I have no child out of wedlock -Gov Chime
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- Category: Inside politics
- Written by Tony Adibe, Enugu
- Hits: 3329
Enugu State Governor Sullivan Chime has been dogged by several controversies among which are his alleged sexual escapades, use of volunteer teachers in public schools and handpicking of chairmanship candidates for the forth coming December election. He shed light on these and other matters at a session with journalists in Enugu. Excerpts:
On alleged sex scandalYou did not even finish the story. The originators of the scandal also wrote about a non-existent Permanent Secretary living behind the Government House. I have tried to find out if there is anybody who fits into such a description; no such human being exists. And they have written about how I was beaten up mercilessly.
When you hear such stories, you don’t even bother about coming here to ask me questions. You go and verify. The young lady they talked about...if you are interested...I’m sure you will be seeing around; I can tell you sitting down here, she’s one of the most descent human beings I’ve ever seen. Why they chose to rubbish her, I do not know.
The truth is that no such thing happened. Nothing resembling it happened. Nobody has any baby boy for me outside wedlock. As a matter of fact, the young girl in the centre of the controversy is getting married this December and was actually staying with the young man when they alleged she was in my home in the village nursing a baby boy for me. So it is all nonsense.
They also alleged that I bought Piccanto cars for all the girls in Enugu but they have not been able to point to at least one such beneficiary and I would like to know them.
So, you stay in Enugu and you hear such stories. The first thing you do is to look for the Piccantos; know if they exist. In fact, I think they said it was even Piccanto jeeps and I don’t know of any car we can refer to as Piccanto jeep. They are just writing all sorts of nonsense, taking advantage of the internet to publish nonsense.
Unfortunately and regrettably, some local magazines have also made the mistake of publishing those articles and of course, my lawyers are at work. We will get to those ones we can reach.
So, that is the price we pay for occupying such offices. Whenever you see me, try to make me happy because so many things make us unhappy.
On oil subsidy
I am sure you know the stand of governors on subsidy. It is not quite the spirit with which the subsidy was agreed upon that it would be implemented.
The states are complaining that the federal government or the NNPC is actually taking more than what is allowed by law, and is well beyond what a country can afford. In fact this month alone, I understand they took N100billion, NNPC; and then the PPPR or one other agency took about N131billion. Just this month, we hear there was controversy over that.
So, the federal government or the NNPC is actually going well beyond the arrangement made. Now like you rightly said, it is quite sad that after all these years, we’re still talking of importing petroleum. All the monies withdrawn under subsidy...if the federal government had invested it on rebuilding our refineries, I’m sure we would have had all our refineries working today.
Nevertheless, it is still a good suggestion and we are still talking.
Volunteer teachers in Enugu
You notice that since we came in, we have been employing teachers. We have employed young teachers. Once we advertise, everybody who is jobless will claim to be a teacher and will go for the interview. And we employ them, send them to the villages and the following day, they are back in town.
So, we have been employing and at the end of the day, we will not see the people we employed. So, it became a problem and because of that, we decided to look inwards. We observed that we have many of our retired teachers who are still strong and who are still willing to render services.
Most of them are in the villages now; on their own, they are no longer interested in coming to town for any other greener pasture or whatever. So we decided to engage them; at least to ensure that they remain in the villages where they can render their services.
Also there are communities like Akama-Oghe in Udi local government area; if you don’t employ people from that community, nobody will go there. So that is the only way schools in such communities can have teachers.
However, that does not stop us from recruiting regular ones. We are still recruiting. I don’t know if they’ve published the final list. We are also employing the regular teachers at least to have a mixture of both.
Arrest of labour leaders
There was an observation that some workers have not been fully paid for the month of September. The question is, did these workers also work fully in that month? No responsible government anywhere in the world will pay you for any work not done. So, if you choose to go on a strike especially for no reason, you are on your own. In Enugu state, the labour leaders took the workers out on strike for no reason; they were alleging nonpayment of the minimum wage. And not minding that they were even on strike, we used the skeletal services that we had at the time and made sure we paid on the 26th as usual despite all these things.
It is on record that throughout the southeast, and I make bold to say it, Enugu state was the only state that paid minimum wage as agreed upon in August. We did not just stop there; we also reached an agreement with labour that we will pay the arrears in October. However, because of what we may call windfall and the pressure being mounted; at the end of the day, we felt we still had enough money to pay the arrears. We felt there was no sense in waiting for October; we paid all the arrears in August.
However, what we got in return was that the national leadership of the NLC, TUC and whatever names they answer; they came here and took our workers out on strike. Meanwhile, these people came from states that have not paid their own minimum wage, and they all came here and you (journalists) were hailing them, workers were hailing them.
So, the workers went on strike for no reason. Thank God they have seen reason to go back to work. So they wasted September. The earnings we ought to have made in September; we did not get. So, we had no money to pay them. You work and you get paid. So there’s no sentiment about it. We made it clear before they embarked on the strike. So, it did not come to them as a shock. We‘ve had precedent before; they are not the first people. We begged them not to go on strike, warned them on the likely consequences but they just decided to go on strike. So, if tomorrow the labour leaders ask workers to go on strike, I expect the workers to ask questions. Why are we going on strike?
On rape of old women
This is very strange. If you look at the age bracket of the victims, it’s quite strange. The culprits, to me, should be examined. I don’t think they are well; they must be sick upstairs. It’s not normal why teenagers should be after 62 and 80 years old women, except of course we are told that the young girls have fled the community. If not, you can’t explain this type of thing.
But what we are sure is that government is not taking the issue of rape kindly. Of course, you know the punishment for rape. So it is serious enough and anybody caught will be dealt with. Rape is a life jail offence. So, if a boy of 18 years wants to go to jail for life for playing with an 80-year old woman, so be it. It’s unfortunate.
Articles
I have no child out of wedlock -Gov Chime
Category: Inside politics Written by Tony Adibe, Enugu Hits: 3329
Enugu State Governor Sullivan Chime has been dogged by several controversies among which are his alleged sexual escapades, use of volunteer teachers in public schools and handpicking of chairmanship candidates for the forth coming December election. He shed light on these and other matters at a session with journalists in Enugu. Excerpts:
On alleged sex scandalYou did not even finish the story. The originators of the scandal also wrote about a non-existent Permanent Secretary living behind the Government House. I have tried to find out if there is anybody who fits into such a description; no such human being exists. And they have written about how I was beaten up mercilessly.
When you hear such stories, you don’t even bother about coming here to ask me questions. You go and verify. The young lady they talked about...if you are interested...I’m sure you will be seeing around; I can tell you sitting down here, she’s one of the most descent human beings I’ve ever seen. Why they chose to rubbish her, I do not know.
The truth is that no such thing happened. Nothing resembling it happened. Nobody has any baby boy for me outside wedlock. As a matter of fact, the young girl in the centre of the controversy is getting married this December and was actually staying with the young man when they alleged she was in my home in the village nursing a baby boy for me. So it is all nonsense.
They also alleged that I bought Piccanto cars for all the girls in Enugu but they have not been able to point to at least one such beneficiary and I would like to know them.
So, you stay in Enugu and you hear such stories. The first thing you do is to look for the Piccantos; know if they exist. In fact, I think they said it was even Piccanto jeeps and I don’t know of any car we can refer to as Piccanto jeep. They are just writing all sorts of nonsense, taking advantage of the internet to publish nonsense.
Unfortunately and regrettably, some local magazines have also made the mistake of publishing those articles and of course, my lawyers are at work. We will get to those ones we can reach.
So, that is the price we pay for occupying such offices. Whenever you see me, try to make me happy because so many things make us unhappy.
On oil subsidy
I am sure you know the stand of governors on subsidy. It is not quite the spirit with which the subsidy was agreed upon that it would be implemented.
The states are complaining that the federal government or the NNPC is actually taking more than what is allowed by law, and is well beyond what a country can afford. In fact this month alone, I understand they took N100billion, NNPC; and then the PPPR or one other agency took about N131billion. Just this month, we hear there was controversy over that.
So, the federal government or the NNPC is actually going well beyond the arrangement made. Now like you rightly said, it is quite sad that after all these years, we’re still talking of importing petroleum. All the monies withdrawn under subsidy...if the federal government had invested it on rebuilding our refineries, I’m sure we would have had all our refineries working today.
Nevertheless, it is still a good suggestion and we are still talking.
Volunteer teachers in Enugu
You notice that since we came in, we have been employing teachers. We have employed young teachers. Once we advertise, everybody who is jobless will claim to be a teacher and will go for the interview. And we employ them, send them to the villages and the following day, they are back in town.
So, we have been employing and at the end of the day, we will not see the people we employed. So, it became a problem and because of that, we decided to look inwards. We observed that we have many of our retired teachers who are still strong and who are still willing to render services.
Most of them are in the villages now; on their own, they are no longer interested in coming to town for any other greener pasture or whatever. So we decided to engage them; at least to ensure that they remain in the villages where they can render their services.
Also there are communities like Akama-Oghe in Udi local government area; if you don’t employ people from that community, nobody will go there. So that is the only way schools in such communities can have teachers.
However, that does not stop us from recruiting regular ones. We are still recruiting. I don’t know if they’ve published the final list. We are also employing the regular teachers at least to have a mixture of both.
Arrest of labour leaders
There was an observation that some workers have not been fully paid for the month of September. The question is, did these workers also work fully in that month? No responsible government anywhere in the world will pay you for any work not done. So, if you choose to go on a strike especially for no reason, you are on your own. In Enugu state, the labour leaders took the workers out on strike for no reason; they were alleging nonpayment of the minimum wage. And not minding that they were even on strike, we used the skeletal services that we had at the time and made sure we paid on the 26th as usual despite all these things.
It is on record that throughout the southeast, and I make bold to say it, Enugu state was the only state that paid minimum wage as agreed upon in August. We did not just stop there; we also reached an agreement with labour that we will pay the arrears in October. However, because of what we may call windfall and the pressure being mounted; at the end of the day, we felt we still had enough money to pay the arrears. We felt there was no sense in waiting for October; we paid all the arrears in August.
However, what we got in return was that the national leadership of the NLC, TUC and whatever names they answer; they came here and took our workers out on strike. Meanwhile, these people came from states that have not paid their own minimum wage, and they all came here and you (journalists) were hailing them, workers were hailing them.
So, the workers went on strike for no reason. Thank God they have seen reason to go back to work. So they wasted September. The earnings we ought to have made in September; we did not get. So, we had no money to pay them. You work and you get paid. So there’s no sentiment about it. We made it clear before they embarked on the strike. So, it did not come to them as a shock. We‘ve had precedent before; they are not the first people. We begged them not to go on strike, warned them on the likely consequences but they just decided to go on strike. So, if tomorrow the labour leaders ask workers to go on strike, I expect the workers to ask questions. Why are we going on strike?
On rape of old women
This is very strange. If you look at the age bracket of the victims, it’s quite strange. The culprits, to me, should be examined. I don’t think they are well; they must be sick upstairs. It’s not normal why teenagers should be after 62 and 80 years old women, except of course we are told that the young girls have fled the community. If not, you can’t explain this type of thing.
But what we are sure is that government is not taking the issue of rape kindly. Of course, you know the punishment for rape. So it is serious enough and anybody caught will be dealt with. Rape is a life jail offence. So, if a boy of 18 years wants to go to jail for life for playing with an 80-year old woman, so be it. It’s unfortunate.