In response to the viral screenshots of alleged salary alert received by some civil servants in Kogi State and the widespread reports of ridiculous percentage payment to the civil servants by the Kogi State government, officials have carried out bank verification of the transactions in the screenshots to ascertain their authenticity.
The reference numbers of some of the purported alerts revealed that they are fake and could have emanated from mischief-makers attempting to discredit the performance of governor Yahaya Bello in Kogi State or creating a malicious false impression of the governor as he is being called upon by Nigerians to declare interest for 2023 presidency.
According to the transaction tracking done by the officials of the government in the presence of some concerned citizens in undisclosed banks in Lokoja, the reference numbers in the viral screenshots including that of N2,500 are invalid.
The officials in a media briefing after the exercise monitored by journalists explained that no civil servant can earn N2,500 no matter the circumstances, not even those who most have taken one loan or the other, noting that there’s a benchmark for salaries for Civil Servants in the state.
They said they are aware that efforts are being made from certain quarters to frustrated the presidential ambition of Governor Bello by fake news, urging that the public should disregard such unverifiable stories on social media.
The delegates additionally disclosed that the Kogi Civil service before the coming of Governor Yahaya Bello was a huge mess, to the level that the government of Bello met a huge wage bill and a huge debt. This was a result of an undefined salary structure and over-bloated service compounded by ghost workers and indiscriminate recruitment of people into the civil service with no regard for due processes but political compensation. The governor was able to reform the civil service and cleared backlogs.
On what the public should do whenever such doctored information comes their way, they said the state civil service board is always there to clarify everyone on all matters relating to salaries, adding that Kogi civil service is automated enabling salaries to be paid before the 28th of every month since the removal of ghost workers in 2016.
