By Peter Duru

MAKURDI — Councillors in Ogbadibo local council of Benue State are presently at dagger drawn with the council chairman for allegedly mismanaging the recently released excess crude funds.

This was coming after repeated warnings from the Benue State government to invoke necessary sanctions against local government council leadership in the state that pilfer the excess crude funds released to the councils for development purposes.

The councillors who have commenced impeachment proceeding against the council chairman, Mr. Clement Agada, are also venting their anger on the chairman for his alleged total disregard for the principles of accountability and transparency in the handling of the council’s funds.

The aggrieved  councillors reached the decision after a committee set up to investigate the management of the last allocation of excess crude totalling N78 million released to the council in December discovered that the council chairman allegedly misapplied the funds.

Aside the impeachment proceedings, the local government legislative council under the leadership of Mr. Julius Ali has directed the immediate freezing of the council’s account in three commercial banks to forestall further illegal withdrawals from the affected accounts.

For now the only authorised withdrawal is for the payment of workers’ salaries to save the council workers the agony unleashed by the crisis. 

Meanwhile, Vanguard gathered that the council legislature has set up a committee to critically examine the chairman’s actions in the last few months with a few to recommending necessary punitive measures, aside the already commenced impeachment notice.

Vanguard further gathered that crisis erupted in the local government council few days ago when aggrieved youths confronted the chairman in a public function where they allegedly accused him of sharing the excess crude funds meant for the development of the area amongst councillors and political godfathers.

The incident which sparked a protest action against the council leadership drew the ire of councillors who in a bid to save their neck commenced an impeachment proceeding against the council chairman.
According to a staff of the Council who spoke on grounds of anonymity, it was alleged that Ogbadibo received about N78 million as excess crude funds from the state government last December and of the fund, the council Chairman allegedly disbursed N2 million each to the 13 councillors in the area.