Posted by Abia State’s Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has issued a challenge to the state administration, demanding that it provide the identities and financial information of the recently uncovered phantom workers in state government.
The opposing party argued that they would only believe the discovery of phantom workers if their identities, bank information, and residences were made public.
Elder Amah Abraham, the Abia PDP Vice Chairman, issued the challenge on Tuesday night.
Abraham claimed that Governor Alex Otti and his party, the LP, fabricated the myth that 2,300 ghost workers were identified in the state’s civil service and that N220 million was saved in order to garner public sympathy and deflect attention from the serious business of government.
His full comment ran as follows: “The purported discovery of ghost workers without accompanying proof of the names and account numbers of the ghost beneficiaries is not only childish but a plot that leads to nowhere.”
The Abia People’s Democratic Party has issued a challenge to Governor Alex Otti and his team of discoverers, stating, “Abia PDP challenges Governor Alex Otti and his team of discoverers to publish the names of the over 2,000 ghost workers with their BVN numbers, addresses, and other details and ministries, departments, and agencies that purportedly employed them; to shame them and possibly bring them to justice.”
Abraham claims that during Okezie Ikpeazu’s government, no one was paid in cash since all financial transactions were handled through separate bank accounts that required a Bank Verification Number and other identifying information.
The Governor’s Special Adviser on Media and Publicity, Ferdinand Ekeoma, did not return calls seeking comment.
At the time of this report, he had also not responded to a WhatsApp message that had been sent to him.
But a prominent Labour Party member who did not wish to be named claimed that the PDP was merely drowning in its own self-imposed guilt.
The leadership of the LP suggested that the Abia opposition party let Governor Otti purge phantom workers from the State’s civil sector.