Kwara Residents Groan In Pain

*The Looting Inside Gov Ahmed’s Govt

Reports reaching us from Kwara State seem not to be a very palatable one. As you read this piece, residents of Kwara have resorted to God to save them from the grip of their governor, Abdulfatah Ahmed, who they fear might run the state aground.

According to a report by The Icon, Ahmed has practically turned the state into his private property and residents of the state have to beg God to send a Moses to save them from the hands of Pharaoh.

While most Nigerians quickly put the blame of impoverishing Kwarans on the table of Bukola Saraki, what they are oblivious of is that Ahmed is becoming more dangerous than his benefactor, the magazine reports.

Impeccable sources have confirmed the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) allegation that Ahmed truly pays Saraki a whopping sum of N100 million every month from the state’s coffers.

In the statement, the PDP stated, “We have noted the desperate bid of the Kwara State government to cover up for Sen. Bukola Saraki in respect of the millions of naira that he draws monthly from the state’s lean treasury in the name of an obnoxious, immoral and insensitive pension law that he enacted for himself while in office.

This latest cover-up has only succeeded in raising more questions than answers. It has also evidently shown that the government’s spin doctors have exhausted their basket of lies – a thing that has become a routine pastimes in the life of the present APC-led administration in Kwara State.

“Arising from the government’s latest official cover-up for Saraki, we raise the following posers:

“If in truth Mr. Bukola Saraki had not demanded for security operatives since he left office three years ago, why then did the speaker of the Kwara State House of Assembly, Mr. Razaq Atunwa, on Tuesday, 10th September 2013 threaten to sue the IGP for allegedly violating the provisions of Section 2 (3) Paragraph H of the Third Schedule of Kwara State governor and deputy governor (payment of pension) Law 2010 which makes provision for over 10 different security attachés for Bukola Saraki? If the salaries of Bukola Saraki’s retinue of police and SSS security attachés were not being charged on the state meager allocations, why did the Kwara State House of Assembly subsequently pass a resolution describing the alleged withdrawal as ‘unconstitutional, ‘illegal’ and a ‘breach of law’ the legislators validly passed? If the KWSG is denying the assertion of the PDP on the over N100million that Bukola Saraki draws monthly from the public treasury in the name of pension benefit, it is also ready to deny its own speaker who had much earlier admitted that the security operatives are Bukola Saraki’s birthright pursuant to the pension law?

However, assuming for the purpose of argument that what Bukola Saraki takes home monthly is the sum declared by the secretary to the Kwara State Government, the moral question is, why should Bukola Saraki, who only spent eight uneventful and harrowing years in Kwara as a governor be receiving a pension package that triples that of an average permanent secretary that has spent over 30 years in fruitful service to the public? Why should he even draw any pension at all when he enjoys far more perks as a senator currently representing the same state in the National Assembly?

In the same vein, if the government is denying that it built the multi-million naira mansion at No. A1, Museum Street, GRA, Ilorin, which Kwarans now derisively call ‘Bukola Saraki Pension House’, why did the government order the foreign contractors handling the project to raise the fence of the building high up when the whistleblower, Sahara Reporters, sometime in May 2012, unearthed pictures of the innermost parts of the palatial mansion that has become a source of sorrow and regret to thousands of pensioners that pass through that place daily? More questions begging for answers!

Meanwhile, the fact that the government would so easily lie over Mr. Bukola Saraki’s publicly funded security apparatus, his ‘Pension House’ and other perks that he enjoys naturally presupposes that the whole indefensible rejoinder the KWSG gave against the verifiable revelations of the PDP is nothing but a pack of lies. These glaring lies have therefore vitiated all other cover-ups that the government dished out to the public in defense of a man that is currently standing trial in the case of IGP versus Sen. Bukola Saraki (FHC/ABJ/CS/152) for bleeding the state dry while in office and has refused to stop even out of office through his obnoxious pensions!

The fact that the KWSG could lie about the fact of the payment of the insensitive pension benefits of Bukola Saraki with so straight a face, is indicative of the disdain the APC-led government has for truth and facts. By plausible implications, it is also suggestive of the zero respect the government has for Kwarans that are demanding for answers from it in respect of the obnoxious pension law.

Lastly, for the avoidance of doubt, we insist that what the Kwara State Government received in federal allocations for the year 2013 was a total sum of N49,276,022,267.75 as against the N38.7 billion claim made by the government. This is because apart from the Gross Statutory Allocations, the government also received several billions of naira in both Foreign Excess Crude Savings Account and Value Added Tax (VAT) allocations from the Federal Account Allocation Committee (FAAC). If the government had hoped to sit on these huge funds and get away with it, we ask it to have a rethink for the secret is blown already.

We therefore ask the government to truthfully own up to its incompetence, do the needful by abrogating the obnoxious law as being requested by the overwhelming majority of Kwarans and finish up its remaining months in office to pave way for a more purposeful and truthful government” the state ended.

Despite the denial by the Kwara State governor that they have not built a house for Bukola or given him security as well as eye-popping allowances as pension benefits, we can authoritatively report with documents available that Gov. Ahmed is lying between his teeth.

We can also report without doubt that there is a particular mansion located on Abdulkadir Road, GRA, Ilorin, Kwara State, built for Bukola Saraki as his life pension quarters. Proud as ever and demanding the best of life, the senate president turned down the house and requested that Ahmed pays him the equivalent in cash which was promptly done.

As soon as he got the alert, we were reliably informed that Saraki went back to reclaim the house from the state government and no one coughed.

In line with our investigative nature to counter the denial of Gov. Ahmed that there is no bogus pension for Saraki, we can report that on 29th December 2010 Mr. Bukola conniving with his co-corrupt members in the State House of Assembly passed into law a bill that entitled him to these pension benefits:

Accommodation: (i) One residential house each for the governor and deputy at any location of their choice in Kwara State; (ii) One residential house in the Federal Capital Territory for the governor on two consecutive terms.

Annual Vacation: (iii) 30 days’ annual vacation outside Nigeria with 30 days’ estacodes and travel allowances for the governor.

Transport: Travel expenses allowances for the governor. (a) Three cars for the governor and in addition one pilot and two backup cars to be replaced every three years en bloc.

Furniture: Payable every two years en bloc.

Domestic Staff: Cook, steward, gardener and other domestic staff who shall be pensionable.

Medical: Free medical treatment for the governor and deputy governor and members of their immediate families.

Security: To be provided as listed below: Two SSS details for the governor and one female officer, one SSS detail for the deputy governor; eight policemen (one each for house and personal security) for the governor; two policemen (one each for house and personal security) for the deputy governor.

Drivers: Pensionable.

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​Keep a date as we bring to you report and images of the sorry state of Kwara schools, sporting facilities, the rotten multi – million naira Cargo Centre built by the state at the Ilorin International Airport, how Harmony Holdings Ltd owned by Dr. Bukola Saraki took over most of the state properties and other shocking revelations.

Source: The Icon.