Ombatse: Ewuga accuses Al-Makura of criminalising Eggon people

Senator representing Nasarawa North Senatorial district in the National Assembly, Solomon Ewuga, has accused the governor of Nasarawa state of criminalising the Eggon people. He also faulted the Justice Fola Gbadeyan Commission’s report which indicted him in the killing of security operatives, describing same as “premeditated.”

Ewuga, while briefing newsmen yesterday, said though he was yet to see the white paper, the governor’s decision to declare appropriate punishment within two days of reading the report demonstrated unfairness on the path of Al-Makura.
He said: “I have not seen the White Paper and the Panel’s recommendation but whatever my response is today is based on what I saw on the media, first on AIT on Monday and then, on the pages of the newspapers on Tuesday.

“The reported was handed in on Friday and it is a six-volume report. For the fact that the White Paper is already out indicates a premeditation because it was an ingenuous thing to have read those volumes and to decipher the appropriateness of the punishment or otherwise within two days.
“Secondly, I was invited as a witness to the Panel not as an accused and I was not availed of any cross examination of purported accusation against me which you know by virtue of the provision of the Constitution, breaches my fundamental rights to fair hearing.

Continuing, he said: “And to my understanding of the issues, my invitation as a witness was supposed to establish the credibility or otherwise of what I know within my purview of the event related to whatever circumstance the Ombatse is involved in.”
“The issue of me financing the Ombatse is a very curious position. Gracefully, it is not the law court because I am going to be prosecuted. So, it is good to establish the import of whatever the criminality is going to be.

“I want to make a very formal statement once I get the White Paper. I will give you the history of certain events that took place and it is for the history to be told the way things emerged.”