Deltans will no longer be led by the nose, APC chief warns Okowa

———By Shedrack Onitsha———-

 

A chieftain of the All Progressive Congress, APC, Delta State, Chief Terry Otuya has berated the Chief Press Secretary to state Governor, Mr. Charles Aniagwu for allegedly employing propaganda to confuse Deltans over his principal  failure in governance.

Chief Otuya, in a statement, warned that Deltans are no longer prepared to be led by the nose, noted that henceforth, they will hold the state government accountable on all its actions and inaction.

He described the recent press conference by the Governor’s spokesman on how Paris Club refund to the state was spent, as an attempt to confuse or stupefy Deltans in order stave off the anger of the less discerning Deltans over colossal waste of the state resources.

The APC chief said Mr. Aniagwu lived up to his billings recently when he held a press conference, “to spew concocted stories to obfuscate Deltans on how the clueless state government has squandered billions of our commonwealth in the guise of a schmuck agenda under a meaningless prosperity to all Deltans mantra.

He added that the APC, being an important stakeholder is giving notice to the Delta State government that henceforth, they will demand accountability for every kobo that is due to the good people of Delta state.

“We will demand explanation for any account that fails to add up. We will question any unauthorized expenditure including donations and gifts that are beyond the scope of good governance. We will certainly not accept expenditures that are morally unjustifiable and wasteful.

“The days of willful wastage, ‘squandermania’ and incompetent Schmuck Agenda are over. No more spurious and unsubstantiated claims.

Otuya challenged the state government to substantiate the following claims, on the disbursement of last tranche of the Paris Club refund as the detailed provided by the government do not add up as there is a variance of 184 million naira or 2.3%.

He quarried how possible it’s to disburse 8.082 billion naira from 7.9 billion naira according to Mr. Aniagwu’s numbers?  Noting that the onus is on Okowa to publish the actual and substantiated disbursements so that Deltans, for them to exercise fully their right of scrutiny. “Anything less is just begging the question and that, is unacceptable to Deltans.”

He also described as bogus claim by Governor Okowa that he has created over 6,000 entrepreneurs across the 25 local government areas through his job creation programme and allied policies.

While urge the governor to substantiate this claim, “by publishing the list of the so called state government empowered entrepreneurs per local government as distinct from the beneficiaries of the various FGN sponsored social, welfare and economic development programmes.”

“The claim of the construction of over 98 roads with the distance of 612 kilometers and line drainage of over 300 kilometers is another spin and it stinks to high heavens. It makes you wonder! What does Gov Okowa take Deltans for? What roads is he talking about? Is it the poorly patched up Agbor/Amukpe road rehabilitation which is now a death trap less than four months of the deployment of a humongous contract sum?

“Or is he talking about the incompetent and poorly executed streets in Asaba, Warri and elsewhere that has failed within 6 months after completion? Gov. Okowa should take a weekend drive to Lagos through Epe so that he can learn firsthand what road construction is all about,” he added.