Aggrieved Staff of Lobi Stars have written an open letter to Governor Samuel Ortom to express their grievance over the mismanagement of the club.
See The letter below.
Your Excellency,
With every sense of responsibility and commitment to the development of Benue State, we openly write this letter to you with the hope that you will intervene in the lingering allegations of mismanagement of Lobi Stars FC by the Vice Chairman/Chief Executive Officer Dominic Iorfa.
We will first of all commend you for putting Lobi Stars on the front burner of your administration, ensuring seamless funding and responding to calls on issues of concern to the club with the speed of light.
You had sacked Iorfa at the end of 2015 at the beginning of your first tenure with the conviction beyond reasonable doubt that he lacks capacity and financial discipline to run the club, after working with him for six months, despite the overwhelming pressure that was on you from your ranks that he had infiltrated with cash inducement, which is usual of him though, he was unable to buy you.
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Your Excellency Sir, we make bold to bring to your knowledge that, the position the club found itself on the league table before Iorfa was appointed was also orchestrated via a grand conspiracy organized by him (Iorfa) with his cohorts and people in your ranks to give you reason to sack the then leadership of the club.
The club former Technical Adviser Eddy Dombraye who was contracted by Lobi Stars for two years from Ukraine was ask to step aside by Iorfa’s predecessor, a week before Iorfa was appointed, it was expected that Iorfa will sit with the TA and discuss termination of the contract by mutual understanding or chose to continue with him, he never did. By implication Lobi Stars is owing Coach Dombraye 18 months of salary, the coach is still on contract with the club. No matter how long Iorfa leaves the matter unattended to, it’s a liability to Lobi Stars. We wonder how Iorfa should be walking the streets shoulder high as a football administrator if he doesn’t have the ability to solve easily solvable issues like this.
Iorfa is owing every staff of Lobi Stars salaries in various number of months as the case may be. He chooses to sack at will when his lies are not propagated or defended, the case of his most prominent and proficient media officers (Austin Tyowua and Paul Tion) who are not only valuable staff but with National prominence.
Accepted, the club escaped relegation, your aim of seamlessly funding the club is not to be fighting relegation as Iorfa had at various times fought relegation battles in his 14 years as Sole Administrator of the club and never won a league title, but Lobi Stars have won the league twice under Mike Idoko. As you can see, even if field results is a yard stick for consideration for appointment of VC/CEO of the club, Iorfa is not in any way the most qualified and shouldn’t be contemplated at all.
Iorfa has failed to answer questions bordering on financial mismanagement in a civilized manner, he is rather deploying the use of dirty tricks like compelling a few staff to lie by giving oral testimonials as opposed to documentary evidences and proofs, he is also going about with a toga of braggadocio that he is paying Governor’s close aides and associates and that he even settled the House of Assembly with cash inducement ( “un ta ve kwagh nya” , in his words), he is also mischievously blackmailing his accusers of been APC Members rather than satisfactorily explaining the allegations.
We learnt Iorfa was summoned and appeared before the Benue State House of Assembly and was directed to re-instate the youth academy of the club which he had severally quoted as saying he was directed by you to disband the academy, though to us, even if you were the one that ordered the disbandment, it behoves on him to advise you as a professional, which is the reason for appointing him. With what we unofficially gathered in the directive of the assembly to re-establish the academy his lies has just been exposed because the assembly wouldn’t have overturn your directive without directing it back to you. Surprisingly, there is no communique issued either from the Club or the Assembly after over 4 days of the meeting or interface.
As it is, the current wage bill of Lobi Stars is less than 10 million Naira as Iorfa has disengaged all the players including the highest goal scorer Ifeanyi Ogba and is parading a group of 21 young boys that are not yet on the payroll of the club. What becomes of the huge allocation to the club within the period? The answer is not far fetched.
As we write this open letter to you, Iorfa has used this same monies he is been accused of embezzling and misappropriating to share around, but even if Iorfa has bought everyone with money, he can not buy you who is the source of the money, this desperate attitude of he’s is not strange to you.
The natural action would have been to call him to order over the series of wrongful actions, all aimed at trying to accumulate money to himself as much as possible, but such may remain unfruitful as he can not change from such character given his deep addiction to vices that has enlarged his appetite for money. Any action other than an upright sack will just be postponing the obvious.
Dominic Iorfa has been quoted on several occasions comparing his non salary payment to your situation where you have to struggle in the middle of scarce resources to pay, which is a very serious aberatiion to his oath of office as your appointee, that you have not paying too but nothing happened.
The least your appointee should do for you is to protect your government with rightful public utterances and actions. He is simply a misfit in your administration.
We hereby with love for Lobi Stars and Benue State, strongly advise you to independently without listening to any advice, appraise the situation as you will end up with no option than to sack Iorfa as you did in 2015. A public office holder can not be more worthy of defenestration than Iorfa, given his character bankruptcy.
Be firm and resist the pressure from unholy beneficiaries of his rascality in coming back to lick your vomit. You have enough knowledge, experience and expertise now on managing public concerns both in your private business, Government and Lobi Stars in particular to take an informed decision in the interest of the state as successes and failures lie on your shoulder.
We saw two invitations from Iorfa on social media with different contents in draconian, despotic, totalitarian, tyrannical and unadministrative tone, calling on all staff of Lobi Stars to come for meeting at Aper Aku Stadium on Monday 5th September, 2022 with letters of employment.
We hereby state categorically that, he maybe only be up to another scheme against us. He has in the course of fighting to survive the situation he puts himself resort to violence against people that are seen to be opposing his rascality, as such our security too can not be guaranteed, hence our collective refusal to attend the meeting.
The club has the file copies of appointment letters of all the staff and the February Payment Voucher he tookover from his predecessor as a guide, he should simply do the needful by using information available to him and pay the outstanding salaries. The appointment letters or absence of it was not the reason for his claim to have disengaged the staff.
We still re-emphasized that, all of the reverse measures he seem to be taking now is more or less damage control. We are convinced as much as you may have been that, Iorfa can not change and the best in the circumstance is to sack him and reorganize the club management for fresh and responsible leadership.
We join faith with the good people of Benue State in prayers with the hope that you will take a desired action for the good of Lobi Stars and the state at large.
Yours Faithfully,
For: Aggrieved Staff of Lobi Stars
John Onuh Tony Shav
Coach Academy Dir
