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Tag: Bello

  • Bello: PDP has no structure to win Lagos

    Bello: PDP has no structure to win Lagos

    Lagos State House of Assembly Minority Leader Hon. Akeem Bello spoke with Oziegbe Okoeki about why the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) must drop its ambition to take over Lagos and other issues.

    WHAT has been your experience as a  member of the  opposition in the Lagos House of Assembly?

    When we came in as lawmakers, I must tell you that it has been a different ball game entirely. It is a place where you have to be tutored to acquire more knowledge and experience. Foremostly, you have to be able to compose yourself, your manner of approach and relationship. This is different from what it used to be, when we were outside. I have acquired a lot of experience and wisdom in the House within this one year, interacting with my people within and outside the Assembly premises and relating with the civil servants. So it has been an interesting House and experience, and I wish a lot of people can come into the system.

    What is your working relationship with the principal officers and other lawmakers?

    It has been cordial because I have to be honest with you and God. God has given us a Speaker that is a team player, who is ready to accommodate everybody. The paramount thing is how to move Lagos forward, that is paramount to every one of us. And when you get to a particular setting, you have to blend, you have to mingle with people and respect those you met in the House. Despite that I am the Minority Leader of the House which makes me one of the principal officers, I still have to respect the ranking members because they have been there before me. They have passed through many processes in the House and we have to work together for the interest of Lagos State, so that we can have good governance. We work together harmoniously in the interest of Lagos. We cannot say because we are PDP members, we would not relate well with them. When we get to the hallowed chambers our interest is how to move Lagos forward.

    Do you have the backing of other opposition members in the House?

    We are working together in the interest of Lagos State and we don’t see ourselves as opposition members, we see ourselves as party members of the Lagos Assembly, legislators that are willing to move the state forward.

    How do you relate with the media as an opposition member?

    There are some  journalists in the House that ask questions that are beyond you; and the way you address the issue matters a lot. And you cannot address issues of the House by insulting the government in power, which is absolutely wrong. You are to protect the interest of the government because whatever you say goes on air and becomes public consumption. There are some statements you make and when people see it, they begin to wonder if indeed you are a lawmaker.That is why some are scared and might not want to talk, but for me, I am not scared, I grant interview anytime any day. There is no intimidation within the House. We are all together.

    Are you in contact with the leadership of your party? Are they satisfied with your  performance in the House?

    By virtue of my position as the Minority Leader, I am very close to the leadership of the party. My position cuts across the leadership and all the local governments in the state. I should be able to do the needful in the interest of the party so that they can be assured that they have a representative in the House that can protect the interest of the party. When you are talking about the leadership of the partym, I am one of the leaders. I should be able to move the party to the highest level.

    What are your major achievements in the House?

    The House has done a lot within the year. In the history of Lagos, this is the first time the House would organise a stakeholders/town hall meetings in 57 local governments simultaneously. The House has also passed a lot of bills into law, more than any other Assembly in the country. We have also passed a lot of resolutions which some states cannot boast of.

    Have your expectations in the House been met?

    Well, when I was elected I thought that the ruling party will not allow us to see the light of the day, but immediately we came in, the Speaker emerged and I realised he was the kind of person that wants everybody to come together to promote Lagos. Honestly, he has been working with every 39 other members of the House. He has never sidelined any of the honourable members except you don’t want to work in line with him. So with that expectation that we would be sidelined, it turned out that I was able to relate with everybody, every member including the ranking members. I walk into their offices, request for whatever I need from them and they give it to me. No sentiments in the House.

    The PDP has always had this dream of taking over the administration of Lagos …

    Taking over Lagos is a gradual process because we are still in 2016, we have three years to go. One can not have that ambition by now, I believe we have to suspend that ambition for now. The most paramount thing is first to put the party structure in place. It is the structure that will determine the state of the party in 2019. When you don’t have a good structure, how do you talk about ambition? It is only when you put a good structure in place that you talk about ambition. It is the structure that matters, that determines your ambition. And I believe the rancour in the party will be all over. The crisis is because of the congress going on and I believe immediately after the congress the crisis will be over.

    What is your assessment of Ambode’s administration?

    We all know that this is a new government entirely, we can not expect Ambode to perform magic immediately. He has been trying to put some roads in place, street light. It took some time to appoint the commissioners and now that they are in place and the budget is in place too; I can say he is trying to move Lagos forward gradually, but a lot of people will say this government is slow. I can not blame the government, this is a new government entirely. You have to look inwards to see how to balance a lot of things so that you can have a good government in place, that will be able to move Lagos forward. Though to me he has done well as far as the state is concerned.

  • Bello meets APC leadership on Kogi crisis

    Bello meets APC leadership on Kogi crisis

    Kogi State Governor Yahaya Bello yesterday held a closed door meeting with the national leadership of the All Progressives Congress (APC) for over two hours, to find a solution to the crisis in the state.

    The governor is at loggerheads with the state chapter of the party, which accused him of sidelining them and appointing members of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) into his government.

    He is also accused of being behind the crisis in the House of Assembly.

    Bello drove himself to the party secretariat about 12:15pm in a maroon Sport Utility Vehicle (SUV), accompanied by his security details.

    He moved straight to the office of the National Deputy Chairman (North), Senator Lawal Shuaibu and held a closed-door meeting with him, which lasted about two hours before meeting the National Chairman, Chief John Odigie-Oyegun.

    At the end of the meeting, the governor refused to speak with reporters, who approached him to know the outcome of his visit to the national secretariat.

    The Nation learnt that the party may not be happy with Bello over his action since he was sworn in as governor.

    Sources said the APC national leadership slammed him for side-lining the executives of the party in his appointments, as well as not consulting stakeholders before making his executive bills and programme.

    They were said to have asked the governor to make funds available to the party for overhead and told him that he was a governor of circumstance and should utilise the opportunity to write his name in gold.

  • Bello vows to recover ‘stolen’ funds

    Bello vows to recover ‘stolen’ funds

    Kogi State Governor Yahaya Bello has vowed to recover the funds allegedly looted through organised syndicate of ghost workers and ghost schools.

    He identified failed school project contracts as another means through which the state’s resources were allegedly siphoned.

    The governor, who addressed youth and women groups from the 21 local governments, who visited him in Lokoja, the capital, as part of activities marking his 100 days in office, said there was no going back in ensuring that stolen funds, which ought to have been used to better the lot of the people, were recovered.

    He said: “The workers verification has uncovered the fraudulent activities of civil servants. This government will recover the looted fund and it will be used to provide social amenities for the people, especially those at the grassroots.”

    Bello, who said no society could progress without the core values of character and integrity, stressed that ethnicity and religious sentiment would not be condoned by his administration.

    He said his government’s efforts to stop corruption had started yielding results.

    The governor said the task force on forestry had started recovering money from the checkpoints designated for revenue collection.

    According to him, N13 million was realised from a checkpoint last month, as against the previous practice where the revenues accruing to the state were shared among “godfathers, fake consultants and corrupt civil servants, and a paltry sum would be deposited in the treasury.”

    Bello said he would not foist any project on communities, adding that projects would be sited, based on the need of the areas.

    He urged youths to consider Kogi first in whatever they do, to enable them have the state of their dream.

    The Special Adviser to the Governor on Youth Empowerment and Sport, Comrade Aromeh Adoji, said Kogi had a youth population of over 1.8 million.

    “There is need for the government to accord the population the desired attention in the interest of peace and security.”

    He said the government had entered into an agreement with the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) and other viable organisations to enhance youth and women empowerment.

    Adoji advised youths to support the government, saying from the appointment made so far, youths were adequately represented.

  • Wada faults Bello on bailout

    Wada faults Bello on bailout

    The ex- Governor of Kogi State, Capt. Idris Wada, has faulted reports credited to his successor, Alhaji Yahaya Bello, on the status of the N20 billion bailout fund approved by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), saying there was no truth in the assertion that the new administration applied newly for the money from the Federal Government.

    Wada in a statement issued by his Chief Communications Manager, Mr. Phrank Shaibu, said it was part of the bailout approved for the state during his tenure that ‎the CBN released, adding that Governor Bello could not have fulfilled the conditions precedent for a state to benefit from such fund.

    He said, “It is curious that Governor Bello announced that the CBN has approved N20 billion as part of N50 billion bailout fund applied for. It was the same N50 billion we requested for out of which N20 billion was to have been released before the All Progressives Congress-led Federal Government created bottlenecks to frustrate us from getting the bailout. But the coincidence in the figures leaves a very sour taste in the mouth.

    “We wonder how the new administration could have applied for a bailout when there is no state executive council in place to approve, neither has the state assembly ‎met to deliberate on the application, nor the staff audit embarked on by Bello to determine exact overhead cost completed.

    “Since the advent of the new administration, commissioners have not been appointed. So, could the state executive council have met to approve the application? The state house of assembly has been in turmoil since January this year. Could some ghost lawmakers have been employed to approve the application? And has the current staff audit ended as to have determined the monthly workers’ pay? How was the so called fresh application done without meeting these conditions?”

     

     

  • Kogi PDP disowns Bello

    Kogi PDP disowns Bello

    The internal crisis rocking the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Kogi State assumed another dimension yesterday, with the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) distancing itself from insinuations of a certain ‘working relationship’ with Governor Yahaya Bello.

    The opposition party said it viewed “the PDP tag” earlier ascribed to the governor, by the leadership of his party, the APC, as strange and unacceptable.

    PDP in a statement by its Publicity Secretary, Bode Ogunmola, dismissed as “absolutely false, totally presumptuous and comprehensively baseless”, the allegations that all 45 appointments so far made by Bello went to PDP members.

    The former ruling party noted that “though the crisis and burden of identity plaguing the incumbent APC government in Kogi State is deserving of genuine public sympathy, the APC alone has the responsibility of bearing the burden of its disunity and disjointedness.”

    According to the statement, “what amuses more is the claim that Yahaya Bello has returned power to the PDP through the appointment of PDP members. Nothing can be farther from the truth.”

     

  • Appointments my prerogative, says Bello

    Appointments my prerogative, says Bello

    Kogi State Governor Yahaya Bello has said it remains his responsibility to appoint aides without recourse to any group of people, provided the person meets the requirement as stipulated by law.

    He spoke at the weekend through his Special Adviser on Media and Strategy, Mallam Abdulkarim Abdulmalik.

    The governor was reacting to the reported letter of vote-of-no-confidence by the Kogi State All Progressives Congress (APC) executive council to the party’s national leadership.

    He said he was yet to be informed by the party’s national secretariat about the petition, adding that he runs an all-inclusive government and that the APC leadership can recommend anybody for appointment, provided such a person meets the criteria.

    Bello said his administration was working towards unity and as such his doors were open to everybody, irrespective of religious, ethnic or political differences.

    He accused the APC Chairman, Alhaji Haddy Ametuo, of hiding under the party to play the Peoples Democratic Party’s (PDP’s) card against his government, “because his brother, Momohjimoh Lawal, was removed as Speaker by the lawmakers.”

  • Faleke: why Bello is clamping down on my supporters

    Faleke: why Bello is clamping down on my supporters

    House of Representatives member James Faleke (APC-Lagos) yesterday gave reasons why Governor Yahaya Bello of Kogi State was harassing his supporters.

    Faleke, who addressed reporters in Abuja, said party leaders from Ekirin-Ade community in Ijumu Local Government of Kogi State, were arrested because the indigenes shunned the re-inauguration of the health centre built and inaugurated in 2007.

    Faleke, who was deputy to the late Kogi governorship candidate, Abubakar Audu, during last November 21  election, said the health centre was repainted and inaugurated by the wife of the governor. But he said the indigenes refused to attend because they felt it was a fraud.

    The lawmaker, while condemning the midnight invasion and arrest at residences of Funso Olumoko and Cornelius Olowo, urged the Inspector General of Police, Solomon Arase, to stop the attacks on Okun communities and his followers by Governor Bello.

    His words:  “Two weeks ago, from my community – Ekirin Ade in Ijumu Local Government, I received a call that the wife of Alhaji Bello was coming to inaugurate a health centre there and the question everybody asked was if that was the health centre inaugurated in 2007. What has been done to that health centre to warrant the state apparatus to move to Ekirin Ade, about four to five hours drive, to inaugurate?

    “And we sent people to the health centre to find out whether it was demolished and rebuilt overnight. And we discovered that the doors that were provided during the construction were wooden doors and those doors, 11 of them, were changed to ‘flush doors’, not security doors.

    “The building was of course repainted. But to our surprise, the new administration set up an inauguration plaque, calling it a ‘modern health centre’, and the question was that what is modern in this health centre? No equipment, no doctors. To compound it, the community leaders have been funding the health centre.

    “Only for the wife of Alhaji Bello to say they want to re-inaugurate the health centre. So we saw that this is ‘fraud’ that must not be allowed. And the people say they are not coming. So they stayed back.

    “Surprisingly, the police, of course, induced by Alhaji Bello went to Olumoko’s house around 1 am, scaled the fence, broke the door, entered his room. They met his aged parents – father and mother, and they broke the ceiling, thinking maybe, he hid himself there.

    “They ransacked his wardrobe but he was not found. Thereafter, he was declared wanted.’’

    He expressed concern about attacks by Bello’s loyalists within Kogi State and the venue of the Election Tribunal  in Abuja.

    The lawmaker distanced himself from a group, called ‘Faleke Support Movement’, and urged those masquerading under the name to reveal themselves.

    He said: “At no time have we ever had a group, called Faleke support group, it does not exist and those claiming to know the Faleke Support Movement should identify them.

    “I believe the opposition in Kogi State are the ones coming out with a group that does not exist to tarnish our image. We are law abiding citizens, we go about peacefully and there’s no reason why we should take laws into our hands.”

     

  • Bello orders payment of workers’ salary arrears

    Bello orders payment of workers’ salary arrears

    Niger State Governor Abubakar Sani Bello yesterday ordered the payment of two years salary arrears owed 10 casual primary healthcare workers in Maje, Suleja Local Government.

    The governor, who paid an unscheduled visit to inspect health facilities, on his way from Abuja,

    was shocked when he learnt of the plight of the workers.

    He directed the Chairman of council, Alhaji Ahmed Diko, to pay the arrears within 24 hours.

    Bello assured the affected workers of permanent employment if they discharged their duties diligently.

  • Faleke accuses Bello of financial recklessness

    Faleke accuses Bello of financial recklessness

    The running mate of the late Prince Abubakar Audu in last November 21 election in Kogi State on the platform of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Mr. James Abiodun Faleke, has accused Governor Yahaya Bello of financial recklessness.

    Faleke, who addressed his supporters yesterday after the sitting of the Governorship Election Petition Tribunal in Abuja, said besides the funds he met in the treasury after his swearing in, he received the January allocation and did not tar any road or pay salaries.

    He said: “My heart bleeds for my people because of the way Bello has been managing the resources of the state. When he came in, he met N2.5 billion in the treasury plus N700 million Ecological Fund. From these, he paid a month’s salary.

    “Then the January allocation of N2.6 billion came in and he collected a loan of N420 million from Zenith Bank.

    “The governor has squandered the allocation and the loan. He refused to pay salary, using staff screening as an excuse. He did not tar a kilometre of road from the over N3 billion. What has he done with the money?

    “Bello was so desperate to get the loan from Zenith Bank, after UBA refused, he moved the state accounts to Zenith Bank.

    To those who know him (Bello), please tell him we are watching and any act of corruption will be exposed.”

    Faleke said instead of facing governance, the governor had been concentrating on trivial issues, such as demolition of monuments, encouraging division in the House of Assembly, among others.

    He said the people would resist attempts to embezzle their commonwealth by any public officer, no matter how highly placed.

     

  • Bello: I’ve no intention of shielding Aliyu from probe

    Bello: I’ve no intention of shielding Aliyu from probe

    Niger State Governor Abubakar Sani Bello has said he has no intention of shielding former Governor Mu’azu Babangida Aliyu from probe.

    He added that progress is being made in the investigation of most of the actions of the last administration.

    The governor said the state expected an inflow of N700 million as part of the recovered funds looted by the previous administration.

    Bello, who reacted to the allegation that he shielded the former governor from probe, said his administration could not arrest any person without evidence.

    According to him, most witnesses disappeared after being asked to produce evidence.

    The governor, who promised that the people would be informed of the recovery of the looted funds, said the Finance Committee did not give its report after the three months deadline given it because it discovered new discrepancies everyday.

    He said the state is working to improve the Internally Generated Revenue (IGR), as the money coming from the federal allocation can no longer sustain it.

    Bello said: “We must put our heads together to see how we can improve on our income. It has become clear that we cannot survive on the monthly statutory allocation from Abuja. In doing that we are looking at the Board of Internal Revenue. We are trying to enact laws to allow us get the revenue of the sectors, which needs laws to be enforced. We have made draft to the Law Reform Commission. So that is a top priority.

    “We cannot carry out development without money, and for us to get money, we have to work hard and look at the new sources to create revenue. We want to depend on our Internally Generated Revenue. Whatever comes from Abuja is just to augment it. For now, we are augmenting from IGR.”