Delta State Government on Friday accused the Deputy President of the Senate and Governorship candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Senator Ovie Omo-Agege, of sponsoring local government pensioners protests against Governor Ifeanyi Okowa and the state government.
The State Commissioner for Infirmation, Mr Charles Aniagwu, who made the accusation on Friday at a press briefing in Asaba, said despite the state government’s commitment to defraying outstanding pension liabilities of local government retirees, Omo-Agege and the APC were bent on sponsoring protests on the matter to score cheap political points.
While urging members of the public to be wary of the protesters as they were obviously playing the cards of their political sponsors, the Information Commissionersaid some of the retirees appreciated the effort of the state government in helping to clear the outstanding pension liabilities and remarked that a certain woman leader of the APC was being used to blackmail the Governor and portray him in bad light.
He said the government had it on good authority that the All Progressives Congress (APC) had again engineered a protest billed to take place on Monday.
“You will recall that last time i briefed you on this issue, I told you about a lady who is the woman leader of the APC in one of our local government areas.
“She is a retired local government employee who has continued to use her position in APC to mobilize a few other persons to protest against the government on account of the issue of outstanding pension liabilities.
“This is somebody who worked for the local government and as a state government we have continued to assist our local governments to meet up with a whole number of obligations in terms of paying salaries of their workers and at the same time assisting them in defraying liabilities owed their pensioners.
“In spite of the fact that her colleagues have continued to appreciate the effort of the state government towards ameliorating their plight by extending some grants to the local governments, the woman in question has decided to politicize the matter and next week they have been engineered to go and protest again to embarrass the Governor.
“They have done it before and they want to do it again and as part of their arrangement they will film it and post on the social media and make it look as if we are not doing what we needed to do”.
He challenged Deltans to ask them where they worked and who was supposed to pay their pensions, even though the state government had continued to be magnanimous in helping the local governments.
“Ask them whether the state government administration has ever helped to defray their pension liabilities, which have been outstanding even before this administration came on board.
“We needed to let you know that these protests are being sponsored by the Governorship candidate of the APC, Senator Ovie Omo-Agege to make it look as if we are not responsible even when we have continued to extend assistance to the local governments.
“You will recall that we concluded plans to extend N10 billion grant, not loan, to the local governments, but unfortunately the bridging finance didn’t come in, though we are now taking steps to ensure that in the next couple of weeks we are able to extend that grant to them.
“We are doing this because we believe that these persons are Deltans whether they worked for the local government or not we could still take steps to assist them to boost not just their economy but that of the state.
“But inspite of these effort, this woman, who is being engineered to mobilize other persons in the APC, still want to begin to move along that line”, Aniagwu said.
He said the Okowa administration would remain focused on making good its promises to the people and commended Deltans for their support.
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