Obaseki Has Never Tampered With LGAs Allocations – Osunde

 

Hon. Evbareke Jenkins Osunde
Chairman Oredo Local Government Council
And The State Chairman of Association of Local Government of Nigeria (ALGON)

  

Hon. Evbareke Jenkins Osunde is the Chairman of Oredo local government, Edo State and would be ending his three year tenure on March 4, 2021. He is also the current State Chairman of the Association of Local Government Chairmen of Nigeria (ALGON). In this interview with FRANCIS ONOIRIBHOLO, Osunde debunks the insinuations that the State Government occasionally interferes with the Federal allocations to the local government councils in the state. Excerpts.

What was your major problem during these three years you have been in office as Oredo Council Chairman? 

I will not say Oredo is a problematic Local Government, Oredo Local Government Council has had its challenges and it is not peculiar to the Local Government but one of the peculiar challenges we have had as a Local Government is the issue of teachers’ salary. There have been that tendency for teachers to want to remain in the urban area, Oredo Local Government, it is problem that I inherited but I am very grateful to the State Universal Education Board for being fair and just in ensuring that there is an equitable distribution of teachers to various LGAs, although the problem has not been completely taken care of but I can say authoritatively that the Board has done well to ensure that this problem becomes a thing of the past. 

You will agree with me that in times past, most of these teachers did not want to go to the rural areas, they largely want to remain in the urban areas and that obviously did not help in ensuring that resources were freed for other demands to be met so we had too many demands competing for too little resources, that challenge is being taken care of if not completely captured. 

Secondly, I came in and inherited a high degree of debts, contractual debts at that and salary arrears for workers. I paid five months’ salary arrears and apart from that, I have ensured that salaries are not owed to workers till date. More so, teachers have had their salaries paid as at when due and that is verifiable, pensioners who were hitherto not paid their pension as at when due, have been paid regularly since the inception of my administration. 

Revenue regeneration was at its lowest when I assumed office in Oredo, I have taken it to an admirable level, I have also done my best in ensuring that the system here is computerised so as to check fraud, there have been regular trainings for staff and I can tell you that morale has never been higher than it is right now in Oredo Local Government. 

How true is this allegation that the state occasionally tampers with local governments’ allocations from the Federation Accounts? 

First and foremost, let me say authoritatively and I want to be put on record, the government of governor Godwin Noghegase Obaseki has been the most transparent government I have ever seen and being the Chairman of Oredo Local Government, as well as the state Chairman of the Association of Local Government Chairmen of Nigeria (ALGON), the governor sits at the Head of the Joint Allocation Appropriation Committee, that is where funds are distributed, never, quote me, never has the governor tempered with funds allocated to the Local Government and you must bear in mind that as it is today, there are serious consequences for that even before the Nigerian Financial Intelligence Unit (NFIU). 

Neither Governor Godwin Noghegase Obaseki nor any of his cabinet members, has ever tempered with funds coming to Local Government. Any of such rumour or allegation is completely a tissue of lie, you can quote me on that. 

There is this allegation that there are lots of frauds in the disbursement of the compensation the state government released to traders whose goods were consumed by fire at the Oba market as a result of inadequate supervision by your council. How true is that? 

You will remember that during the inferno at Oba Market, the Governor himself, the Director of state Security, the Police Commissioner and my humble self, went to the market and conducted a full scale inspection of and that was after I had stayed there all night monitoring the work the Fire Brigade had to carry out to completely extinguish the fire.

I must commend the Fire Brigade, the Police, the DSS for what they did on that day and the people, the traders themselves everybody had an input in extinguishing that fire and protecting the properties of the traders. Immediately after the Governor had finished the inspection, he went straight to his office and instituted a Committee headed by the Commissioner of Police to not only look into the course of the inferno at Oba market but of other markets across the state and come up with the combination of averting future occurrence, and that was that. 

In fact, on that day, he promised the traders that he was going to compensate them, the process of compiling the names of the victims that were affected by that inferno was monitored by the market leadership, Oredo LG, the Police, the Department of State Security and appointees of the traders themselves on another side. If a process that was monitored by five separate groups can be said not to have been transparent I wonder what will be transparent. 

But there was a claim that the people who let the stores out to the traders were the people who collected the money instead of the traders whose goods were burnt? 

Let me throw some more light on that, one, all the people that came before the committee, that is, the committee that was set up to register the victims. Those who lost their wares in that inferno, were identified by the market leadership. Secondly, they were also made to convince the committee who their immediate neighbour was, if you are trading in the market, you must know who your neighbour is, that was another way of telling whether the person was genuine or not. Also, don’t forget that we have store owners and we have squatters in the market, the Local Government has the data for the store owners in our system and we told them there will be consequences, if you turn up and the shop you are claiming is not your own, there will be consequences for it but we also put modalities in place to ensure that everybody that was affected by that inferno was properly documented and got what the government brought and ensured that the process was done through procedures that were transparent and this money as far as I know, was paid by a bank. You have to go to the bank with some forms of identification and proof that you are who you say you are and the documentation that was put together for the registration was what was used. 

Now, the issue of refuse disposal is still a problem in your local government till date, For example if you go through Mission and Forestry roads, you will see heaps of refuse that have been there for days waiting to be evaluated. What is actually the problem? 

Sanitation is everybody’s business, the Local Government and the State, even you and I know this. All these refuse that you find in these places that are designated for disposal belong to people who refuse to pay for refuse collection. At Mission Road where you see refuse for instance, you mentioned Mission and Forestry Roads, it was not so before now, what happened is that during that ‘EndSARS’ protest and the COVID19 Pandemic period, which is still here, the government did not think it was wise for us to be asking people to pay for refuse and all that, especially when they were not selling anything but the government deployed waste managers to ensure that our streets were kept clean at all times and the waste managers were doing their best. 

There are designated places where the refuse should be kept, they ask people to keep the refuse in a particular way and they come and evacuate them but some people just chose to do the wrong thing always that is why we set up the sanitation committee to go round and watch out for these people who are doing these things because these are very hazardous to the health of our citizens. If those refuse are kept unattended to another pandemic can just break out from there. 

What are you wishing the Oredo people after serving them for three years? 

I want to thank first the almighty God for giving me the opportunity to be Chairman of this Local Government. Two, I want to thank His Excellency, Governor Godwin Noghegase Obaseki for the support he has given me to succeed as Chairman of this Local Government, I want to thank the Deputy Governor Hon. Philip Shaibu who has also been very supportive, I like to also thank the Secretary to the State Government, Osarodion Ogie Esq. who have also been very supportive. Members of the State Executive generally, I also want to thank His Royal Majesty, Omo N’Oba N’Edo Uku Akpolokpolo, Oba Ewuare II, Ogidigan for his prayers, his support and for the fact that Edo has become more peaceful in his reign and it is my prayer that it will continue to be more peaceful and that he will reign for a long time to come in good health. 

I have never taken that support for granted and I will continue to do what is right to ensure that the dividends of democracy are brought to their doorsteps and I will continue to count on their support. I want to also continue to count on your support because for us if you report things the way they are supposed to be reported, if you are fair and just in your report, if you are truthful it helps us all, it helps the society and it brings peace and development to our locality. So on that basis, I want to say, thank you, thank you and thank you once again.