I have nothing to hide says Hon. Salawu Ahmed Ogembe: A Rejoinder by Aliyu Abdullahi Ismaila
Hon. Salawu Ahmed Ogembe, (SAO) is playing a game of hide and seek (Eku echichi) with the Eagle Reporter’s Stephen Shaibu Ojate and they are actually falling for their pranks and lies, we are talking about several allegations of acute serial embezzlement of Okene Local government funds by the Chairman for which some he has been invited by the EFCC according to some reliable sources within the LG. instead of him to tow the honourable way of addressing our people on the issues at hand in person he decided to use the less credible Azeez Ozi Idris king a dishonourable former member of house of representative whom he has decided to make his LGA secretary who can not even boast of authoring any bill nor constituency project achievement as a former member of the house of representatives.
The most painful aspect of the interview is the lack of sensitivity and impunity with which it was conducted the interviewer was invited to a far faraway LGA in Abuja, in a personal office of the secretary to our Chairman what a way of actually confirming to us that our Local Government is been run as SAO’s personal estate with total and absolute disregard to due process, how would you explain this when we have a Local government secretariat and an important interview regarding the efficacy of the fund management of the LG is been granted by the secretary to the LG in his personal Office in disrespect for his office and that of the Chairman and a betrayal of the trust of our people.
It is funny that as the head of the LGA secretariat the man is surprised that we are saying we do not know the amount accruing to the LGA from the federation account through the state, whether published by the state government or not we want to know what actually came to our Local government council in figures and how the funds are been utilized, rather he was talking as if he had something to hide or himself had no figures, as the secretary to the LG he should know the actual figures that goes into the monthly pay roll and should be able to quote for us the actual amount that has accrued to the LGA since he became the secretary as 25% and 75% make no meaning to us.
These are men that are running our LG aground, the secretary is there sitting in his personal office in Abuja while his boss is permanently resident at Lokoja and boot licking at the feet of the CEO of Ibro hotels annex and only comes to the secretariat once or twice a week for say 3-4 hours per coming and they deceive us through the media hogwash that they are spending hell on fuel to generate electricity at the secretariat, I was once their to attend a bidding and when the PHCN light which was considerably more stable in Okene than at MAITAMA where our secretary is more familiar with went off no generator was turned on at this point it is good to make it clear that the secretariat is not even digitized as no computers are visible in several of their offices cant even say if they have a website or are even on internet. His bogus expenditure in running the generating set has no figure not even an estimated one for that matter.
QUESTIONABLE ACHIEVEMENT CLAIMS:
There are question marks on some of the claims by the dishonourable Ozi Idris King on the achievements of SAO as the chairman of the LG, prominent ones of which are:
1. The purchase of refuse van and
2. Construction of road at Arigo (construction of 170m of concretized road Arigo Odenku road). This two projects are Sure-P project which I refer every reader of this rejoinder to the advert by Kogi state government of Nigeria, Ministry of Local Government and Chieftaincy Affairs Lokoja. Invitation to tender for Sure-P Projects, Daily Trust Monday, April 15th, 2013, page 48, OKENE lot 6 and 9 respectively.
Now seriously talking about Sure-P, Who does not Know that he Salawu Ahmed Ogembe cornered most of the contract through his cronies company like Ozi Idris King said his chairman was not a member of the committee but he gave a specific instruction to the DLG who was the chair of the bid committee to put a hold to all activities regarding the contract till he assumes office this was while he was not even elected as we all knew what happened in Kogi was not an election but a charade of appointments into one of the branches of Ibro Hotels for which homage is been paid monthly to the former governor and his son and their other gangs of blood sucking politicians on monthly basis at the expense of our people and the development of our LG and State at large. The letter of the contract award was delayed till when he deemed it fit. As I represented our company that also bided for a lot in the project an event which I have an article on www://nairaland.com to the effect and same article also on a page which I manage on my facebook. I was later sent to through my dad that my company won a contract which the Deputy Governor was interested in. so I should wait till the next round of Sure-P project contracts that will come in the near future, what a due process according to Ozi Idris king. What we are more concerned about here is not winning or who wins what but the execution of projects for which we all have a stake in as every citizen of Okene who is directly or indirectly involved in the use of petrol is charged for the sure-p, both IK and SAO might not have partook in the demonstration of the fuel subsidy removal in person like I and several other millions of Nigerians some of which lost their lives in that struggle as a result the failure of executing the Sure-P project contract will be an insult on the sacrifice that saw all Nigerians united and some giving their lives up for the future of our children. Rather than tell us the level of the projects so far, he was busy parrying the questions; Mr. Secretary your chairman is the executive of the LGA concerned what is the level of the Sure-P Project contract in your LG is it satisfactorily completed and what level of certification of payment have your LG approved to be paid to the contractors by the Kogi ministry for Local Government as the bulk lies on bosses desk and the last time I checked the list of the Sure-P projects approved for Okene LG IS as follows:


OKENE:
SURE-P PROJECT DESCRIPTION LOCATION
1. Renovation of a block 4 class rooms Arigo Comm. Sec. Schl.
2. Renovation of administrative blck & Class rms. Anyava Comm. Sec Schl.
3. Renovation of a block 2 Class rm. @ LGA
Sec. School Ohiana
4. Construction of cold room @ primary health care dev. Not mentioned
5. Reticulation of B1 water Idoma, Ageva and Obehira
Community.
6. Purchase of refuse van
7. Purchase of 15 tons towing truck
8. Rehabilitation/Improvement of 9 nos. of boreholes
9. Construction of 170m concretized road Arigo Odenku Road
10. Construction of 4 cell public latrine & bathrooms Okene central motor park,
Idozumi
11. Construction of 2 nos. borehole with overhead
tanks Okene central motor park &
Abattoir
12. Upgrading of women development centre Okene & Okengwen
These are the Sure-P Projects approved and awarded for Okene LG, the most fascinating aspect of which we have read that lot 6 and 9 are the achievements of the present LGa Chairman’s administration, I beg to differs on this and also to say that there is no certainty concerning there other claims to achievements, every citizen of the LG of school age knows that any child opportune to sit the Turkish international secondary school entry exam is a child burn with silver spoon and does not require our LG’s Aneku jamboree scholarship while the children of the common masses who passed the national common entrance are left on their own to continue to struggle without end to get the means for their scholastic endeavour, it is rather sad that one of the most educated and well travelled chairman in the annals of the history of Okene LG happens to be the most insensitive since the inception of the LG.
It takes a fool to listen to a conman without deducing what he has up his sleeves, Mr. secretary you can not take us all for a sucker punch, you claimed Okene has (0) zero internally generated revenue while same you later confessed that each shop in Okene Market pays N 6000 to the confers of the LG, we also want to remind you of the daily ticketing of traders as well as daily vehicular ticketing at the parks, it is rather unfortunate that a ploy to improve revenue collection is been used to now zero our internally generated revenue which can only be seconded in the state by only the state capital in recent time, on the white elephant civic centre project we are politicians with second address as mentioned in your interview which I also believe every Ebira man has his hoe even the unemployed graduates of our land while some of us are also contractors cause the last time I checked Idris King toiletries is long bankrupt and since Karaku Okene LG has long been a division of Ibro Hotels, we are all aware that before a project is tendered for the stages of planning, pricing or costing and budgeting has been concluded and by the time it is bided for, it is ready to be awarded and take off but in your own case you just want a bogus ultra modern civic center and you start bidding without a price and you want us to keep quiet over an issue that affect us all, the impunity with which you are trying to run our LG may lead you to your political doom, yes today you have your way but let me inform you that politically our people are becoming wiser, ask Sen. Ohize and he will tell you his experience, mind you VOTES SHALL COUNT 2015 and that senatorial sit you have always dreamt and aimed at since you appeared on the political river of Ebira land can and will never be achievable if you continue in this treacherous way of running the LG because of the grand puppeteers that have stringed you, I want to assure you that they wont be their to help you when the time comes, call a spade by its name Idris king does not have to dishonour you by denying you the right to aspire to a higher office for which we all know has been your primary ambition in politics, we are not against it but we demand that you govern our LG for all and not for yourself and cronies and the like of your secretary who will guide you astray.
It is high time to tell you to desist from sacking our people for they are the ones you need and not IBRO AND CO, real election is on the way and it will be for the man with the real grass-root support; like it or not our party is seriously sick and we all know things are falling apart and the center may no longer hold and soon it will be everyman for himself, the chairman should come back home and run our LG in the midst of our people try as much as possible to bring back our people together especially the Obehira/Idoma axis because this is the right time to reconcile his people, charity they say begins at home for in any true election once you deliver your word you are a respected personality that Sule Engineer has always achieved which made his astuteness impeccable when it come to politicking a feature that has made OBJ an Otta chicken in the politics of southwest and Tony Anenih a paper Mr Fix it in our recent politics.
At this juncture it is remarkable that the conman secretary resisted the temptation to deny the N 200 Million loan as alleged, we will also want to state here that the time for putting up any structure that will not empower our people or generate tangible revenue for the LG is uncalled for and the focus of the administration should rather go into establishing an ultra modern Park between Okene and Okpela where luxurious buses can also park as Okene is a transit hub to all the part of the country and far better than the free for all civic center, the issue of entertainment and hospitality should be left in the hands of our private hoteliers and the local government can assist such people through facilitating their access to fund from the SME fund and also provision of land, recently the CBN released N 220 Billion fund for Small Scale Enterprises through micro finance banks, the chairman should encourage any or all the MF banks in the LG to signup on the SME fund with the CBN in other to enable our people who are interested have access to it, the case of the N 200 Billion federal mining fund too is there for the LG chair to facilitate in other to also empower our teaming youths; the LG should synergize with the Federal ministry of mines concerning the fund so that our people who are interested in mining can have access to the fund, the LG Administration should encouraged our people already into mining or interested in mining to form mining cooperative societies registered through the LGA while the LGA facilitates their access to this fund through the federal ministry of mines.
Apart from transportation and other commercial activities our Local government is bereft of Industries our hope is that instead of going into this jamboree of a civic center, the LG will go into empowering our people by going into Local government based cottage industries like establishing fadama irrigation farming system in our zone in other to encourage our people who are naturally agrarian in nature to go into dry season farming, fishery and poultry farms could also be established.
Our land is so rich in solid mineral that most at-time it has become our peoples outdoor latrine, we are rich in bulk solid minerals such as granite, feldspar, kaolin and even limestone, which the local government can put some fund into and a lot of our people can be empowered while a lot of internally generated revenue will also be raised to the benefit of the LG. It is a time for the rise against Clannish nepotism for Ebira vo yan, our Chairman should comeback home and govern our people at home rather than allow himself to continue to be stringed-up by the puppeteers at Lokoja for they will not give him Lokoja I suggest that he solicit the advice of the proponent of “I cannot use my elephant as a hook bait for fish” who is well informed in that field and also if Mr. Chairman does not want the Ohize treatment when the vote really counts he should deliver the democratic dividends to our people and try as much as thread the AT Ahmed way of All for One and One for All.
The interview by Shaibu Steven Ojate has not clarified anything neither has it cleared any allegation as he has claimed in the Face Book Social Media rather it further exposed and raised more doubts and question on the credibility of not just the Chairman but the types of appointees in his cabinet who wants to con us to believe that a Sure-P project is their achievement and now reduced Ogembe as a hypocrite who earlier claimed to be philanthropic and now that he has a political office doesn’t want to be Dr. to our ailing people again, we are also on the watch out for any miscreant and opportunistic social crusader in the garb of a journalist and our AKATAPA’s would continue to follow up issues and also continue to cry out until corrections are made with regards to governance in our domain and motherland.
By Aliyu Abdullahi Ismaila
afristone2002@gmail.com
twitter handle: @afristone2002

U should have been brief.