Secret Reporters No place to hide
In a deliberate attempt to maneuver the 2017 appropriation budget, Governor Udom Emmanuel ordered that the 2017 budget be taken down from the official government websites; an act which has caused an uproar among the citizenry, and nobody has raised an eyebrow about it.
Secret Reporters investigations show that the budget was previously on the website up until the street protest organized by Barrister Inibehe Effiong against the building of a new governor’s lodge in Lagos. It’s safe to assume that the sudden disappearance of the budget is not unconnected with the protests and figures quoted for the new governors lodge in Lagos which stood at N9 billion (Nine billion naira).
This might be a ploy by the government to include/appropriate money for this white elephant project which has being widely rejected by well meaning citizens and also the “Orange September” celebrations to make the states 30th anniversary of which funds were not appropriated in the years budget.
Staff of the planning office has declined to speak on the matter for fear of being made a scapegoat. All efforts made by our reporters to reach the commissioner of information and other notable stakeholders proved abortive as the they didn’t respond to the phone calls put across nor reply the numerous text messages sent to their phones.
