Kwara not owing pensioners or civil servants

By Muideen Femi Akorede

There is a worrying tendency to take media reports as gospel even when such publications are patently improbable to the discerning. That much is obvious in Mr Wale Fatade’s depth-free piece, titled ‘Governance as a farce our states’, published by the Cable. Shockingly, Fatade takes an unverified claim by a pensioner as truth and classifies a logical explanation for a national malaise.

How did the pensioner come by the figure of 1005 dead retirees? Did the reporter verify the figures? Death by any cause is tragic and sad but who established a link between the pension arrears and the pensioners’ demise? In his haste to crucify governors through selective anecdotes about salary delays in states, Fatade fails the elementary test of news and public commentary: to check and cross check facts.

Mr. Fatade, for your information, the Kwara State Government doesn’t owe civil servants and pensioners. They are fully paid to date by the administration of Governor Abdulfatah Ahmed. On the contrary, the said pensioners referred to in the Punch story are local government retirees and are therefore the responsibility of the 16 local government councils. Notwithstanding, it is on record that the state government has a history of augmenting LG allocation which had dropped from N2.7b to N1b per month as of June. The latest intervention was in July when Governor Ahmed approved the release of N162m to the LGs.

Therefore, I invite you to investigate articles properly before writing and stop misleading the public. Nigeria is stuck in a national economic gridlock. 27 states, says the president, can’t pay workers. Kwara is not among them. The solution lies in thinking our way out of the problem and not in vacuous opinion articles.

Akorede is SA Media to the governor of Kwara state