The Benue Advocacy Network (BAN) has asked Governor Hyacinth Alia-led administration to publish the names of all ghost schools discovered in the state to validate its investigation claims.
Addressing the media in Makurdi, in response to the governor’s recent media chat, the president of BAN Bemshima Ortese, alongside his exco members, faulted the governor’s claim of discovering so many ghost school pensioners and civil servants across the state without bringing them in the public domain which they said raises so many doubts.
The group insisted that publishing the list of the ghost schools, dead pensioners and retired civil servants that his government claims to have discovered, along with a list of the individuals behind such schools, will go a long way in helping the Benue community.
It would be recalled that during the recent media chat, the governor said that his administration had uncovered an uncountable number of ghost schools, all of which had teachers at grade level 13 and above.
According to him, upon investigating and visiting these schools, it was discovered that they existed only on payment slips. “We also discovered that some people who died long ago and even those who retired were still collecting pensions and salaries.”
The group also lamented a situation where the present administration is reluctant to continue with the people-oriented projects of the past administration, like the 2017 Open Grazing Prohibition and Ranches Establishment Law, even though government is said to be a continuity, which has given herdsmen easy access to Benue communities.
It described the action of the governor as a deliberate silence on the occupation of Benue communities by armed terrorists who have been deciding when and where the people can move and called for a change.
The group also said, “The governor’s assertion that he inherited N359 billion in salary arrears is a fictitious narrative and a deliberate attempt to mislead the public. The exact figure contained in the handover note presented to him by the immediate past administration was N187.56 billion.
“We want to make this clear that we will no longer sit and watch the Alia Led administration launch sustained media attacks on the previous government, saying that they did little or nothing. We don’t know whether blaming the previous administration is part of his stewardship.”
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