Eight Councilors Impeach Council Chairman in Niger

Eight out of the 11 councilors in Paikoro Local Government Area of Niger State have impeached the council Chairman, Mr. Yohanna Yakubu. The impeachment, which took place last Monday, followed what the councilors described as "abuse of office, gross dereliction of duty and abscondment from duty." The Leader of the legislative Assembly, Mrs. Lyatu Yohanna, told journalists that all the eight councilors present at the sitting signed the impeachment notice while the remaining three did not attend the sitting. According to Yohanna, the impeached chairman could not account for several millions of naira Internally Generated Revenue (IGR) by the council when asked to do so. In addition, she said the councilors accused the chairman of abandoning his office for almost six months and had remained in incommunicado with only the council accountant and treasurer allegedly able to communicate with him. She said the legislative arm of the local government area asked the impeached chairman to also account for the relief materials either donated to the council or bought by the council to cushion the negative effect of the COVID-19 outbreak, but has failed to do so. Yohana said: "His inability to account for millions of naira accruing to the council as IGR; his deliberate refusal to make public to the legislatures the income and expenditures of the council since inception to date, among other allegations are reasons why we impeached him. "We served him several letters with a view to enable him respond to these allegations but he refused to respond; he also refused to honour our invitations when we served him impeachment notice, so we were left with no other option than to impeach him." She said the attitude of the chairman has retarded the growth of the local government area, insisting that councils with less IGR in the state are performing better than their local government. The Assembly leader said: "With all these, we have no other option than to impeach him so that our local government area can make progress." All efforts to contact the embattled chairman was abortive as he did not respond to calls made to his cell phone. THISDAY, however, learnt that the impeached chairman has rushed to court praying that the councilors’ action be restrained.