Our Governor has given assurances that Local Government Area (LGA) elections will soon be conducted in Cross River State. He has also indicated that he will like to see people who are humble and desirous of serving their people emerge as Chairmen and not those who want to go and amass lucre. That is a good benchmark if you ask me. So all political parties should get ready.

If indeed, the allocations of the LGAs begin to go directly to the councils as directed by the Supreme Court, I wish to earnestly beg those who know nothing about governance, but want to enrich themselves from Council allocations, particularly in Obudu LGA, to desist from wasting their money on consultations and campaigns.

The reason is simply that, you won’t be able to steal. Even if you succeed in stealing, what you will pilfer won’t be much to make you rich. Because we will hold you accountable inch by inch. And let me tell you how. You may want to copy this in your LGA, if you find it useful.

1. Cross River State signed on to the Open Governance Project OGP, in 2020. That imposes a duty on government at all levels in the State to come clear on the activities of the government and put everything in the open.
2. LGA Chairmen do not have immunity. They can be sued while in office. They can even be jailed while in office.
3. We will track all income to the LGA from Abuja. All that information is available from the federal budget office and the office of the Accountant General of the Federation. All financial receipts to Obudu Council will be tracked diligently and meticulously.
4. We will officially write under the Freedom of Information (FOI) law, and demand for details of monthly FAAC allocations, monthly Internally Generated Revenue (IGR), record of expenditure vis-a-vis, salaries and allowances of LG workers, political appointees, health and primary school workers, traditional rulers.
5. We will officially write under the Freedom of Information FOI law, and demand for forensic examination of the total number of people on the LGA payroll and what their statutory pay is.
6. We will officially write under the Freedom of Information FOI law, and demand records of expenditure on LGA projects and interventions.
7. We anticipate that the LGA Chairman will be recalcitrant to respond to our demands, so we are also working already with Firsts Baba Isa Esq and his team, to ensure that we sue the Chairman and ask the Court to compel the Council to make all details of the Council’s income and expenditure available to the public who own the money.

We are prepared to file as many cases as can give us a victory on this. We believe that the courts will oblige. The judges aren’t dumb. God forbid!

8. We will create an Open Governance website and publicly document how the Chairman and his cabinet spend our money every month. Everyone from Obudu or anywhere in the world can simply log on to the portal any time of the day and see clearly how our money is working for us.
9. We will give real time, accurate, factual and objective reports of Obudu local government developmental strides and interventions.
10. If our money is misappropriated, embezzled or siphoned, we will drag the Obudu LGA Chairman to EFCC and ICPC. Remember the Chairman will not have immunity.
11. If the Chairman does well and develops Obudu, we will sing his or her praises to high heavens and roll the drums on the streets.

In my opinion, I think this is fair to the next Chairman of Obudu LGA. This will assist him or her to stay on track and concentrate on giving us value for money.

I hope you still want to run?

Yours sincerely,
Citizen Agba Jalingo.

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