The number of political appointees in the Cross River State Government will hit about 1,100 this week, causing labour and members of the public to raise eye brows.

The development comes as Governor, Ben Ayade is set to announce additional 300 new appointees, this week.Currently, there are about 800 political appointees in the state, jerked up from previous 98. The appointees include 28 commissioners and numerous special assistants and a host of others.

Governor Ayade, in a news conference last week, explained that “the expansion of government was a deliberate policy to find a way to release whatever government has to every home, so that there is food on the table for every house. If it is not directly to you, it is to your uncle or to your niece. Even when Cross River does not have, we took appointees from about 98 to almost 800 and we have a new list of about 300 people to be appointed which will be announced next week (this week).”
The state’s work force is about 22,000 earning over N4.5 billion as salary every month for both local government and the state civil service, and Ayade had in an earlier briefing disclosed that the local government wage bill is about N2.1 billion, while the state service is about N2.4 billion leaving a deficit of about N2 billion monthly.
Explaining how he is coping with these huge labour force, wage bill and large number of appointees, Ayade said: “As we have our financial challenges…our receipt at all time is below what our salary is… If you don’t understand third world politics or economy, you will never understand leadership… If you look at Keynesian economics or Donald Trump’s model, when things are doing so well, that is when you tighten up. But trust me, I will never owe salary. Any salary we owe is just this short period we are doing staff biometrics which is deliberate because I kept shifting it. You see some people’s names kept reoccurring on pay role yet the person retired many years ago.

“Salary comes first on my list. There is no infrastructure that is better than a human being. I will rather stay and spend four years paying salary, reducing hunger on my people and saying goodbye to politics and never seek rerun than to focus on rerun and projects at the expense of the people. So the expansion of government is to bring more people to the table when times are hard, when investments are low, when the private sectors are almost non-existent. So let me face trouble and create a private sector, build a garment factory, pharmaceutical company, create the rice city, build the poultry, do the gallery. As you do all these, the private sector will begin to strive and you devolve government interest and create the private sector and relief the government by having people employed in those areas.

It is a third world economic model because it operates on sluggish economic steps.”He further noted that the alternative means of employment other than government are very limited, “so government must recognise that the welfare of the people is key.

If I save money to construct a bridge and I don’t have people to go through that bridge what happens? I believe that God will always give me the means to pay and among the less educated in the mind, they could mistake that as a jamboree, no.”
Meanwhile, labour leaders in the state have frowned at the large number of political appointees in the state, saying it is the cause of the state’s huge wage bill.

The State Chairman of the Joint Public Service Negotiating Council (JPSNC), Comrade Thomas Igbang, in a telephone interview with The Guardian said: “If you talk about 700 politicians in the pay role, I think you cannot but say it is high when people are looking at a small government. The government has not employed for a long time and there are several people, who have retired, but they keep saying the figure of civil servant remains stagnant, I doubt that very seriously. This government has brought over 700 politicians into the pay role so if that is the reason for the increment, they should say so because our pay has not been increased, and we are receiving what we were receiving before. People are leaving the service and in pension they don’t get same amount as when they were in service.”
Equally commenting on the large number of appointees, the Vice Chairman of the All Progressive Congress (APC) in the state, Mr. Cletus Obun, said: “Look at the madness that is going on in the name of appointments. You have the largest appointment and the smallest allocation. We generate less and have more to pay. The man who is crying for bailout is increasing his own salary in terms of emoluments, which he has not even started paying and no employment letters. Is that the way to empower people?

“Rather than creating sufficient ground for people to use their potential to build the economy, we are doing something else. Cross River State is in a sorry state; the governor is running the government deliberately at deficit, employing more than you can pay and cannot even pay yet you are increasing the wage bill. I think it is becoming childish, it is a voodoo economy. It has no basis anywhere in any theory that is known anywhere on earth.”

henryanna36:
August 20, 2016
Press Statement
INEC Recruiting APC members as Ad-Hoc Staff for Edo 2016 Gubernatorial Election – PDP
The leadership of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has accused the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) in Edo State of recruiting All Progressive Congress (APC) loyalist as Ad-Hoc staff ahead of the forthcoming 2016 Edo State Gubernatorial election.
The Party raised the alarm on Saturday August 20, 2016 in a press statement by its Chief Spokesman, Prince Dayo Adeyeye saying that there is a video evidence exposing INEC officials in Edo state of compromising the outcome of the gubernatorial election before the scheduled Saturday, September 10, 2016 poll.
“We have once again uncovered another plot by the Electoral umpire in Edo State to rig the Gubernatorial election in favour of the government in Power in the state. There are clear evidence available to us showing how INEC officials are recruiting APC members as Ad-Hoc staff to rig the election for the APC candidate in the Saturday, September 10, 2016 governorship election in the State” Prince Adeyeye said.
The PDP Spokesman warned that the Party will not tolerate any act of sabotage and advised the electoral umpire to recruit neutral and credible Nigerians without partisan interest as Ah-Hoc staff to maintain their neutrality in the process.
“We will not accept anything short of free, fair and credible process leading to the Saturday, September 10, Gubernatorial poll in Edo State. We wish to assure INEC and the APC of our cooperation for a successful election but will not accept an election that is already compromised before the actual poll”
The Party concluded that INEC should avoid inconclusive election in Edo State and put everything together for a hitch free poll.
Signed:
Prince Dayo Adeyeye
PDP National Publicity Secretary
Source: http://www.trezzyblog.com/2016/08/inec-recruiting-apc-members-as-ad-hoc.html

In what is being seen as a strong message to about 21 foreign nationals earlier arrested for peddling drugs, a district judge in Dharwad awarded a 10-year jail term and imposed Rs 1 lakh fine on 32-year-old Arthur Joseph, a Nigerian who was first arrested and put behind bars by Vidhya Giri police in January 2013 for supplying drugs.


Police had caught the accused red-handed in his rented house at Sattur layout with large quantities of various drugs. Soon, a chargesheet was framed and a trial had been initiated two years ago.


"If drug peddlers are convicted, then there will be some control over the drug mafia," a police officer said.


Recently, in Bengaluru, former model Darshitmita Gowda, 26, was arrested under various sections of the Narcotics Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act (NDPS).


According to NCB officers, she was a member of a drug peddling group that catered to college students and working professionals in Bengaluru, Mangaluru and Goa.


The model, a regular at major fashion events, is the fifth person to be arrested in connection with the case, the investigation into which began after the NCB, on November 30, 2015, raided a posh apartment in RT Nagar. During the raid, 110 g of cocaine, 19 g of hashish, 1.2 g of MDMA and one LSD blot were seized.

In the last three years, 21 foreign nationals, 16 of them Nigerian, have been booked under the NDPS Act; some of them have been released on bail. Sources said some of the released members may have returned to their old drug-peddling ways.


Sources said cocaine is the 'drug of the elite', in India, it is supplied to five-star hotel clients and students from well-off families. However, common drugs like ganja, brown sugar, opium, ketamine and hashish are supplied those from middle-class backgrounds. Experts say that in Bengaluru, the supply of cocaine is comparatively low.


But the city is an important transit point for drug suppliers since the security at Delhi and Chennai Airports is higher. Peddlers are said to smuggle drugs from BIAL to other countries by concealing them in make-up boxes and footwear soles. Customs and immigration authorities have trapped a number of peddlers and courier agencies for possessing banned drugs.

S6un:
Is there no way to negotiate with these companies to pay the said tax? What of the jobs of people working in these companies?
When will intelligent people start leading vital agencies in that country?

7 Nigerians were arrested in connection with the drug racket.
73 grams cocaine, five grams of brown sugar worth Rs 3.5 lakh were seized.
Police also seized Rs 33,600 in cash.


7 Nigerians were arrested and 73 grams cocaine and five grams of brown sugar worth Rs 3.5 lakh were seized after Commissioner's task force and Anti Narcotic Cell of Central Crime Station (CCS) Hyderabad today busted an international drug racket.

According to Hyderabad Police, the seven accused had come to India on a business Visa and had established a drug peddling network across metropolitan cities with the help of drug suppliers from Goa. The accused were selling the drugs at Rs 5,000-6,000 per gram.

The accused were identified as Ejeana Raphael Chidera, C Akuabata, U Solomon Ubabuko, Obiora Chukwuemeka Peter, O Samson C, E Christian Chuku and U Promise Chukuwudi, all businessmen.

"Three of the gang members stay in Goa and the remaining in Hyderabad. Prime accused Ejeana Raphael Chidera is the kingpin of the drug racket in Goa, he established a network in other metropolitan cities with his associates," Limba Reddy, Additional DCP of Taskforce, told India Today Television.

Police also seized two laptops and 15 cell phones from their possession, besides Rs 33,600 in cash.