By Stephen Osu
Taraba Youth and Women Coalition (TYWC) has appealed to President Goodluck Jonathan to upgrade the portfolio of the Minister of State for Niger Delta Affairs, Darius Dickson Ishaku, to a senior minister.
Coordinator of TYWC, Thomas Dauda and Communication Officer, Ann Kura, and eight others in a statement said that they had expected that when the then Minister of Power, Prof. Barth Nnaji, resigned, Ishaku would be made to man the ministry but was overlooked.
The group said: “Ishaku was again overlooked when the senior Minister of the Niger Delta Affairs, Godswill Orubebe, resigned.”
Ishaku, an architect from Takum, Taraba south, was a junior Minister of Power before his appointment as minister for Niger Delta, still as a junior minister.
Taraba state has no senior minister in the cabinet of President Jonathan when other states have even two slots.
The group described Ishaku as an “astute worker who has traversed the nation as a builder, a statesman and a shrewd manager of men and resources.”
It added: “Devoid of any sloppiness and scandal, Ishaku belongs to the old stock of dedicated public servants who view their calling strictly as a service to the people; while in the Power ministry, even as a junior minister, Ishaku vigorously pursued the Kashimbilla Hydro electric project with all his valour.
“Is Ishaku found wanting in any of the assignments he has been saddled with? Does Taraba deserve only a junior portfolio?”
The group reminded Jonathan that Taraba “is one of the few states in the sub region that has remained consistent in their support the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).
It noted that Governor Danbaba Danfulani Suntai had always stayed on the path of ensuring that the state “diligently supports the aspirations of the central government, both in nurturing the ruling PDP and keying into the transformation agenda of the Jonathan administration.”
