On October 6, 2023, Leke Abejide, the gubernatorial candidate of the African Democratic Congress (ADC) in Kogi state, who doubles as the member representing the Yagba federal constituency in the House of Representatives, was the guest on Channels TV’s Politics Today. While answering questions on his candidacy, he made a claim on salary payment for Kogi Local Government workers.
Abejide said, “I want to be governor to correct so many things. One, to ensure full autonomy for Local Government whereby all our Local Government workers will be getting their salaries in full.” Seun Okinbaloye then asked; “Is that not happening right now?” He replied, “It is not happening right now. The situation is that they are on percentage payment right now. You don’t even know. No staff of Local Government can say this is what they are receiving. Because this month, you can get 15% and next month, you can get 20%.”
Abejide added that the percentage payment has been in existence for a long time now. He said, “I think this started from the time of Wada when it was about 4 months to leave office and up till now, workers are not getting their full salaries.”
Claim: Kogi State Local Government workers are on percentage salary payment
Verification:
Kogi State has 21 Local Government Areas spread across the three senatorial districts. The CDD War Room found that in May 2023, the Kogi State NLC Chairman, Gabriel Amari, urged the incumbent governor, Yahaya Bello, to address issues relating to the payment of percentage salaries to local government workers and primary school teachers in the state.
We found that in May 2023, Dino Melaye, the governorship candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), assured public servants in the State that he would end the traumatising percentage salary payment system. He made the statement during his visits to the Traditional Rulers and Council of Chiefs of Mopa-Amuro, Yagba-East and Yagba-West Local Government Areas of the State in their respective headquarters.
We also found a statement that dates back to March 13, 2022, credited to Dayo Onibiyo, PDP’s Director for Media and Communications. He said, “We are worried at these so embarrassingly low and inhuman payments, which are amounting to nothing but added debts to the state profile…..” He expressed worry at the percentage payment of salaries at both the Local Government and State levels.
The CDD War Room found that the percentage payment of salaries dates back to 2015 when Idris Wada was the governor of Kogi state. We found a news report that as at March 2016, Wada was owing core state workers three months salaries, while local government workers and primary school teachers were being owed over 20 months’ salaries.
We reached out to our fixer and some Local Government workers in the state who confirmed that they do not get paid their full salaries due to the percentage payment.
Verdict: TRUE
The CDD War Room can confirm that Local Government workers in Kogi State are being paid percentage salaries. We found that the payment of percentage salaries dates back to 2015 when Idris Wada, the former governor was still in power. The percentage payment has since then been paid to the Local Government workers.