As at press time, it was still foggy if the group that had threatened to drag Hon. Francise Maku and the entire leadership of Warri North LGA before either of the Code of Conduct Bureau or the Independent Corrupt Practices and other Related Offences Commission, (ICPC) over the illegal and unethical auctioning of Council’s vehicles without due processes had submitted a petition to that effect. In a chart with the group arrowhead who had pleaded anonymity, the group said it was high time we put a stop to the shenanigans of public office holders in the council area.
Hon. Francise Maku had recently expressed interest to run for the chairmanship position of the council area for a second term in office. A decision that has been gathering dust as a result of the gentleman agreement reached by members of Warri North Peoples’ Democratic Party, (PDP) that no aspirant should contest and preside over the council as chairman for two consecutive terms. Even though it was unconstitutional, the truth is that members had submitted to the said decision of the party in view of their members, party stalwarts informed this magazine.
The group, which also wanted their identity to be kept under wraps, further disclosed that it was illegal and unethical for a public officer to auction and purchase government properties for themselves without due processes, and that the excesses of Hon. Maku would be challenged by any means legal. When asked why they, ( the group) had not used court processes to stop Hon. Maku from auctioning the vehicles, he said the auction was a ‘scam’, a complete charade and a deliberate act to fool Warri North public. “In actual sense, there was no auction, what Hon. Maku and his Councilors did was a smoke screened assignment of those vehicles to themselves and their cronies”, he lamented.
A staff of the council who also pleaded anonymity further corroborated the account of the group that indeed, the chairman, his councilors and a few political appointees purchased the vehicles. The staff further revealed that the target of the auction was the 30 seater Coaster bus which was purchased by Hon. David Ewetan’ administration for the cost of a whopping N75 Million back in 2013. This reporter gathered that at the time the coaster bus was purchased, it was being sold for N31 Million. Speaking further, the staff sources disclosed that it took the timely intervention of the council’s staff to stop the inclusion of the coaster bus and one other commuter bus assigned to NUGE on the list of vehicles to be auctioned. She said that the workers threatened the chairman with a ‘lock out’ action to have him change his earlier intention of buying the coaster bus.
To get the chairman’s own side of the story, the reporter painstakingly tried to reach him on the phone. But each time that was done, his phone was either busy or not reachable. The text below was sent to his phone for reaction: “Sir, we text you from the stable of WarriMirror Magazine. There is a story alleging that you authorized the auctioning of Warri North vehicles without due process and justification. If true, we would have liked to hear your own side of the story. Thanks”. Unfortunately, the council boss refused to react to the allegation.
Not relenting, this reporter contacted the chairman’s aid on media matters known as Atu for reaction. Mr. Atu who introduced himself as one of the Media Assistants to the chairman when he spoke to this reporter on the 30th of September at about 11:52am, carpeted the allegation by first saying that it was the Delta state government that authorized the auction and not the chairman of the council as being misconceived by a section of Warri North public. He explained further that due processes were observed ‘because a committee was first put in place to look into the purported sales and reported back to chairman who in turn forwarded the report of the committee to Asaba for the approval of the state governor”. Speaking further, the Media Aid said that the affected “cars were ‘scraps’ and that they were constituting nuisance at the premises of the Koko secretariat of the council”. Further denying the allegation of the group that due processes were not observed, Mr. Atu rebuffed the group’s allegations calling them lies from the pit of hell. He said that the auction was advertised by the auctioneer on radio, even though he did not mention what and what radio station that advertised the auction. However, he insisted that the auction was widely advertised. Particularly, on, on 14th of July 2017 edition of The Pointer newspaper.
At the time of filing this report, we were able to gather that a total of 8 Toyota Corolla saloon cars, 2 Toyota Hilux trucks, 2 Toyota Hiace buses were sold. The affected Toyota corolla saloon cars were that of the Head of Personals (HPM), that of the Secretary to the local government (SLG), that of the Treasurer (TLG), that of the leader of the legislative arm, another assigned to the Head of the works department and one other that was assigned to one of the councilors. We also gathered that all the mentioned vehicles were in good condition at the time they were auctioned. This showed that Mr. Atu was being economical with the truth concerning the auctioning of the said vehicles. According to sources, the only broken down vehicles that were auctioned were 2 Toyota Corolla saloon cars, and one Hiace bus belonging to the legislative arm of the council, our sources further clarified. The source also revealed the chairman bought the 2 broken down Toyota Corolla saloon cars for himself while a female councilor representing Koko ward bought the white Hiace bus which had Warri North Legislative Arm boldly written on both sides of the body of the bus.
More annoyingly were the prices the vehicles were sold for. The source lamented that some of the Toyota Corolla saloon cars were sold for N150, 000 ( one hundred and fifty thousand naira only), while some of the Hiace buses was sold for N250, 0000 ( two hundred and fifty thousand naira only) as against the current market values of N2.8million and N4 Million at a ‘second hand state” respectively.
