ALGON denies alleged plans to compromise Governorship Election Tribunal- By Paulinus Ogbonna

The Association of Local Government on Nigeria (ALGON), Ebonyi chapter has denied an allegation that it was making plans to compromise judicial officials of the Ebonyi State Governorship Election Petition Tribunal (GEPT) through monetary inducements to obtain undue favour for Gov. Francis Nwifuru of Ebonyi state.
The association on Tuesday in a statement reacted to an allegation credited to Mr Chika Nwoba, the state publicity secretary, of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) that it had mobilised N80 million each to bribe judges at the governorship tribunal to curry its favour.
The statement signed by the 13 LGA chairman of Ebonyi including Chief Ogodali Nomeh its chairman, urged the general public to disregard and discountenance the said allegation.
“The attention of ALGON Ebony State has been drawn to a fallacious, self-serving media publication by one Nwoba Chika wherein he falsely alleged that the 13 Local Government Chairmen had been directed to “forfeit” eighty million Naira (N80,000,000) each in pursuit of the Governorship Election Petition at the Tribunal in Abuja.
“He further alleged that the said Eighty Million (N80,000,000) each will be deducted at source from the June allocation of the various Local Government Areas.”
It added: ” ALGON wishes to expressly and unequivocally state as follows:
“That the above statement credited to Nwoba Chika Nwoba in his Facebook page exists only in the figment of his imagination as no such directive ever emanated from His Excellency, Rt. Hon. Francis Nwifuru, the Governor of Ebony State, either by himself, his agents or whosoever.
” That the June allocation to the Local Government Areas has not yet fallen due as to even mathematically determine its volume, usage and application, therefore, nobody or Local Government council Area is even sure of what returns will come from Joint Allocation Accounts Committee (JAAC) at the time of this misleading and fallacious publication.
” ALGON Ebonyi State will naturally have overlooked this huge joke and concentrated on its business of good governance as the third tier of government, but for the sake of the gullible and uninformed public who do not know the notorious and mischievous antecedents of the writer whose stock in trade is to cast aspersion on persons and government to achieve cheap popularity and put bread on his table.
“ALGON in Ebonyi State jointly and severally disassociates itself from the misleading allegation targeted at demeaning the credibility of the bureaucratic process of the state, especially, the Local Government System and call upon the imposter to either substantiate his claim with verifiable and empirical evidence or retract same forthwith.
“We the members of ALGON shall deploy all available means within the ambit of the law to defend its integrity while identifying and protecting the laudable programmes and policies of the State Government.
“We call on the good people of the state to discountenance this wicked and baseless fallacy calculated at distracting the smooth take-off of the current administration in Ebony State.” ENDS//