Kogi governor clarifies ‘unpaid’ workers salaries, rumoured defection

The Kogi State Government has said it has paid salaries for 38 months since it came into office in January 2016.

The Director General of Media and Publicity to the Governor of Kogi State, Kingsley Fanwo, stated this in Takete Ide Amuro in Mopamuro Local Government Area while briefing journalists after APC stakeholders’ meeting in the ward.

“One of the questions our party members asked during the meeting was about the claim by labour that we are owing workers 38 months salaries.

“As far as government is concerned, we have paid 38 months salaries starting from September 2015. We have been in office for just 39 months. But we are still owing four months’ salaries because we started paying from the period we are yet to assume power.

“We are not in any power play with labour. We will continue to appreciate their understanding and we pledge to clear all arrears as soon as possible.”

Mr Fanwo said the government has struggled to bridge the gap inherited because of the dwindling revenue and contending needs of the people of Kogi State.

“We know how pivotal salaries are to microeconomics and we also know we owe other sectors of the public a good number of social amenities. Government will continue to manage the contending interests to serve a good number of the population.”

On the rumoured decamping of the governor to Accord Party, Mr Fanwo said the promoters of the rumour failed to “rehearse their falsehood properly.”

According to him, “such rumours will fail a major logic lab test.”

In his words, “It is laughable to insinuate that a governor that just led our party to landslide and historic victory in the 2019 general elections is about to abandon his bungalow to rent a hut.

“If this is the kind of propaganda opposition wants to fly with, then they are not ready for the November 2nd electoral battle in the state.

“Governor Yahaya Bello is the landlord of Kogi APC. Anyone coming is a tenant. Where were those opponents when he built the party into what dwarfed others in the 2019 elections?

“The people spreading those rumours are political comedians with lazy minds. They are conceding defeats with such cheap jokes.”

Mr Fanwo challenged a Kogi senator, Dino Melaye, to go ahead to publish the expenditures of government between 2016 to 2019, saying, “a good student of accounting and common sense will do good by publishing both income and expenditure.”

He said the Kogi people have seen the Rice Mill the Governor is building and the roads under construction, saying any form of “illogical incitement will be counterproductive.”

His words: “You can see the executives with me here. These are the people who will determine who flies our party ticket in November. The person they know is GYB and they will go all out to give him a second term.

“All the people dancing around Abuja are not known to the people. We also thank the federal government for giving us three boreholes in my ward. No senator should claim the glory of the APC federal government project. Our people are well informed now more than ever,” he said.

He thanked the people of the community and indeed the state for their solidarity during the assassination attempt on him, saying the action of the “cowards is a mark of their impending loss in 2019.”

“They could not stand the truth. But we shall show them our security architecture is capable of exposing their evil plans against government officials in the state.

“We have not even started yet and they are fidgety. Their mouthpiece Senator should know that the people who are candidates of prison are the fraudsters that led the state in the past.”

Mr Fanwo added that the spinners of the fake news and falsehood about the governor are people well known to members of the public.

“We know the promoters of these fake news and propaganda against the person of the governor and the government of Kogi State. They are discredited individuals who have been fingered for inducing judges with dollars; those who threatened to commit suicide in order to implicate others; those who coordinated the killing of our students and innocent citizens and those who turned themselves to monkeys and stayed on the tree for 12 hours.

“All these ignoble theatrics are well profiled in the minds of our people. They work against their people for political gains. But today, they have been dumbfounded by the success of the governor at the polls. He has shown the world that the people are solidly with him.”