Borno: LG Officials Absent As Gov Zulum Pays Surprise Visits To Chibok, Bama, Gwoza, 3 Others

Borno State governor, Babagana Zulum, has vowed to take decisive action against the high ranking officials, including some secretaries who were absent at their local government secretariats when he visited few days ago.

Zulum had on Wednesday took a surprise tour of six local governments in the southern and central Borno State to monitor the quality of governance at the grassroots and to assess ongoing projects, but he saw empty secretariats.

A statement issued on Friday on the official Facebook page of the governor, listed the local government Zulum visited to include Chibok, Bama, Gwoza, Damboa, Konduga and Askira-Uba.

The statement said “The State Government had two weeks ago, directed top government officials and senior civil servants to report to work after easing its lockdown to prevent spread of coronavirus. Even before COVID-19 outbreak, senior officials at local government areas in Borno are notorious for abandoning their local government to operate in Maiduguri only to return there for few days when FAAC allocations are received, or when they know the Governor is heading there.”

The statement also said “Zulum took the clever officials by surprise this time because not even his security details thought he was travelling far from the state capital under the Ramadan and with Sallah around the corner.”

The governor, who was apparently not happy with the development, spoke in strong terms in one of the LGAs :“None of the heads of department is around, neither the Secretary nor the other principal officers are reporting to duty. Look at the Secretariat, termites all over, an indication that nobody is operating in the Secretariat. Government cannot allow this situation to continue. We came from Maiduguri to determine the presence of senior public servants at their places of work. We have been pleading with them for quite sometime, to be operating from these local government areas so that citizens will feel the impact of governance at the grassroots but from all indication, many are not listening. We will take punitive measures because we cannot allow this system to continue.”

Furthermore, the statement revealed that the governor also took a roll call of absentee secretaries, heads of department, directors and other ranking officials in each of the six local government areas secretariats visited.

“While doing roll call on Wednesday, Zulum inspected projects being carried out by the state government in Konduga, Bama and Gwoza. In the three places, ranking officials were mostly not on ground. Gwoza’s new secretariat, which the Governor commissioned few months ago, was even locked.

“Zulum’s next destination was Askira town which is the headquarters of Askira-Uba LGA. He passed the night there. Following day, the Governor moved to Chibok and Damboa towns. About 16 projects at various levels of completion were inspected by the Governor during his two day across the six LGAs.”

The story was however, different with traditional rulers when the governor visited their palaces to pay homage, as they were fully on ground to recieve him.

The traditional rulers visited were the Emirs of Bama, Gwoza, Uba, and Askira Emirate councils.

“During a brief remark at Bama Emir’s palace, Zulum announced that any house in Bama not occupied in two weeks will be temporarily allocated to IDPs pending when the owners are ready to occupy them,” it concluded.