A newly formed group allegedly been funded by Delta state governor, Ifeanyi Okowa, “Legacy Group” has described what it called as media attack on governor Okowa by Cairo Ojougboh as self serving and unpatriotic, saying the governor has managed well the Paris club refund as well as taking delivering of dividends of democracy, especially infrastructure to a high level.
HardReporters could recalled that in recent times, Mr. Ojougboh who is pilots the affairs of the state’s All Progressives Congress, (APC) leaders council has levelled allegations of corruption and looting of the state treasury especially the Paris Club Refund against governor Okowa.
Briefing Journalists Wednesday at Chadef Hotels, Asaba, the Vice President and National Leader of “Legacy Group”, Chris Okobah, noted that as a non-governmental, political pressure group, “As our name suggests, our focus is to monitor developments and evaluate legacies of our leaders especially here in Delta State, which is our primary constituency with a view to ensuring that our people, that is the electorate get value from those who have been saddled with the responsibility of leading them.”
According to Mr. Okobah, “We consider the recent attacks in the media on the person and office of Governor Ifeanyi Okowa by a one time member of his party the PDP, Dr Cairo Ojougbo as self-serving and unpatriotic. It is on this premise that we are challenging the issues raised by Dr. Ojougbo who until recently was in the same party with the Governor before he jumped into the APC.
“Those of us in the Legacy Group have taken time to investigate the controversy surrounding the deployment of Paris Club Refund across States and we found the Government of Delta State to have scored high. I am sure that most of you here must have read in the newspapers the total sum the State got on account of the Paris Club Refund in the three tranches and how it was distributed. Hence, we consider the alarm raised by Dr. Ojougbo in which he alleged improper management of the Paris Club refund as a non-issue.
“We believe the reason Dr. Ojougbo raised this false alarm is to distract the Government and that is our concern as a group focussed on the overall development of the people. Dr. Ojougbo’s allegation of a blank budget is another issue we consider unreasonable, unrealistic and unpatriotic. Apart from the fact that a blank budget cannot exist otherwise it is not a budget, every well-meaning person can attest to the fact that the Delta State 2017 budget was publicly presented in November 2016, passed in February 2017 and signed into law in March 2017 as reported in various media.
“The sectoral allocations in that budget were also well captured in those media reports so the views of Dr Ojougbo in this regard appears self-serving and not targeted at promoting peace and tranquillity, which is the bedrock of development. Again that is why we are concerned. We also tried to find out why Dr. Ojougbo is not seeing the positive efforts of the administration.
“Our investigation revealed that he had asked the Governor to allow him be in control of his Ika South Local Government in terms of elective offices and appointments, without adherence to democratic principles. But the Governor would not accede to such an undemocratic request. Rather, he encouraged him to follow democratic principles, which obviously didn’t go down well with Dr. Ojougboh.” adding that “So far, we are convinced that Dr. Cairo Ojougbo has not been objective, as there seems not to be any element of patriotism in his outbursts.”
