By IBRAHIM ALIYU GIWA

A story making the rounds insinuating that the Chief of Staff to the Governor of Kaduna State, Mohammed Sani Kila, was accosted by the management of a hotel in Kaduna over alleged refusal to pay outstanding bills incurred by him at the hotel, has come to our notice.

But for the purpose of clarification, we wouldn’t have dignified the purveyors of this patently false and malicious story with any response. This puerile story is not only false, but also clearly misleading and mischievous.

The story, authored by a well-known mischief maker, was intended to impugn and smear the character, integrity and reputation of the Chief of Staff to the Governor.

To bolster and lend credence to the half-truths and outright lies against Sani Kila, it was maliciously reported that he boasted of his willingness to take drastic measures against the hotel and its management, including a possible attraction of a demolition of the hotel structure over their request for payment of outstanding bills he was said to have incurred.

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It is pertinent at this juncture to state that the Chief of Staff to the Governor has never either stayed or slept in the hotel as insinuated in the mischievous story. For the avoidance of doubt, the Chief of Staff resides in his house in Kaduna. The hotel was secured for temporary accommodation of the newly appointed members of staff before the processing of the payment of their accommodation allowances. It is trite to state that this is a statutory right of the first 28 days for public servants. No wonder, the hotel management has since distanced itself from the malicious and false story. They are familiar with government procedures of processing payment and are patiently pursuing their claim.

The mischief maker, cashing in on a chance knowledge of this transaction, is only a meddlesome interloper. His efforts to create mischief and make mountain out of a mole hill has hit the concrete wall of truth.

The Office of the Chief of Staff, in pursuit of the open and transparent governance policy of HE Governor Uba Sani, decided to set the records straight to help the author of the mischievous and malicious story to purge his infantile imagination of his self-inflicted pathological abnormality and predilection for mischief and lying. There is no doubting the fact that he deliberately set out to mislead, misinform and discredit the efforts of the Chief of Staff.

Members of the public are, therefore, enjoined to disregard and discountenance such outright fabrication and dump the false story in the trash can where it rightfully belongs.

*Giwa is of the Office of the Chief of Staff, Kaduna State Governor

The Star