By Rabiu Garba
Recent events in Nasarawa state tend to lend credence to the opinion that truth, that essential ligament that holds integrity intact in governance, has taken flight from the state.
Or how else does one react to some recent publications where falsehood was blatantly promoted as truth. One of such articles is the one by Bala Dan-Alkali titled: ‘’Nasarawa: Between PDP, State Assembly and the Rest of Us’’ (Blueprint Monday, April 28, 2014). Alkali in that treatise desperately tried to rubbish the integrity of the state legislators, ostensibly because of their temerity to question the elevation of impunity to derivative principle of state policy by the executive in Nasarawa state.
The author also talked about corruption in the State House of Assembly, bandying figures of their emoluments and allowances. He even went to the ridiculous extent of copiously quoting an interview granted by one so-called rights activist, Mr. Lanry Suraj of the Civil Society Network against Corruption (CSNAC) on the earnings of the legislators, an attempt aimed at whipping up public sentiments against the legislators.
If Alkali is talking about corruption in the legislative arm of government, what about the executive arm that is in charge of dispensing state funds?
What of the several allegations of corruption leveled against the executive last year, among which is the N2 billion local government fund, allegedly misappropriated? If action is to be taken against impunity or corruption in the state, I don’t think the governor will be sitting pretty in office today.
. Bala should know that the legislators had passed several pro-masses resolutions/bills that the governor has failed (or is it refused?) to implement or assent to. And this is one of the reasons the relationship between the executive and the legislature has remained frosty.
If Mr. Lanry Suraj of CSNAC is indeed concerned about corruption in the state, where was he when the greatest form of corruption was perpetrated recently during the council polls by denying the people the right of electing who to represent them?
Where was Suraj’s network against corruption when allegations of corruption against the executive arm of government in the state were flying all over the place last year? If Suraj is indeed interested in fighting corruption in the state, why did he not rise up to the occasion when the media was abuzz with reports of corruption allegations against the executive by petitioning EFCC/ICPC? From all intents and purposes Suraj is only interested in fighting selective war against corruption. How sad!
So, for Bala Dan-Alkali to rely on the petition and figures churned out by such unreliable organization like CSNAC is to be guilty of disservice to the people of the state. Certainly, nothing tangible will come out of that petition.
Another of such publications is the heavily biased analysis by Ali Abare Abubakar titled: Nasarawa 2015: Are Politicians Defecting for Public or Personal Interest? (Peoples Daily Weekend, April 26—27, 2014). In that piece, it was so easy to discern that the hand was that of Esau, but the voice was that of Jacob. In a nutshell, the writer merely did a hatchet job for the state government.
To prove it was propaganda war being waged by the author against the opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) on behalf of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), Abubakar ignored all those that defected from PDP to APC and instead descended on those who opted out from APC for PDP with the ferocity of a rampaging bull.
He particularly singled out the state deputy governor, Dameshi Barau Luka, for bashing, attributing his (Luka’s) decision to jump from APC to PDP to selfishness. The late Bob Marley once sang that it is better to live on a rooftop than to live in a house full of confusion.
For the author to accuse those who left APC for PDP such as Sen. Solomon Ewuga; Dr. Haruna Kigbu; David Ombugadu; Ishaq Ahmed Kana and others in the state as lacking in “principled ideology” and because “they needed money as well as protection after they were allegedly found complicit in the brutal murder of over 100 security operatives as well as scores of others” is tantamount to giving a dog a bad name in order to hang it.
If those who defected from APC to PDP are lacking in ideology, what of the former governor of the state now a serving senator; other state governors, senators and Reps members who dumped PDP for APC? Are they ideologically principled? The answer is a resounding NO!!!
It is indeed sad that while other states are advertising their achievements in the media, any time Nasarawa state government and its agents decide to use the media, it is either to peddle falsehood or to take on the PDP as if it is PDP that is responsible for their inability to fulfill their obligations to the people.
Garba wrote from Abuja
