Gov Ahmed Denies Rift with Saraki Over Eid Attack, Also Says Saraki Not In Control Of Kwara’s Finance

                                               The Governor with the Senate president

The Kwara State Governor, Alhaji Abdulfatah Ahmed has
rejected as false, malicious and unfounded, the story published by
Saharareporters.com on Friday, 25th September, 2015 which claimed that Senate
President, Dr. Bukola Saraki blamed him for miscreants’ attack on dignitaries
at the Ilorin Eid Prayer Ground last Thursday.

In a statement issued in Ilorin, the Kwara State Capital,
Dr. Muyideen Femi Akorede, the Senior Special Assistant on Media and
Communications to Governor Ahmed, said that at no time did the Senate President
accuse the state governor of leaving him vulnerable to attack by the miscreants
at the Eid Prayer Ground, Ilorin, neither did Governor Ahmed blame Dr. Saraki
for the miscreants’ attack on dignitaries, Akorede said.

Describing the report’s claim that Senator Saraki got
N1billion out of the N4.3b bail-out loan received by the state government from
the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) as preposterous, malicious and provocative,
Akorede said the Senate President neither received any kobo out of the money
which was fully used to pay the two-months salary arrears owed State Civil
Servants in August, 2015 nor any other money from the state government.

He stressed further that Dr. Saraki is fully preoccupied
with onerous task of law making and providing leadership at the National
Assembly and has no time to either interfere with or control the state’s
finances which are fully under the jurisdiction of the state government and its
authorized officials.

Confirming that majority of state government workers, local
government employees and teachers received their salaries a day before the Eid
celebrations, Akorede stressed that Alhaji Ahmed’s decision, like most
Nigerians, to observe the Eid prayers in Share, his home town rather than
Ilorin, was driven by a desire to spend time with the people, rather than by
security reports of a possible attack.

Continuing, Akorede said Dr. Saraki attended the Ilorin Eid
Ground on Thursday not in defiance of any security reports or for any publicity
stint as was reported but in fulfilment of his religious obligation as his
popularity in Kwara State is not in doubt.

“As the state’s political leader who is well loved by
the people, Dr Saraki  does not need to
prove his popularity or induce people to demonstrate their support for him
through radio announcement as was insinuated by Saharareporters”, Akorede
said.

According to him, Saraki’s popular appeal is so strong that
people come out of their own volition in huge numbers to welcome him every time
he visits Ilorin.

Accusing the medium of grasping at straws, the statement
also dismissed the claim that Dr. Saraki was displeased with the Governor’s
media team for releasing a statement condemning the attack on dignitaries at
the Eid Ground. It described the insinuation as a clear manifestation of a
fruitless effort to embellish falsehood with a semblance of truth. 

“Truly and convincingly, the report could only have
been stirred up by disgruntled elements, threatened by the peace and harmony in
the state with the sole aim of creating disaffection by the state government
and the good people of the state”, Akorede stressed.

Akorede therefore urged SaharaReporters’ to insulate itself
from partisan politics but endeavor to balance its reports instead of relying
on fallacious accounts of events or wicked fabrications that lack facts or
substance.