The immediate past Governor of Kogi state, Captain Idris Wada has said that blaming past administrations for the failure of the present administration of Governor Bello was a sign of incompetence.
Captain Wada made the comment while speaking on Saturday in reaction to Governor Bello’s independent day broadcast when he attributed his inability to develop the state as he would have loved to to N50billion salary obligation left for him by past administrations .
Governor Alhaji Yahaya Bello during his state broadcast to celebrate 60 Anniversary of the country said “let me inform you that this administration has had to clear over N50billion in salary obligations inherited from previous administrations.
Ex-governor Wada while reacting said that it was sad for the Governor to embark on blame game and outright lies that he inherited N50 billion salary obligations when in actual fact, the bailout fund his administration applied for was paid to Bello.
Capt. Wada explained that at a time after he assumed office, allocation to LGAs dropped.
He said when the opportunity for bail out presented itself, the total amount due and owed to the LGAs he said was N45billion while it was estimated that by the end of his administration the State Workers would be indebted to about N5.2b, making it a total of N50.3b.
He noted that based on the adviced of the NLC the state was at some time in his administration using two months allocation to pay for a month, said his administration was only indebted to two months salaries to the State workers, lamented that it was wrong after five years for the present administration to be engaged in blame games for it’s failure even after he was giving the bailout.
“The fund was to clear salary arrears of Local government workers but was not released during my tenure but was released to Bello which he refused to use for the purposes for which it was meant for”.
According to him,”there are more pressing and important issues at hand begging for urgent attention than to engage in blame game for your incompetence”.
“When I hear that vehicles, travellers and residents are stranded in Ganaja not being able to cross, I feel bad and I think that should be the major concern of any government, not to be engaging in frivolity of blame game and outright propaganda.
Captain Wada said that it is on record that no administration has exposed the state to more debts than the present administration which had subjected the state to a debt burden of about N120 billion without considering whether or not the state has the capacity.
“Every action we took when I was there concerning the finances of the state were subjected to serious scrutiny and debate unlike the present scenario when they just take decision without proper analysis”.
According to him, We know our limitations in terms of exposing the state to debt burden. We knew we cannot compete with Lagos or Rivers in terms of borrowing, that was why we limited ourselves to what we have the capacity to borrow, but the present administration have gone ahead to expose the state beyond her capacity and that is unfortunate”. He added.
The immidiate past Governor said his administration was working on the Bye pass, the kabawa embarkment, said if the Projects had been completed, the agony people are facing now would have been a thing of the past, lamented that rather than address issues that had to do with the people’s welfare the present administration, five years after is still engaged in blame games.
