attended by the Special Adviser to Bayelsa Governor on Security, Boma Sparo-Jack, representatives of National Agency for Food, Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC) and executive members of Association of Table Water Producers of Nigeria(ATWAP) from Bayelsa, Delta, Imo, and Rivers states, among others.

    ATWAP, Bayelsa State chapter, has been at loggerheads with their counterparts from the neighbouring states who bring packaged water into the state, a development generated security concerns.

    The State Commandant, NSCDC, Mr. Desmond Agu, said the event was organised to avoid crisis in Bayelsa State.

    He said there were situations people blocked the supply of packaged water coming into the state from Delta, Imo, Rivers and other places.

    He said such a development if not promptly tackled could lead to a breakdown of law and order in the state.

    He said: “To avoid such problems, that is why we organised this stakeholders meeting for all ofnthem them to come for dialogue to resolve the problems. We are optimistic that today, we are going to iron out all the issues for a long lasting solution.

    “As you are all aware, the NSCDC by virtue of the Act 2003 as amended in 2007, section 3, subsection 1 (4) (6), the corps is saddled with the responsibility “to arrange, mediate in settlement of disputes among willing members of the public’ which your association is part of.

    “In view of this, the corps has convened this stakeholders meeting to fashion, harmonise all members of ATWAP doing business in Bayelsa and also to proffer a lasting solution to the lingering crisis existing among you.”

    The Chairman, ATWAP, Bayelsa State, Capt. C.K. Emiemokumo (retd.), lamented the problems facing packaged water producers in Bayelsa over the years.

    He said that some of their counterparts from neighbouring states turned the state into a dumping ground for all sort of contaminated water.

    He commended the meeting, saying it would put a stop to the unbridled influx of all sorts of water into the state.

    He said suppliers of substandard water refused to register with ATWAP Bayelsa State so that their activities would continue without any check or control.

    He said: ” NAFDAC conducts annual recertification tests on all water producing companies every year. But regrettably, we have no way of knowing which companies were tested or which were not since ATWAP has no record or control over the water that comes into Bayelsa.”

    He, therefore, called on the state government security agencies and all other stakeholders to cooperate with ATWAP in Bayelsa to be able to have control on the companies bringing water into the state.

  • Dickson blames predecessors for non-payment of pensioners 

     

     

    The Governor of Bayelsa state, Mr. Seriake Dickson, Tuesday, blamed the inability of his government to pay pensioners their monthly entitlements on his predecessors.

    The governor in a statement signed by his Chief Press Secretary (CPS), Mr. Daniel Iworiso-Markson, spoke in Yenagoa when he constituted the state and local government pension boards.

    Pensioners are owed about nine months of unpaid arrears in the state.

    Dickson said: “The government inherited a liability of about N6billion; we then worked out a mechanism where we set aside N500million for monthly payment until the last 8 months that the state allocation from the federation account started dropping.

    “For about eight months the pensioners have not been paid and that is very touching because for four years, we did not fail to pay pensioners until the last eight months.

    “Now for this old men and women are on account of the failure of the leadership of the past, we are now unable to meet our obligations to them.

    “We want to use this opportunity to ask for understanding, for people who gave their all for years in the service of the state. We appreciate their service to the state and we will leave no stone unturned to ensure that they begin to get their pension every month.”

    But Dickson charged the new boards to make concerted efforts at ensuring the physical verification of all pensioners.

    He gave them an assurance that payment of those identified will commence with immediate effect and lamented the untold hardship of pensioners in the last eight months.

    The state pensions’ board is to be headed by Mrs. Jane Alek, while Sir Frazer Okuoru, is to chair the LG pensions’ board.

    While Owie Biate Igoni will serve as Secretary of the State Pensions Board; Nathan Ayibakeme, Mr. Leader Tamatimigha, Dr. Martha Akpana and HRH Darius Job are to serve as directors, with 1: ex-officio members.

    The local LG pensions’ board has Mr. Mathias Otuogha as Secretary and six other members.

    The governor said he was determined Dickson to completely eradicate payroll fraud in the state and charged both boards to swing into action immediately.

    He advised members of the boards to collaborate with the various ministries, departments, agencies and parastatals to ensure that the names of dead pensioners and persons who above 70 years and above are detected and expunged from the payrolls of the government.

    He said: “This board has a number of experienced people, who can give advice and guidance, and I call for collaboration among those on the board and the Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) to identify all those who are dead and are still on the payroll of the government, and those over 70-80 years still collecting salaries.

    “I charge you all to ensure that all those who are going to be paid are verified.  You have to verify each and every one of them, interact with them, go to them if they are too weak to come, take their photographs, very their age and particulars.”

     

  • EFCC seals off ex-Dickson’s aide’s buildings in Bayelsa

    Officials of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) have sealed off buildings and other property allegedly belonging to Governor Seriake Dickson’s former Special Assistant on Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), Mr. Apere Embelakpo.

    Investigations Saturday revealed that a palatial and tastefully-finished building said to be owned by Embelakpo along the Azikoro Road, Yenagoa, the state capital, was taken over by the anti-graft agency.

    It was, however, observed that some unidentified youths were still occupying a section of the building.

    The youths attacked our correspondent with stones when they discovered that the reporter was trying to take a picture of the building.

    While our reporter escaped by the whiskers, one of the stones created an impact on his vehicle.

    It was also found that sets of exotic shopping complexes and malls allegedly acquired by the former aide at the Kpansia Market along the Isaac Boro Expressway were also sealed off by the officials.

    Sources said the EFCC operatives escorted by some mobile policemen stormed the state capital on Tuesday in search of assets allegedly acquired using MDG funds by the former aide.

    An inscription, “property under EFCC investigation, keep off”, was written on the fences and gates of some of the buildings.

    Embelakpo is under investigation for allegedly diverting N800m meant for MDG programmes and projects in the state.

    His wife is also being probed by EFCC for alleged offences of money laundering, forgery and suspicious transactions amounting to N200m.

    EFCC had earlier arrested former Senior Special Assistant on Media to Dickson, Abnedgo Don- Evarada, in Port-Harcourt, Rivers State for allegedly offering a bribe of N10million to the EFCC’s Zonal Head in Port- Harcourt, Mr. Ishaq Salihu.

    Don-Evarada reportedly ran into trouble when he allegedly approached Salihu, over the case involving Embelakpo and his wife, Fiene Beauty.