*Audit reveals 7,000 ghost workers
* Rented crowd barricade State House
*The ‘Iron Lady’ connection
Anxiety mounted in Lagos political circles at the weekend over the fate of an ongoing audit of the accounts of Lagos Waste Management Authority (LAWMA), following a game of intrigues.
For several hours on Friday, a motley crowd of female protesters laid siege to State House, Marina and the family home of Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu on Lagos Island, claiming to be highway sweepers being owed arrears of wages.
Some of them had threatened to strip themselves publicly until they were dispersed by security agents.
But insiders told us the stunts were part of a last-ditch effort by a powerful clique to scuttle the official audit of LAWMA which had already exposed lots of shady deals in Ikorodu axis allegedly perpetrated by a major operator licensed by the agency.
In a surprise move last month, Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu had relieved Dr. Muyiwa Gbadegesin of duties as Managing Director/CEO of the agency and asked Mr. Ibrahim Odumboni to take over in acting capacity.
The new appointee and his predecessor were appointed last year by the Sanwo-Olu administration as part of measures to reposition LAWMA back to the original masterplan and clean up the “mess” precipitated by the “toxic” partnership the Ambode administration had earlier entered into with Visionscape.
Gbadegesin had experience in ICT, while the acting M.D is a financial guru who had worked in a top financial institution in the United Kingdom.
No explanation was given officially for Gbadegesin’s exit. However, competent sources told Alltimepost.com that the decision was taken by the governor, a financial guru himself, to allow an unimpeded forensic audit of LAWMA’s books following damning security reports detailing bare-faced looting of the agency.
But dissociating themselves from the “show of shame” at the Marina State House and the governor’s family home on Lagos Island, a group that called themselves “Concerned LAWMA Operators” squealed that the protesters were sponsored by vested interests with a view to stopping the governor from further probing LAWMA’s accounts.
Talking to a select group of journalists in Lagos, the group alleged that a lot of shady deals had been perpetrated in LAWMA. Said their spokesman: “To the best of our knowledge, genuine highway sweepers are being owed for the month of May only.
“The reason for the delay is because of the recent change of leadership at LAWMA. To tell the truth, the new leadership had cleared the backlog incurred by Gbadegesin almost as soon as they assumed office.
“We believe this is a sponsored protest to distract public attention and blackmail the new management from sustaining the ongoing audit of LAWMA which has revealed a lot of skeletons in the cupboard.”
Statutorily, LAWMA’s brief includes oversight of PSP operators, sweepers of highways, clearing of marine waste and market management, as well as the de-silting of the primary and secondary drainage.
No fewer than 600 operators are accredited by LAWMA and they, in turn, employ more than 16,000 sweepers and hundreds of supervisors. Or, so it is stated in the books.
Interestingly, our findings reveal that out of 16,000 workers, a whopping 7,000 have so far been unmasked as “ghost” through the ongoing forensic audit exercise.
For effective coverage of the state, LAWMA delineates the 20 councils and 37 development areas into routes and allocates such to licensed operators who, in turn, employ and assign sweepers and a supervisor on each route.
A sweeper earns a flat wage of N25, 000 month, while their supervisor receives N40, 000 per month.
Specifically, the sleaze reported to have been perpetrated in LAWMA involved the padding of the wage bill for highway sweepers and their supervisors for several months by a cartel allegedly led by a lady named Ms. Wuraola Williams (alias “Iron Lady”) who was said to be in the good books of some powerful political actors in the state.
With the 66 routes in her portfolio, the “Iron Lady” effectively controlled more than ten percent of the Lagos waste market.
To perfect the wage bill padding scam, it was learnt that funds appropriated to take care of other critical like marine service, public transport, drainage de-silting and used tyre clearance were cleverly diverted into offsetting the bogus wage bills, thereby leaving those equally essential needs to suffer.
Hijack of routes
Specifically, the “Concerned LAWMA Operators” alleged that more than half of the total of 66 “prime” routes controlled by the “Iron Lady” were “originally allocated to us during the leadership of Dr. Oresanya but later snatched from us with the use of thugs armed with dangerous weapons.”
Their spokesman, who craved anonymity, shed more lights: “For the avoidance of doubt, we wish to state that we’re in total support of the ongoing audit of salary payments made by LAWMA in the last one year.
“However, the reason why we’re crying out now is because we reliably gathered that government auditors have visited some of our locations but discovered ghosts had been collecting salaries all these months without doing any job.
“But the truth of the matter is that some people were using the name of our routes to collect money from LAWMA. It’s very easy to identify those who were collecting such money. Their bank accounts have names.
“We’re aware that after the verification exercise at Ikorodu, the next port of call in the coming days will be routes on Lagos Island as well as Victoria Island. We believe these sponsored protests are to blackmail LAWMA from forging ahead with the audit lest more skeletons be uncovered.
“We therefore passionately appeal to the auditors not to be dissuaded or intimidated in the name of Lagos taxpayers and beg the state governor to direct the new M.D to restore our routes that were hijacked from us.”
The auditors, we gathered, were startled at their findings in the Ikorodu axis where they first carried out verification exercise. Contrary to the claims in the books, they discovered that most of the names submitted by “Iron Lady” to collect money previously were nonexistent while a good number of the routes were found in dirty condition.
At the end, twelve of the routes were found to be practically abandoned as no sweepers were found on site. But in her books, the “Iron Lady” was alleged to have claimed she had in her employ on the 66 routes a total of 2,310 workers. Each route engages 33 sweepers and 2 supervisors. Based on those figures, her company was allegedly collecting over N80m monthly from LAWMA.
The racket was said to have been easily uncovered through the introduction of biometrics. According to inside source, on the appointed day, only a half of the number touted showed up to have their passport photographs taken, thumbprint collected and phone number registered.
It was learnt that in some cases, a sweeper would be discovered to own several phone lines documented under different names!
Thugs
Apart from padding of wage-bill, the “Iron Lady” was also accused of keeping an army of thugs whom she used to either physically assault or intimidate anyone. One of her victims was said to be a retired Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Local Government Affairs and Chieftaincy Titles named Dr. Daudu.
He was alleged to have been physically assaulted by the “Iron Lady’s” thugs in April during the nationwide lockdown.
In spite of the social distancing protocols officially imposed to curtail the spread of Covid-19, Ms. Williams was said to be going around in her bus overloaded by her “crew”, to the extent that some had to lap the others.
On that particular day, the elderly Daudu reportedly appealed to the “Iron Lady” to set a good example to the public since she and her folks were moving around in LAWMA-branded aprons.
For the temerity to question the “Iron Lady,” her thugs allegedly beat up the old man.
It was only after the body of retired Heads of Service, Permanent Secretaries and Commissioners intervened that the then LAWMA boss (Dr. Gbadegesin) asked the “Iron Lady” to apologize to Dr. Daudu.
Another senior female official of LAWMA in her 50s was said to have similarly been physically assaulted by the “Iron Lady” at Ilubirin with impunity.
Ms. Williams, the woman at the center of controversy, could not be reached for comment. But sources close to her informed us that, “She has been advised by well-wishers to desist from talking to the press for now in order not to complicate her case.”
But can the almighty “Iron Lady” overcome the current odds and stage a comeback? Watch out for update.
