More confiscations coming? Kwara governor alleges previous govt sold off 110 state properties

Kwara State Governor, Abdulrahman Abdulrazaq, on Monday alleged the immediate past administration in the state sold off 110 properties in the state, including the Deputy Governor’s house.

The governor also claimed that 75 percent of the state allocation from the Federation Account was used for payment of workers’ salaries and other emoluments.

Abdulrazaq, who spoke to State House correspondents after meeting with President Muhammadu Buhari at the Presidential Villa, Abuja, described Kwara State financial situation as precarious and totally unacceptable.

The governor was reportedly summoned by President Buhari over the controversy that had trailed the demolition of former Senate president, Bukola Saraki’s family property in Ilorin, the state capital.

He said: “I have explained all these to Mr. President and I have told him that we want to concentrate on agriculture because the money coming from Abuja for our local governments goes into paying of salaries. The money coming from Abuja to the state government at least 75 percent of it goes into payment of salaries.

“It’s so painful, we have to develop alternative means of generating revenue and that is why we have to be enterprising in the way we do our things

“I came to see the President to wish him good tiding for the new year and also with a shopping list because our state is in dire straits. When we got in, there was total collapse in the state starting from education. Our four colleges of education were on strike for a year.

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“The government was owing to teachers about N750 million. Thank God we have been able to clear that. UBEC had blacklisted Kwara State since 2013. So it shows you that there had not been any investment in the education sector.

“But we have been able to clear the liabilities. We paid UBEC N450 million which was misappropriated by the previous administration. We are good to go with UBEC.

“We need federal intervention, we need federal help. UNICEF has left Kwara, we are lagging behind in everything. We have to pay close to a billion in counterpart funding which the previous administration had not paid. I mean funding for polio and roll back malaria, among others.

“When we got in there was no running water at all in any city in Kwara State. Today in Ilorin, the state capital within two months we have water running in the taps and some of the major towns too. It’s an ongoing process but the basic thing like water is something that is very important and dear to our programmes”.

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