…Borrowed money to pay workers after emptying State purse
Fejiro Oliver
Less than 75 days for the Governor of Delta State, Emmanuel Uduaghan to bid farewell to Unity House; he has concluded plans to frustrate the incoming government through fraudulent employment of workers into the Delta State Civil Service. Unless Deltans and Nigerians cry out against this fraud, the next government for four years will be unable to do anything meaningful with its resources.
Mr Uduaghan who has deliberately refused to release the names of those who applied since 2013 and wrote exams in 2014 suddenly made a U-turn when he directed the Civil Service boss to get the list published in a national daily.
What is however the shocker is that 98% of those whose names appeared never wrote the exams neither were they ever available for the job. Authoritative sources revealed that out of the 1800 names shortlisted, only 940 names will be taken with the governor hijacking 900 of them to share to his cronies and concubines relatives in what an analyst described as “amorous farewell nepotism jobs”, while the remaining 40 were handpicked by the commission boss, and just like Uduaghan, he packed charlatans into the position, with claims that oral interview will be conducted before the jobs are eventually given out.
Even though Uduaghan has severely denied having slots in the employment saga, sources close to him tag him the king of employment racketing in Nigeria. Investigations carried out exclusively revealed that none of those who genuinely applied from Sapele Local Government has his/her names on the list, giving a clearer indication that unlike in the past were top political shots dictate who gets employed; the governor alone this time was the alpha and omega. This same style was used by fmr. Gov. Kayode Fayemi of Ekiti State who began employment two months to the expiration of his tenure, only for his successor, Ayo Fayose to be sworn in and sacked all the new workers.
What is not known to Deltans is that the state account is already blinking danger as all the money there have been siphoned to unknown places by the governor allegedly in connivance with his man Friday, Ovuzuorie Macaulay who doubles as the Secretary to the State Government (SSG).
The financial state of the treasure sources within the government revealed prompted the borrowing of yet to be disclosed billions of Naira to pay workers in the month of February. When contacted, a source close to the Labor Party guber candidate, Ovedje Ogboru disclosed on the condition of anonymity that if his principal should win, plans are already underway to jail Uduaghan as was done to Ibori, despite rumored support he is getting from the governor.
***Stay tuned for the secret meeting held with loyal commissioners to support Ogboru.