No LG Chairman Threatens to Resign in Niger STATE - ALGCON

The attention of the Association of Local Government Chairmen of Nigeria (ALGCON) in the state has been drawn to a malicious and untrue report in the National Mirror and Peoples Daily of Wednesday 9th March, 2016 titled "Niger Councils' Chairmen decry poor funding, threaten to quit" and "Niger LG Chairmen warns Gov. Bello over non funds release". The report is not only untrue but lacked the basic journalistic component of attribution. Out of the 25 local government chairmen, the reporters failed to get any one thereby reducing the report to a mere armchair or pepper soap joint story concocted by the sponsors and the authors of the story. The forum viewed the report as a deliberate attempt by the sponsors and the authors of the report to set the forum at a war path with our highly esteemed and respected leader and Governor, Alhaji Abubakar Sani Bello. We make bold to say that at no time since our inauguration as the chieftains of our councils have we met to discuss, resolved and threatening to resign due to non-release of local government funds. It will be necessary at this juncture to point out that the forum since inception had met only once at the instance of Governor Abubakar Sani Bello in Government House. Our deliberations with the governor were so rewarding as he (the governor) advised us on how best to run the affairs of the councils; how to improve on our internally generated revenue and how to ensure development of our councils. The meeting ended cordially and there was no descending view or complain by any of our members. It is on this note that the forum wish to categorically dissociate itself from the report as no such decision was taken. It should be noted that the life time of the forum members is too young to be engaging in any media war. We are all members of the All Progressives Congress (APC) and will not have resorted to press if at all, there is any problem. We have no problem with the state government and our confidence in the leadership of Governor Abubakar Sani Bello is unshaking. We therefore demand for immediate retraction of the story by the two papers that published papers that published the malicious and alarming story within the next 72 hours or the forum may be forced to take action deemed necessary in the interest of the integrity of our members. Let me also cease this opportunity to advice our gentlemen of the Press to ensure strict adherence to ethics of journalism practice. The Press no doubt contributed immensely to the change we all clamored for. As a principal stakeholder, you should not be party to truncating this so much cherished change.