Comrade Philip Shaibu, the Edo State Deputy Governor, has warned Permanent Secretaries in the state government employ to be on the lookout to stop incidence of looting of government properties which may come up in the twilight of the outgoing administration of Governor Godwin Obaseki’s administration.
The deputy governor gave the warning at the end of a tour of the facilities at the Samuel Ogbemudia Stadium, Benin, which he undertook on Wednesday morning.
“We, politicians, some of you that were elected and those that are appointed are temporary staff. We have tenure when the tenure ends we go. The permanent people are the staff of the ministries and Permanent Secretaries.
“This is a warning to any Permanent Secretary that allows any commissioner or government appointee to take away any government property that they would be held responsible. So from today all Permanent Secretaries should take note that nobody should take away any government property. If anybody does that the Permanent Secretaries would be held responsible.”
On the dilapidated condition of the stadium, he said: “We have a government policy not to allow concerts in the stadium. And I drew his(unnamed government official) attention to the warranty we have on the stadium. The person told me that the governor has insisted that the concert(Rema homecoming) would be done there.
“I told him that the concert can be held at the Garrick Memorial field or at the Uniben Ekenwan Campus not in the stadium because of the warranty. Now you can see that the concert has done a serious damage to the stadium and the equipment therein.
“This hall that we are presently in is the dedicated gymastic hall. This is the best gymnastic hall in Nigeria with a suspended pit. You can see for yourself the dilapidation within one year. You put up a structure that was doing very well for five years. The only way that you can sustain maintenance in a facility like this is to bring activities there. If there’s no life in a facility it will definitely dilapidate. That’s what you’re seeing here.
“I am not happy at all. This is supposed to be one of our flagship projects. I was fully in charge of the facility for close to six years with no cost to the government. It was state of the art. International and national events were taking place here. The international gymnastics federation brought an international meet and training here.
“I just think we have a problem here. It’s not a government problem it’s an individual problem. To bring the facility back to shape we need to use Edo tax payers money to do that. You don’t bring your personal interest into government. This is what you get. It is wrong.”
Going further, Comrade Shaibu stated: “Take a look at the Tennis Central Court. And we want to produce athletes for the next Olympics when we cannot even maintain our facility that they will use to get prepared.”
On the reaction of Hon. Chris Nehikhare, the state Commissioner for Communication and Orientation, to his tour of some government projects on Monday, he stressed: “I cannot be replying to a comment made by my appointee. The Commissioner for Communication and Orientation is my appointee. Tne Office of the governor is one. Any appointment made by the Edo State Government is done by the governor and the deputy governor.
“So, I won’t want to reduce myself to the level of my appointee. Let me get something straight. He is not speaking for himself. He is speaking for Governor Godwin Obaseki. I want to let people know that by the time they finish work in Raddison Blu Hotel I will lead to occupy that facility until we determine the ownership of the hotel.
“Raddison Blu as I am aware belongs to Edo State Government. I want to tell Edo people that their tax payers money is what’s there. We don’t have minority shares.”
