The Kwara State Government , North Central Nigeria has cautioned against smear campaign targeted at Governor AbdulRahman AbdulRazaq and some other top government officials.
Addressing Journalists on Tuesday in Ilorin, the state capital, the Special Adviser to the Governor on Political Communication, Alhaji Bashir Adigun accused some opposition politicians of attempts to smear the image of the Governor using falsehoods of various kinds, including doctored documents, unverified claims, fake videos and other disinformation to mislead the public.
“We have invited you to this news conference to draw your attention to a plot by some those in the opposition in the state, including the People’s Democratic Party and their allies, to smear the Governor and some other top government officials with falsehood in their desperate bid to return the state to backwardness and wanton diversion of public funds and resources for their private use”.
“They plan to begin heavy use of some media platforms, including online media, to attack the Government using all sorts of salacious tales that only exist in their imagination” Adigun said.
According to him, the government is aware that some mischievous politicians are trying to rehash the long dismissed tale of N300m Local Government funds purportedly missing.
“The interesting thing is that the only source to whom they credit this phantom claim has since retracted the claim on a number of occasion. As a government that cared about accountability, the government set up a probe panel which thoroughly investigated the matter. Various persons and government departments made presentations to the panel and the finding was that there was nothing like anyone diverting any money from local government” he declared.
“For the avoidance of doubt, the panel headed by retired Justice Mathew Adewara said it found no evidence that any money was missing whatsoever. Before then, on July 20, 2020, the former commissioner who was alleged to have made the claim said no such thing ever happened.
“Despite all these, some elements are bent on misleading the public in the name of politics.
Adigun stressed that it is important to state that funds accruing to LGAs are barely enough to pay salaries and other obligations and that on many occasions, the state government has had to come through for the local government so that everyone will get 100% salary stating that it is therefore absurd for anyone to rehash any tale of any missing funds.
“The characters behind the empty lies are also repeating the allegation about N750m contract inflation, even when the group that made the claim had since withdrawn the allegation. And as if to advertise their ignorance, they are also alleging that the government spent N6bn without the consent of the former Auditor General. It is important to clarify that at no time did the former Auditor General made such a claim. The queries the former Auditor General raised with regards to some expenditures by a few MDAs have since been resolved and the former Auditor General has clarified same. It is to the credit of this administration that it gives free hands for officials to do their job. It is also necessary to inform the mischievous elements that audit query, as a standard practice, is not an indictment in itself. It is a call to action that certain steps must be taken in line with the global best practices, which this administration follows. To be clear, at no time did the Auditor General or anyone alleges fraud against the administration.
“The Auditor General has cleared the Government of any wrongdoing. It is important to clarify however that there is no law that says the government needs the permission of the Auditor General to spend money already appropriated by the House of Assembly. What the law requires is that such expenditure must be retired and that was clearly done as confirmed by the former Auditor General.
Adigun alleged that the government has also uncovered plots by the opposition politicians to dot the social media and other platforms with doctored financial statements, audiovisuals, innuendoes, and all kinds of false and malicious contents to discredit the Governor and other government officials.
“This plot is dead on arrival as the people can see through the desperation of those who see public offices as their birthright and cannot imagine that the people of Kwara State took their destinies in their own hand in 2019”.
He disclosed that Governor has been able to resuscitate the collapsed infrastructure under People’s Democratic Party administration while the Government under AbdulRahman AbdulRazaq has also been constructing new schools and renovating dilapidated ones across the state.
Adigun also explained that the Government has resuscitated health care delivery by renovating and equipping abandoned hospitals and health centres across the three Senatorial districts and paying various counterpart funds.
“New roads are being constructed in the state capital and other communities across the state to ease travelling and open up rural areas while the administration of Governor AbdulRazaq has not only been paying salaries and pensions and gratuities of retirees regularly but also paying the new minimum wage of Thirty Thousand Naira despite the drop in Federal Allocations”.
The Special Adviser also disclosed that the present administration has taken steps to put the economy of the state in strong footing by embarking on various projects and programmes that will create jobs and wealth for residents of the state which includes the Garment factory, the film Studio, the innovation Hub, Visual Arts Centre and the International Conference Centre.
He therefore urged the media to fact check each statement the opposition makes as the nation moves into electioneering period and similarly appealed to the residents of the state to be wary of any statement or contents from the opposition parties and their different allies.
PDP Response
In a swift response, the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) in Kwara State, has described the state government’s claim that some opposition politicians were planning to destabilise the state, as amusing.
The spokesman of the Kwara PDP, Prince Tunji Moronfoye said, “we receive the news of destabilization plot with complete amusement.”
Moronfoye said the people of the state could not be fooled by the government’s “pre-emptive declaration of guilt, dubbed press conference.”
Also, the media office of the leader of the PDP in the state and former Senate President, Dr Abubakar Bukola Saraki, described the state government’s allegation as unfounded and laughable.
Saraki’s press officer on local matters, Abdulganiyu Abdulqadir, in a statement, asked Governor AbdulRazaq and his aides to stop raising false alarm and focus on how to provide effective governance to the people of the state.
N.O
