By Edward Wabundani
Whenever I cast my mind back to the February 4, 2012 supposed governorship elections in Adamawa state from which MurtalaNyako emerged as governor, I always feel disappointed as a Nigerian. If examined, the processes that culminated in the emergence of the governor, we may not shout to the roof tops that the system was near free and fair. It was an affair of corrupt electoral umpires, moneybags versus corrupt money bags, dynasty versus dynasty. Committed but financially handicapped patriots were disadvantaged and shut out by the aforementioned categories of election riggers, the outcome of which made Nyako the most undemocratic elected governor since the state was created 1976.
Barely seven years after the series of elections and bye-elections which brought Nyako to power in 2007, my observation of his administrative and official person, portends that Nyako is not the expected messiah for our state. Worse still, the political character that he has assembled around him has torpedoed his political ship, even he himself as shown from his official comportment; he is not a frugal governor.
Those in power in Adamawa have been running the state without fairness, and with discrimination, forgetting that nepotism and cronyism deny ordinarily qualified people access to basic income and power. This can have long term and short term impacts on those perpetuating the act, political degeneration and society’s unacceptability.
All-inclusiveness in government has been alien to the administration. Those in the saddle of responsibilities in the state have possibly forgotten, that participation by both men and women, irrespective of religious, cultural and political differences is a cornerstone of good governance.But ‘we’ and ‘them’ way of thinking has been central in government appointments, awards of contract, approval of lands allocation and general state policies.
Among the legion of allegations against the governor is the fraudulent award of N8billion contract through SNECOU
Group of Companies Limited, a company linked to one of his 4 first ladies.
The project, according to reports, was never executed but the money has since been paid and siphoned out. On another occasion, a company, Hydro Source Resources Limited, was alleged to have been mobilized with N300million for the construction of Mubi Bye-pass road which was never executed up to the time of writing this piece.
The governor’s appointment of one of his wives as Chairman of the State Action Committee on AIDS (SACA) in addition to actively engaging his eldest son, a naval officer, his long chain of children, relatives and friends in governing the state, is, to say the least, a gross violation of the oath of office he swore to.
Prominent among Nyako’s alleged financial malfeasance are diversion of the 21 LGAs monthly allocation from the federation account amounting to billions of naira, federal government’s N500million intervention funds to flood victims in 2011, and squandering of over N1billion MDGs fund last year, to mention a few.
Nyako’s attempt to incite northerners against their southern kith and kin may have failed. This is due to the fact that even some of his northern governors, whom he had earlier written to claim the country’s president and his military are behind the ongoing insurgency in the North-east, found it unbelievable, especially that all his claims are unverifiable.
In fact, one issue that stood out as a unifying factor among the generality of indigenes of the state is that of settling foreign nomads on people’s lands by the state government.
Contrary to government position on this issue, the indigenous nomads who are permanently settled in the state have been interacting with their host communities believed that settling the foreign nomads on any farmland in the state requires inter-governmental cooperation at various national and international levels and not for ad-hoc political and ulterior consideration of a state government alone. They believe that settling the foreign nomads arbitrarily will create stiff and unnecessary competition for grazing land among cattle owners in the state. Adding my voice to these arguments, apart from molestation suffered by farmers in the hands of these foreign nomads annually, they also constitute security threats to lives and property as well as constituted authorities. Our domestic nomads usually fall victims of their foreign counterparts who cart away herds of cattle of the settled grazers.
As you are reading this article, the floundering Nyako-led government is alleged to have facilitated a grand settlement of foreigners through the establishment of a Nomadic Resettlement Scheme. According to impeccable sources, it is only in Adamawa that such a scheme exists in the whole federation.
My source further confirmed that the wisdom of setting foreigners in some parts of Toungo and Ganye LGAs by the authorities may not be unconnected to the governor’s waning political popularity coupled with his son’s ambition to succeed him by all means next year. And probably to legitimize the settlement of these illegal aliens for his ulterior motive, a secret registration of these foreigners ahead of this year’s fresh voter’s registration by INEC in the state is allegedly going on in these LGAs with the tacit support of the governor.
It is expected that with this exposé on the influx of aliens into the state, the authorities at the national level ought to beam search light on both the state government and immigration officials before the ongoing security situation in the state escalates.
Wabundani wrote from Abuja
