I’m the whistleblower – Suspended council boss

Suspended council boss of Estako West local government area, of Edo state Mr. Yakubu Musa, has insisted that he exposed salary fraud before he was suspended.

Musa, whose suspension has sparked protest in Auchi, was suspended last week for allegedly paying ghost workers over N46m and increasing monthly wage bill up to N6m at a time no new staff was employed.

Speaking to our reporter on the phone, Musa said he exposed the fraud by writing a petition to the Edo State Information and Communication Technology agency. Musa said officials of the agency visited the council and did not uncover anything until he checked manually.

He alleged that two names found to be illegally collecting salaries from the council coffers were inputted by ICT officials that carried out staff biometrics.

According to him, “What they are saying is not correct. I am the whistleblower. This ongoing protest was not organised by me. I do not know anything about it.

“We don’t do payment manually. We pay online through ICT. They should explain how the names fall into the payroll. I asked the ICT to check infrature and they came but didn’t see anything.”