The Senator representing Kogi West Senatorial District, Dino Melaye, says it has been difficult to achieve genuine reconciliation in Kogi State because the national leadership of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) is not addressing the issue from the right perspective.
Senator Melaye said this yesterday when he paid a courtesy visit to the headquarters of Media Trust Limited, the publisher of Daily Trust titles.
The federal lawmaker said his disagreement with Governor Yahaya Bello of Kogi State was to promote good governance and the welfare of the people.
The legislator said he was speaking against injustice and maladministration in his home state.
He advised Governor Bello to pay the salaries of workers in the Confluence State, saying there was nothing personal about his grouse against the governor since he also sued former governors Ibrahim Idris and Idris Wada in the past for the same reason.
He said, “The party has refused to ask questions on why Dino is fighting Bello. Call me and I will give you the reasons. He needs to pay salaries. There is no development. There is no justification on ground for the amount of money that accrued to the state.
“Two committees have been set up by the party. By the time I read their reports, it is neither here nor there. The committees never brought me and Bello together. So, how do you get the truth?”
Reacting to the attempt to recall him from the National Assembly, he said “those who didn’t call” him “could not recall” him.
The chairman, Senate Committee on Federal Capital Territory (FCT), who also described the insecurity in the nation’s capital as “serious and monumental, promised to continue to engage the minister and the commissioner of police on the issue.
Melaye, who restated his committee’s commitment to address the environmental sanitation and beautification challenge in the territory via a private initiative with the FCT minister, added that the contractors that abandoned projects after collecting full payment in the nation’s capital would be pursued to go back to sites, especially the abandoned flyovers.
He gave an assurance that his committee would also monitor the execution of infrastructural projects for satellite towns in the FCT and the new districts to be opened.
Melaye attributed the abandonment of infrastructural projects meant for resettlement areas to corruption. He said his committee was looking at the issue to ensure that the concerned contractors who had been fully mobilized over the years went back to sites.
“They said some of them have folded up and left Nigeria. We say no, it is not possible. We have gone to Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC) and identified their directors.
“They are known Nigerians. So, we will arrest them. They must go back to complete these projects. All those uncompleted projects are products of obvious corruption,” he added.
Credit: Daily Trust
