Posted by By Emma Una /Calabar on
The year 2009 began on a bad note for Andem Bassey, the bearded chairman of Calabar South Local Government Council of Cross River state, after aggrieved councillors and their thugs manhandled him.
The year 2009 began on a bad note for Andem Bassey, the bearded chairman of Calabar South Local Government Council of Cross River state, after aggrieved councillors and their thugs manhandled him.
The councillors stormed his home at the State Housing Estate, Calabar, and forced their way through the gate and had the man thoroughly beaten for not paying their December salaries to enable them celebrate Christmas and New Year.
'We had a very rough time during the Christmas. Salaries were not paid, and the chairman was nowhere to be found in spite of the fact that he promised to pay some of our allowances to enable us reach out to our supporters and our families during the yuletide period,' a councillor, representing one of the wards, told P.M.News.
According to the councillor, who did not want his name mentioned, most council chairmen in the state gave money to their councillors to celebrate the season, but that of Calabar South 'bluntly refused. Is it his money or is he claiming that it was his personal money that he used in celebrating the season? Christmas in Calabar is a serious affair and any politician that fails to reach out to his people that period is considered to have failed.'
The chairman, who is now receiving treatment at Glory Infirmaries, a private medical centre, told P.M.News, on phone, that he tried to get some money for the councillors but all his efforts did not yield fruit.
'I did my best but could not raise the money for them. Was that my fault?' he queried. An aide of the chairman's, however, said the councillors were only being 'unreasonable. Did they assault the man because he is a bank?. They ought to have known where to direct their grievances, the Ministry of Finance that failed to make salaries available.'
Engineer Andem has not been having it easy since the last quarter of 2008. First, the students in the council area carried placards in December, protesting the inability of the council to remit money for payment of their bursaries and scholarships. In December, also, the council, considered the hotbed of crisis in the state, was restive with a series of conflicts taking place there.