Kogi Socio-political group, ‘Ujache Igala’ has advised governor Yahaya Bello to disband 239 coordinators that were inaugurated in Lokoja on Tuesday within two weeks or be ready to face court action.
In a press release issued and signed by the group’s head of media and publicity, Mr. Atek‘ojo Samson Usman at Anyigba, in Kogi state, it maintained that the grassroot coordinators which were named as ‘GYB Grassroot Connect’, were recipe for political thuggery, noting that their existence have no basis in law or government policies.
The group added that it was one of those governor Bello’s missteps which has deepened the peoples woes instead of creating policies that alleviate sufferings of the people.
Condemning governor Bello’s inauguration, the group maintained that the responsibility they were saddled with, are exclusively those of trained security agents, hence, if they were allowed, there would be abuse and witch hunting capable of breaking the law and order.
“How can a governor assembled people from various local government and asked them to ensure discipline, orderliness and loyalty to government and even charged them to report anybody to SARs and other security agents?”, the group wondered.
“We have seen a situation in times past where some lily-liver young men among a group like this took to thuggery because, it was the governor that set them up and they would go about harassing anybody they feel opposed their paymaster”, they said.
The group revealed that its findings showed that some will be groomed for political thuggery ahead of 2020 elections, who are now disguising as coordinators, stating that they will sue Bello led government if they were not disbanded.
“We have our findings which showed that the governor will assemble thugs among them preparatory for 2020 second term state elections which we have briefed our legal team. If he refuse to dismantle these people, he will meet us in court”, the group insisted.
“The group recalled that some criminal elements who were arrested by security agents in the state for kidnapping, robberies and killing of citizens or even got killed have enjoyed government’s patronage at one time or the other in the past.
They expressed disappointment over state government’s refusal to pay workers their salaries despite President Buhari’s plea to all the governors to do so.
They lamented that Kogi is the only state in Nigeria where its workers are celebrating with empty stomach, stressing that it was not true claims that backlog of salaries have been cleared.
