Chairmen and top officials in six Local Government Areas were absent from work when the Borno State Governor, Babagana Zulum, paid unscheduled visits to their secretariats on Thursday, The PUNCH reports.

According to a statement by the governor on Friday morning, the officials failed to resume duty two weeks after being directed to report to work after the ease of lockdown occasioned by coronavirus pandemic.

Zulum said he had gotten reports that even before the pandemic, senior officials of Chibok, Bama, Gwoza, Damboa, Konduga and Askira-Uba LGAs were “notorious for abandoning their local government to operate in Maiduguri only to return there for few days when allocations are received, or when they know the governor is heading there”.

“None of the heads of departments was around, neither the Secretary nor the other principal officers reported to duty. Look at the Secretariat, termites all over, an indication that nobody is operating in the Secretariat. The government cannot allow this situation to continue.

“We came from Maiduguri to determine the presence of senior public servants at their places of work. We have been pleading with them for quite some time to operate from these local government areas so that citizens will feel the impact of governance at the grassroots but from all indication, many are not listening.

“We will take punitive measures because we cannot allow this system to continue,” he said.

The governor lamented that the Gwoza LGA new secretariat which he commissioned a few months ago was locked.