….We acted within the law -Ikpeazu
From Okey Sampson, Umuahia
Abia State Governor-elect, Dr. Alex Otti has warmed the out-going government of Abia State against employment racketeering which he said was going on presently in the state.
This is even as Governor Okezie Ikpeazu has denied knowledge of such racketeering, insisting if agency of government employed any Abian, it did so within the ambits of the law.
In a press release signed by Ferdinand Ekeoma, Special Adviser, Media and Publicity to Otti, the Governor-elect said his attention was drawn to the employment racketeering presently going on in the Abia State Civil Service ahead of the expiration of the tenure of the present government.
Otti said that confirmed reports backed by empirical evidence showed “there’s presently a bazaar of illegal employment going on in different ministries and parastatals, with all the so-called employees being issued with backdated employment letters.
“We ordinarily would not have bothered to go beyond calling on the state government to take decisive actions against its agents and enablers of this heist since we have a duly constituted government with a running tenure that ends on May 29, 2023. However, we have it on good authority that senior government agents are culpable in this.
“For example, those in charge of the Abia State Universal Basic Education Board (ASUBEB) in the state are directly involved in the fake recruitment which saw dozens of people troop in and out of ASUBEC on March 28, 2023 with the false assumption that they have been employed.
“This action which is geared towards laying a needless landmine for the in-coming government of Alex Otti, has shown how unpatriotic and selfish the perpetrators are.
“It has also shown how brazenly audacious some political actors could be in advancing selfish political agenda that retards development and harms the interest of the generality of the people”.
Otti called on all those involved in the illegality, especially civil servants in the Abia state Civil Service who are directly or indirectly involved in the crime to back out of it, as well as called on government to rise to the occasion.
However, in a release by his Chief Press Secretary, Onyebuchi Ememanka, Ikpeazu said he was not aware of any form of employment racketeering in the State Public Service,
Ikpeazu insisted that if by any measure
the State Government offered employment to Abians, there was nothing illegal about it.