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Babatunde Gbadamosi is the Director of Amen Estates and a PDP
gubernatorial aspirant in Lagos State. He speaks on governance and politics in
the state. Excerpt:

What is your political background?

I lived mostly with
my grandfather, who was one of Action Group’s financiers. He taught me
that service to the people is more than any amount of money one could
ever make in the world. As I grew up, I began to see what he meant as I
observed different governments fail their people repeatedly.

I was a member of
NADECO (National Democratic Coalition) in the UK and we
internationalised the fight against Abacha’s dictatorial rule. I want
to believe that my activities then contributed in some small way to the
advent of democracy in Nigeria.

Your grandfather was a member of Awolowo’s party, why did you join the PDP?

Many people from
Awolowo’s political heritage moved into PDP by 2003. So, those claiming
to be Awoist now are the furthest from Awoism. If Awolowo is to rule
Lagos for 12 years, it won’t be like it is now.

I have been a
sympathiser of PDP since 2002 because of things I heard President
Olusegun Obasanjo say then and started supporting the party actively
since 2006 prior to the general elections. I admired Obasanjo for being
a quiet achiever. He never makes noise about his achievement. If you
are a businessman before Obasanjo’s regime, you will appreciate how he
stimulated the economy within a few years.

He sorted our poor
international image almost totally. Nigeria’s debt was a millstone
around our neck and we could have drowned because of it. We had our
first reconnaissance equipment, an imaging satellite, also. What about
the Universal Basic Education, anticorruption campaign, the national
economic empowerment strategy, revamping of NIPOST, increase in
agro-allied and nonoil exports.

If AC builds a
drain, they will construct a billboard that is costlier than the drain
itself but Obasanjo just got on with his work, refusing to buy into
media hoopla. And that is what I will do when I get into office.

The PDP is the only
party with a national outlook. The interest of Lagosians will be better
protected in PDP because government at the centre does not interfere
with those at the state level.

I simply want to
key Lagos into all the exciting things that are happening at the
federal level. We are missing out on a lot. Whatever is being done at
the federal level will be replicated and improved upon.

What are your plans for Lagos?

I believe I can make a difference in issues that matter to Lagosians. Power generation and road infrastructure are important.

We did a study and
discovered that an estimate of N30 billion is expended on power
generation daily in Lagos. So, power generation will be a major problem
I will solve. Again, we are hearing of fantastic figures being spent on
infrastructure by the current government. The figures and the projects
do not match at all. We have not seen the money they say they are
spending in action.

Can you imagine
that LASU-Iba road costs N500 million per kilometre? Adeniran Ogunsanya
is just about 3km and there is allegation it was awarded for N11.6
billion. The backstreets of Lagos is in complete mess because the local
governments are not allowed to function. The only impact local councils
have is in revenue collection. After 11 years, Lagosians still spend
about 20 percent of their time in traffic.

I am not saying
they didn’t spend the money; all I’m saying is that I will spend a lot
less for the same quality of roads. What I want to do is to make our
taxes go further than they presently do. Roads construction won’t cost
as much as they do now because corruption will be fought to the
minimal. Of course we know that will be difficult but it can be done.

Public education,
water supply and hygienic environment will closely follow. Healthcare
is almost beyond manageability in Lagos now because hygiene is low.

What are your chances in the PDP, knowing that some have been in the race for years now?

PDP in Lagos still
has the best internal democracy and our people are sophisticated
electorate who know the quality of leaders that can match any
competition. The party elders and executives are very wise people who
know the terrain and I believe in their ability to lead the party
aright. I believe the best aspirant will emerge the party candidate and
any such aspirant will surely win Lagos’s gubernatorial election in
2011.

Do you foresee a credible general election in 2011?

A credible election
is the job of every Nigerian, especially the youth. I want to tell the
youth that it’s not cool not to vote. You have no swagger if you don’t
vote. So, get your swagger on, register, vote, and defend your vote
because you are taking control of your future by doing that.

Also, the media,
especially electronic, has a major role to play and we must harness it.
We can use our mobile phones to record election proceedings, take
pictures and upload such content unto the Internet.

What’s your assessment of Fashola’s administration?

Of course you can
see what he has done but I want people, when assessing the governor to
do so in the knowledge of the amount of money at his disposal, not only
the internally generated revenue but also the international grants.

Harassed and
cornered by public outrage over their jumbo pay, members of the
National Assembly are desperately weaving a scheme to protect other
allowances, an investigation has shown.

Under the new
dispensation, legislators have agreed to halt the collection of the
ex-legal payments, hitherto hidden under a sardonic pay head called
“office running cost”, according to sources familiar with the new
arrangement.

Legislators arrived
at this mind shift, according to the sources, at a meeting of some
members of the House of Representative, in Abuja on Saturday, June 19.

NEXT found out that
in order to ensure they retain their pay haul, the lawmakers have
decided to “re-channel their money into committees, which is then
distributed to members on committee basis in a way that each member
will still get the amount that is due to him.” One of the attendees at
the meeting, who spoke off record, said the legislators were already
getting wary about the noise their allowances are generating and have
decided to ‘re-strategize.’ “They (the legislators) are worried about
the public outcry, especially over the extra budgetary allowance each
honourable gets. You know the senators also get their own. So, since
all legislators belong to at least one committee, the idea now is to
re-channel the money into committees and ensure that each person still
gets his money,” he said. “You know that committee budget, expenses and
allowances are approved by the legislators themselves.”

“Office running cost” and committee allowances

Each member of the
House of Representatives already gets an RMAFC unapproved N35 million
naira each as “office running cost.” “The money is broken down. I can’t
recollect all now, but I remember that when I checked in 2007, each of
us was getting about 500, 000 naira per quarter as stationery
allowance,” the source said.

The source also
confirmed that before the decision to divert the office running cost to
committees, the various committees were already a way for them to make
money.

“There is already
enough money to be made from the committees. Do you know that we get
our “overseas trip allowances” up front? So, if there is a budget of N5
million for each member of a committee to travel overseas for a
quarter, you get the money up front. So whether you eventually go with
other members for the tour or not, you already have your money, even if
all the trips eventually get sponsored,” the source said.

Secrecy required

Unlike in the
United Kingdom, where all the entitled salaries and allowances of the
parliamentarians are made public and even put on the parliament’s
website, that of the Nigerian National Assembly is not made public.

The annual basic
salary of members of the House of Commons for example is 65, 738 pounds
(1.6 million naira), though chairmen of select committees and ministers
in the government earn more.

Also unlike in
Nigeria where each representative earns N500,000 a quarter, totalling
N2 million a year for stationery (it is higher for senators), whether
he/she buys the stationery or not; in the UK, the stationery is bought
centrally, with each parliamentarian entitled to receive from the
common pool to the tune of 7,000 pounds (1.75 million).

Efforts to speak
with House spokesperson, Eseme Eyiboh, were unsuccessful. But the
Senate spokesperson, Ayogu Eze, refused to be drawn into the matter.

“What do you want
to know about the issue of the office running cost. Your newspaper has
been publishing fiction about the matter,” he said.

When NEXT explained
that this was the opportunity for him to clear the air over it,
particularly as we understand that the money has been diverted into
committees, he said, “I’m not inclined to speak on this matter. Your
newspaper published that the matter is in court. Let us wait for the
outcome of the court process.” He then politely said farewell.

It is really a sad
thing to say, but when somebody said we need to wipe out at least two
generations of people for us to ‘get it right’ I could not help but
agree with him. But when another person in an entirely different forum
now said we need to annihilate everybody in Nigeria and leave only
those from 10 years and below, I felt uneasy this time because dry
bones have been mentioned and the old woman cannot be comfortable.

It means if we agree to the second or even the first option, yours sincerely may not survive the pogrom.

It is this core
eruption of our moral fibre by the word ‘corruption’. Is there any
government office that does not practice corruption? Even the EFCC and
the judiciary that are the hope of the common man have often been
accused of corrupt practices.

Our case has become
like that of Lot in Sodom and Gomorrah, where Abraham was trying to
plead for the Lord to spare the people. God said if he could find 10
righteous persons in the land, he would not destroy it.

Here in the FCT, a
particular church leader, with over 10,000 members, was said to have
entered the church one Sunday morning, crying and rolling on the floor.
When he finally spoke, he said God told him the previous night that if
the trumpet should sound, right now, they do not have 10 people that
can make heaven. If this is so, what do we expect from those who do not
know or fear God? So it is possible for one bad apple to spoil the
entire apples in the basket; with the hundreds of thousands of church
and mosque goers?

My thrust this week
is our youth that are supposed to take over from our present crop of
leaders. In Abuja, it is common to see near illiterates become rich
overnight. Some of them are the heads of mobilization for political
groupings and they come with different titles in different political
parties: youth leader, mama grass-root, youth mobiliser, head of
mobilization, women leader, market women leader, youth president and so
on.

Some of them have
been given permanent suits in highbrow hotels and to say they are
enjoying will be an understatement; what with the beehive of okpekes at
the snap of their fingers and the luxurious cars they now drive. A lot
of them now masquerade their activities with well registered NGOs and
business is booming as the election approaches.

The most painful
thing is that the same youth leader in party A, for instance, is the
Secretary for party B and the Treasurer for party C. All they need is a
‘face-cap’, dark sunglasses and an agbada to complete the
transformation, and they mobilize essentially the same crowd for the
different political parties. Some of them are honest enough not to
pledge their allegiance to any party. They have become professional
mobilisers. That is why it is easy to see the same set of women or
young men in not less than three different rallies by different
political parties.

Maybe we should advocate for simultaneous holding of rallies to discourage these ‘man must survive’ groups.

Ready for any rally

A friend of mine
said one young man’s speciality is to be ‘anti-anything’. That this
same young man was ‘anti-abacha’ ‘anti-atiku’ during Obasanjo’s time,
later he became ‘anti-third term’, he was ‘anti-cabal’ and now he is
‘anti-zoning’; that it is like the man has an octopus that tells him
which way the pendulum will swing because it always swings in his
favour.

He will mobilize
men and women for an ‘anti-anything’ campaign as long as he is paid. It
doesn’t matter if it is ‘anti-good’. Believe it or not, they are
beginning to have assistant professional mobilisers who can pull out
men and women who would easily leave their work places – okada riders,
farmers, mechanics, bricklayers, motor park touts, market women,
jobless people and even students.

The mobiliser takes the job, for N2,000 to N3,000 per person to
provide 2000 people during their rally, and goes to offer N1,000 to the
individuals per day. They provide maybe 1,500 people and then fill in
fictitious names to make up the number. In the heat of the moment, you
really cannot count to confirm if you have 2000 people. How do we
reverse this kind of thinking, knowing that their patrons are those in
the National Assembly or government houses. INEC and the rest of our
nation will have to reach deep into the solution box for a way out.

Pakistan’s Taliban threatened on Friday to launch attacks in the
United States and Europe “very soon.” The warning came after a renewal of
militant violence in Pakistan this week that is piling pressure on a
U.S.-backed government overwhelmed by the flood crisis.

“We will launch attacks in America and Europe very soon,” Qari
Hussain Mehsud, a senior Pakistani Taliban leader and mentor of suicide
bombers, told Reuters by telephone from an undisclosed location.

A suicide bomber struck at a rally in the Pakistani city of
Quetta on Friday, killing at least 54 people in the second major attack this
week.

The attack on the Shi’ite rally expressing solidarity with the
Palestinian people came as the United States said the devastating floods are
likely to hold up army offensives against Taliban insurgents.

“Unfortunately the flooding in Pakistan is probably going to
delay any operations by the Pakistani army in North Waziristan for some period
of time,” U.S. Defence Secretary Robert Gates said in Afghanistan where he is
visiting U.S. troops.

Senior police official Hamid Shakeel told Reuters that at least
54 people were killed and about 160 wounded in Quetta.

Dozens of dead and wounded lay in pools of blood after the blast
that also engulfed vehicles in flames.

Hours later, the al Qaeda-linked Taliban took responsibility for
the attack, saying it was revenge for killings of radical Sunni clerics by
Shi’ites, further challenging the unpopular civilian government. “We take pride
in taking responsibility for the Quetta attack,” Mehsud told Reuters.

Earlier in the day, the Taliban also claimed responsibility for
bombings on Wednesday at a Shi’ite procession in the eastern city of Lahore in
which at least 33 people died. These blasts were the first major attack since
flood waters tore through the country. The Taliban and their allies often
target religious minorities in a campaign to destabilize the government.

The Taliban said the U.S. decision to put it on its list of
terrorist organizations was a sign of being scared.

Aside from its battles against homegrown Taliban, Pakistan is
under intense American pressure to tackle Afghan Taliban fighters who cross the
border into Pakistan’s lawless tribal areas to attack U.S.-led NATO troops.

The United States has stepped up missile strikes by pilotless
drone aircraft against militant targets in Pakistan’s Pashtun tribal lands
since the start of 2010. On Friday, U.S. drones fired missiles at two targets
in North Waziristan tribal region, killing seven militants, including two
foreigners, intelligence officials said.

Pakistan has said the army would decide when to carry out a
full-fledged assault in North Waziristan, where Washington says anti-American
militants enjoy safe havens, at the time it considers appropriate.

In another attack in the northwest, a suicide bomber killed one
person outside a mosque of the Ahmadi sect, who consider themselves Muslims but
whom Pakistan declares non-Muslims.

Attention has focused on the Pakistani Taliban again after U.S.
prosecutors this week charged its leader, Hakimullah Mehsud, in a plot that
killed seven CIA employees at an American base in Afghanistan last December.

Islamist charities, some of them linked to militant groups, have
at the same time joined in the relief effort for the millions affected by the
worst floods in the nation’s history.

U.S. officials are concerned that the involvement of hardline
groups in flood relief will undermine the fight against militancy in Pakistan
as well Afghanistan.

Economic crisis

Anger is spreading over the government’s sluggish response to
the floods, raising the possibility of social unrest.

Pakistan is also facing economic catastrophe, with the floods
causing damage the government has estimated at $43 billion, almost a quarter of
the south Asian nation’s 2009 GDP.

Some relief has come from the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
It will give Pakistan $450 million in emergency flood aid and disburse funds in
September to help the economy cope with the devastation.

Talks in Washington with a delegation led by Pakistan’s Finance
Minister Abdul Hafeez Shaikh on the terms of an $11 billion IMF loan program
left him satisfied with the country’s commitment to reforms, IMF chief
Dominique Strauss-Kahn said.

Under the 2008 IMF loan program, Islamabad promised to implement
tax and energy sector reforms and give full autonomy to the State Bank of
Pakistan.

The Abia State government says it has received the
approval of the federal government to set up a Special Amnesty
Committee to work out programmes on the rehabilitation of kidnappers.

The committee, headed by the Deputy Governor, Acho
Nwakanma, said it has noted the loopholes that led to the failure of
the first amnesty programme for kidnappers and other criminals, and was
working out modalities to ensure the success of the current programme.

Pardon for kidnappers

The committee said it would work with the DDR
technique which entails Disarming and Demobilizing Repentant kidnappers
and rehabilitating them.

It disclosed that arms collection centres would be
established close to areas where kidnapping was rampant, to encourage
the perpetrators to surrender their arms and embrace the programme,
adding that a camp would be established for the repentant kidnappers
where their demobilization would take place before they would be taken
to rehabilitation camp.

The committee said that as soon as it was through
with fine-tuning the modalities, the governor would make the
proclamation which would also determine the duration of the programme.

Mr Nwakanma said the committee was set up after
Theodore Orji, the state governor, consulted widely and received the
consent of the federal government, and expressed hope that the
programme would be the answer to the security situation in Abia which,
he said, has “weighed down the state and made it to look different from
what it is.” Mr Nwakanma said, “I want to use this opportunity to
appeal to our brothers to drop their arms and embrace the amnesty
programme. Kidnapping is affecting Abia and increasing the unemployment
problem. If they allow people to come and invest in Aba, there will be
employment.”

Second attempt

This is the second committee to be set up for the purpose of giving amnesty to repentant kidnappers and their sponsors in Abia.

The first was in May and was headed by the
Attorney-General and Commissioner for Justice, Umeh Kalu. It ran into
controversy when a joint army patrol was said to have shot dead a
repentant kidnapper who was on his way to surrender his arms.

Membership of the committee includes: Azubuko Udah,
the Assistant Inspector-General of Police, Zone 2, Hafiz Ringim, his
counterpart in Zone 9; Jonathan Johnson, Abia State Commissioner of
Police; Vincent Okah, Commissioner of Police, Forensic Division, Abuja;
Nathaniel Obong, the Commandant, Nigeria Security and Civil Defence
Corps; and Transition Committee chairmen from kidnap-prone zones of the
state.

The governor of
Niger State, Aliyu Babangida, and deputy Senate president, Ike
Ekweremadu, were the latest in a long line of dignitaries to offer
their condolences for the fire that damaged part of the Peoples’
Democratic Party (PDP) secretariat in Abuja.

The two men visited
the secretariat in Abuja yesterday, and spoke on a number of issues,
including the state of the constitutional amendment and better building
codes.

Mr. Ekweremadu said the fire called to question some of the building’s disaster-preparedness measures.

“When people are
building houses, we should be able to put in place measures to address
all these unforeseen circumstances,” he said.

“Now that we are building the new party secretariat, we [should] ensure that these disasters are addressed at design stage.”

Talking politics

In response to a
question about the amended constitution, he said it was “operational.”
He challenged anyone who disagreed to take the matter to the courts.

“Our business is to
make laws and once those laws are made, it becomes what is called
‘funtus officio’. So the law is operational until it is set aside by
the court,” he said.

“We are not going to worry ourselves about that. As far as we are concerned, we have done our job.”

On the INEC request
for the voters register and 2011 elections, he said the commission
needed to use its initial N87 billion request before the National
Assembly could approve further funds.

“Even though I have reservations about the figure, we need to support them to do a good job,” he said.

“We hope they apply the money appropriately.”

The University of Ibadan, on Thursday,
announced the appointment of Isaac Folorunsho Adewole, a consultant
obstetrician and gynaecologist at the University College Hospital
(UCH), Ibadan, as the next Vice Chancellor of the institution.

The pro-chancellor and council chairman
of the premier university, Wole Olanipekun, announced the appointment
at a press briefing held at the council chambers of the institution
early yesterday.

According him, Mr Adewole, who is
expected to take over from the outgoing Vice-Chancellor, Olufemi
Bamiro, whose term expires on December 1, was rated best in all stages
of interviews conducted for the 12 candidates for the post. The
appointment concludes a process which began several months ago.

Describing the process that produced
the new Vice Chancellor as the best in the history of the university,
Mr Olanipekun noted that all the candidates for the post were subjected
to fair competition before Mr Adewole eventually emerged.

He maintained that, in the said
process, the management of the university fulfilled all portions of the
law governing the appointment of a Vice Chancellor.

According to him, despite the fact that
the Federal Executive Council (FEC) in Abuja was yet to come up with
the policy of 70 years retirement age for university professors, UI was
the first and the only institution in history that did not place an
form of embargo on candidates when it placed newspaper advertisements
to declare the seat of the Vice Chancellor of the institution vacant.

Besides, he said, at stages of the
interview, none of the candidates eligible to partake was shut out,
saying the process was the most transparent.

Transparent protest

The process, which started on February
25, when the council met and approved the placement of adverts in
newspapers to call for applications for the position, climaxed with the
final selection of the new VC by the selection committee on Wednesday,
September 1.

While reacting to a newspaper report
that there was some sort of crises in the process, Mr Olanipekun said
the speculation was not true, as the process has produced the best
performed among the candidates.

He informed that unlike in the past
when the selection committee would pick three names and forward them to
the university visitor, the president of the Federal Republic of
Nigeria, for appointment of one from amongst them, the new law has
bestowed the power to select just one among the contestants and send
same to the visitor for ratification.

Adewole’s name, he added, will soon be
sent to Goodluck Jonathan for ratification before Bamiro’s term
expires, in order not to have a vacuum in the administration of the
university.

Interaction with council

Before he was finally appointed, Mr
Adewole, together with the other 11, had an interaction with the
University Council at the council meeting held on August 20.

Six were then shortlisted for an
interview, from which the final thre names were presented for the
selection board were picked. The two other names besides Mr Adewole’s
were Francis Egbokhare of the Department of Linguistics, University of
Ibadan, and Friday Okonofua of the Department of Obstetrics and
Gynaecology, University of Benin.

Apart from being adjudged the best in the process, Mr Adewole, the
former provost of the College of Medicine, Ibadan, delivered, arguably,
the best presentation when all candidates for the post were gathered
for an interactive with members of the university community last month,
though Olanipekun noted that the programme was not part of the
selection process.

The chairman of the
Labour Party, Dan Iwuanyanwu, yesterday refuted reports that the former
governor of Cross River State, Donald Duke, is a member of his party.

Mr Duke, who
resigned his membership of the ruling People’s Democratic Party (PDP)
in June, is widely speculated to have pitched his tent with the Labour
Party, on which he allegedly plans to realise his presidential
ambition. The party shares the fourth largest party position with the
All Progressive Grand Alliance (APGA), each controlling a state.

Mr Iwuanyanwu said
the last time he checked, Mr Duke, who is his personal friend, was not
a member of his party as widely speculated.

“As of yesterday, I
don’t think Donald Duke has joined our party,” Mr Iwuanyanwu said. “I
am aware he resigned from the PDP but he is not yet a member of our
party.” He, however, added that Mr Duke has the right to be a member of
the party.

In a letter
addressed to the Cross River State Chairman of the PDP and dated April
29, Mr Duke described his former party as, “dysfunctional, unable to
articulate a road map and lead Nigerians on a clear and concise path to
national renewal.” He later revealed how politicians rigged elections
in the country after he publicly declared his ambition to run for the
presidential elections in 2011.

“I know he intends to play a major role in 2011 but I don’t know under which platform,” Mr Anyanwu said.

Party with brand name

Mr Anyanwu also
denied having any talks with Nuhu Ribadu, another presidential
candidate; but spoke well of Mr Ribadu’s chairmanship of the Economic
and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC).

“In our party, we
don’t force people,” he said. “Labour Party is a brand name. We can
only talk to you, without being immodest, that you are in the wrong
place; why not come and run under our platform? Some have moved, but we
don’t pressurize people because if you pressurize them, they may jump
out when things get worse.” Mr Anyanwu, however, said his party has got
four “solid” presidential candidates from which one will emerge after
serious screening.

He added that his
party, unlike the PDP, was not bothered about which region in the
country the candidate was born, but is rather focused on a candidate
who will deliver an already mapped out blue print to prosper Nigeria.

“What is important and paramount to us is to have a presidential
candidate that can stand the test of time and understands Nigeria and
that is ready to work. We don’t want a situation where we have a
candidate who does not understand Nigeria but because he is from one
part of the country, he is voted into office,” he said.

The Commissioner
for Health in Ogun State, Kunle Salako yesterday officially joined the
governorship race for 2011 in the state under the banner of the ruling
Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).

Mr Salako was among
12 other aspirants who scaled through a screening exercise conducted by
a committee from the Ogun West Senatorial District (Yewa/Awori axis),
following agitation by the zone to be the one to provide the next
governor of the state.

Addressing a press
conference in Abeokuta about his ambitions, the commissioner explained
that he had made a number of consultations before entering into the
race, adding that his zone cannot continue to play second fiddle in the
affairs of the state since its creation.

“I took my time to consult with my family, God and my kinsmen, and resolved that we can’t always sit on the fence,” he said.

“One must come out to be part of the process, and I am not afraid. This is a divine assignment I can’t turn away.”

Uplift the state

He said if elected
into office, he would facilitate the return of business to the state
and would also continue to handle the fund burden.

“If I am given the opportunity to rule, I would not disappoint the electorate who offer me the opportunity,” he said.

Mr Salako said the electorate in the state are his political
godfathers, whom he believes will rally round him with both cash and
votes. “I am not a rich man, but if the entire Ogun State believes in
me, they would raise money for the project,” he said. “My coming to
contest is not to antagonize anybody, but to tell the public that I am
capable and competent to rule. All electorate in Ogun State are my
godfathers. If they give the opportunity to rule, I must not disappoint
my godfathers.”

Following their poor performance at the
interview arranged for their promotion, some local government officials
in Oyo State have been demoted.

Chairman of the state local government
service, Kola Gbadamosi, said the affected workers, who were in grade
level 13, were examined for promotion to the position of administration
staff, but had to be demoted to level 07 because of their dismal
performance at the interview.

He said though they were well aware of
the implication of not performing to the expectation before taking the
test, the demoted officers still went ahead to try their luck.

According to him, the exercise was carried out to raise the standard of the state local government service.

Mr. Gbadamosi explained that among the
number that took the interview, only 30 percent failed, adding that
they still have the opportunity to re-sit next year.

He posited that since about 70 percent
of the staff who took the examination passed and were promoted, it
shows that the intelligent quotient of the workers is high.

“On the whole, about 4,000 local
government staff on level 06 upwards adjudged to be suitably qualified
for promotion, were promoted to the next ranks/posts and salary grade
levels in the various cadres in the local government service in the
state,” he said.

Optimum productivity

On conformity to the rules guiding
their job, the chairman said members of the commission paid unscheduled
visits to some of the local government secretariat to see how well the
staff do their work according to the rules, saying appropriate
sanctions have been imposed on some of the workers who were found
wanting in the area.

Training in reputable tertiary
institutions, he said, have been approved for a number of workers under
the care of the commission, adding that the move became necessary to
ensure optimum productivity. Such an effort was also replicated for the
directors of personnel management and finance, who were sent abroad for
further requisite trainings.

He said the commission is facing the
challenge of lack of funds to engage in training and capacity building
for sub-professional and core-professional staff of the commission,
while the available accommodation for its secretariat staff remains
inadequate.