Boki LG Chairman Faces Impeachment Over N15m Misappropriation

The crisis of confidence that have prevailed in Boki for almost one year now have snowballed into an impeachment threat on the Executive Chairman of Boki LGA Mr. Jonas Obi-Otu by the Councilors. Cross River Watch reliably learnt that the Boki Council Chairman has been so shaken that he is making frantic efforts at nipping the impending impeachment in the bud.

Crossriverwatch gathered impeccably that the Councilors are particularly miffed that while they were been starved of funds by the Executive Arm of the Council, the Chairman was allegedly siphoning council funds under spurious guises.

Some Councilors who spoke to crossriverwatch but would not want to be mentioned said “members of the Legislature where deliberately denied revenue generating sources, while Principal Officers of the Executive Arm were feeding fat on council funds alongside the Council Chairman. We are even more
annoyed that since the inception of the present administration, no member of the Legislature has been empowered through the award of any contract”.

One of the Councilors alleged that the Chairman was been tele-guided by forces outside Boki LGA in the discharge of his functions. He said “the Boki Council administration is being run by Calabar based members of the Integrity Faction of the People Democratic Party, (PDP)while it is a known fact that the Chairman emerged from the Boki Grassroots Movement, another faction of the PDP”. The legislature which was hitherto polarized along the two divides is being united to fight what the Councilors described as a common enemy.

The Councilors have vowed to impeach the Chairman over what they alleged as several impeachable offences that were tarnishing the image of Boki LGA. Only two weeks ago, the Councilors summoned the Chairman to appear before them and defend some unsubstantiated expenditure; especially the fifteen million Naira he allegedly expended in 2011 for an undisclosed epidemic.

A source at the session told crossriverwatch that the Chairman could not convince the Councilors who insisted on knowing the exact epidemic that befell the Council Area, the vaccines used and the source from which the vaccines were procured.

Unable to explain the actual epidemic on which he spent fifteen million Naira last year; Mr. Jonas Obi Otu, the Boki Chairman was quoted as telling the Councilors that he used the epidemic for the purpose of retiring the expenditure, but that the amount was actually spent to prosecute the second term campaign for Governor Liyel Imoke’s election. The Councilors were however said to have been given one million Naira largesse to share in order to allow the proverbial sleeping dogs to lie.

Though all the Councilors allegedly shared from the largesse, crossriverwatch gathered that seven of them have vowed to continue with the impeachment threat on the Chairman. It was gathered that some of the Councilors were still angry that the Chairman did not include their Wards in the projects that were captured in the 2012 budget estimates of the Council. This situation was said to have accounted for the delay in passing the 2012 budget by the Councilors until their observations were addressed.

Some of the aggrieved Councilors reminded crossriverwatch that it is a similar situation that played out and led to the eventual impeachment of the former Vice Chairman, Mr. Chris Ojong Ojonde, whose case is still a subjection of litigation.

The leader of Boki Legislature, Isaac Kekung denied knowledge of any impeachment threat on the Chairman and would not confirm or deny that the Chairman was ever summoned by the Legislature. But the Boki Council Chairman, Mr. Jonas Obi-Otu told crossriverwatch that he met the Councilors in Chambers two weeks ago but did not give details of the meeting. The Chairman on several occasions had acknowledged that the Councilors were warming up for a fight over what he said were mundane issues which were merely political.