Leadership (Abuja)
Aminu Iyawa
20 October 2008
opinion
There he goes again", late United States President, Ronald Reagan would utter sarcastically to demean his political opponent, during the second of the series of live debates slated between the incumbent President and Walter Mondale, former Vice President to Jimmy Carter and Democratic Presidential candidate in the 1984 Presidential elections. As seniors, majoring in Television Journalism at Columbia College, Hollywood, California, my classmates and I would always have a post debate discourse that will take us late into the night. I was the only proponent of the performing Rambo, dumping sentiments aside.
Despite his youthful looks and the first woman vice presidential nominee to add colour and vigour to the Democratic Party ticket, neither Mondale nor Geraldine Ferraro could stop "the Gipper" from returning to the White House to continue with his second term as the 40th President of the United States of America.
Most countries of the world at the time saw Washington as a big bully and were hoping for a Democratic Party victory at the polls. The Americans that went to the polls however, gave President Reagan a second mandate by a landslide margin. Why did the Americans vote for him? It was because he performed to their expectation during the first term. The economy had picked up. There were thousands of jobs created in particularly the defense industries; Lockheed Martin, Mc Donald Douglas, Northrop Corporation, TRW and other companies too numerous to mention. The voters trusted Mr. Reagan to do even a better job in his second term.
It is a similar scenario that is being played out here in Adamawa State when Governor Nyako came into office and served for eight months of the annulled elections. He met an empty treasury, with mountain of debts, decayed infrastructure; no roads, no potable water, no drugs in the hospitals. In short, every public utility and infrastructure had collapsed.
The people of Adamawa State had had enough; and when the opportunity presented itself for them to be emancipated, they went for it the whole hog, giving the retired Admiral and Super Farmer the mandate to turn things around for them. He did not disappoint. The level of development he was able to achieve in all facets of governance in just the first eight months of his annulled administration, surpassed the entire eight years that the previous administration was in power.
The magnitude of developmental stride that Governor Nyako was able to achieve within such a short time endeared him to the masses, and verily exposed his predecessor as plundering executive that was much more concerned with helping his God-Father to build his dream empire than providing basic necessities of life to the people on whose grace they rode to power.
Therefore, when these anti-people forces teamed up to annul the election and a repeat was ordered, the masses once again gave their Baba Mai Mangoro, as he is fondly called, a resounding mandate that had the PDP candidate sweep every ward in every local Government, except for two. The people brought Governor Nyako back, because like Reagan, he performed beyond the level of their expectation. That earned him their confidence and trust, and they wouldn't change him for the world.
To the dying Action Congress Party and its remaining leaders (some have defected to PDP), the only thing left for them to do, to be seen to be alive and relevant, was to recycle some of the allegations leveled against Governor Nyako during the impeachment saga and send it to the ICPC and the EFCC in order to embarrass the administration. Luckily, as with the impeachment case that was withdrawn by the House for lack of substance, both anti-graft agencies visited the State Capital and did their investigation, but found no iota of fraud that was allegedly perpetrated.
The recent noise made by some Newspapers with catchy headlines alluding that "the Governor, his SSG, Mr. Manassa John and the Commissioner of Finance, Mr. Emanuel Vahyala" were being investigated was nothing, but blatant lies put out by the Action Congress, aimed at blocking Mr. Emanuel Vahyala's chances of passing the screening at the National Assembly as nominee on the Revenue Mobilization and Fiscal Commission from Adamawa State.
The most important thing to note here is that both Mr. Manassa and Vahyala have not been part of this administration since the annulment of the elections in February. Athough Mr. Manassa served as SSG to the interim Government under Hon. James Barka when he was Acting Governor, there was too far a link between these two veteran public servants and the current administration of Governor Nyako. Neither is a serving member as reported by the newspapers.
For the purpose of putting the records straight, the Action Congress in a petition dated 10th July, 2008 and addressed to the Chairman of the EFCC, raised five allegations against the Governor and the Chief of Staff. Similarly, barely a week later (17th July, 2008), a purported organization called Adamawa Unity Forum, wrote to the Chairman of the EFCC with the same set of allegations, all of which were lifted from the withdrawn sets of allegations put up by the Adamawa State House of Assembly during the impeachment saga.
Yet, because of its desire to reassure the people of Adamawa State that the allegations were nothing but mean fabrications, the Government put up advertorials in most leading Newspapers and Magazines explaining the expenditures in question in detail, as it did to the anti-graft agencies.
Below are the recycled allegations sent to the EFCC and the answers to all the allegations by Government:
ALLEGATION…. Payment of N50,000,000.00 on a non existing Public Address System
FACTS:
The contract was for the supply and installation of security walk-through gates to some strategic offices at the Government House, CCTV cameras that cover the entire vicinity including all corners of the perimeter fence; and the supply and installation of communication system (public address system) at Ribadu Square. This includes the digital audio board, amplifiers, microphones and 4000 watts speakers to every 100 metres. The honourable members of the House should feel free to ask to be shown this equipment.
* ALLEGATION…. Despite the statements made by the Governor on so many occasions that his personal house is better than the Government House of Adamawa State, the sum of N141,000,000.00 was paid to ATTIJARA FURNITURE AND INTERIOUR CO, Kano. Payments were made on 5/7/2007 and 31/7/2007 interestingly, no such furniture has been purchased.
FACT:
No furniture was EVER purchased for the Governor. In fact, he did not change the furniture in his private house for the past 15 years; and neither did he change the furniture at the Governor's Office and the official residence. The amount in question was for the furnishing of the six newly completed Government Lodges and the Protocol building built by the immediate past Administration, and for the office of the wife of the Governor. Anybody could walk into any of these Guest Houses, the Protocol Building or the Office of the Wife of the Governor to see the furniture.
* Payment of N106,000,000.00 to a Body known as policy formulation Committee.
FACTS:
This is completely false. The N106,000,000.00 was for the Special Assistants (SA) salaries which was suspended until the end of the on-going screening exercise to fish out ghost Special Assistants (SAs) and determine their actual number. Reports from the State office of the Africa Peer Review Mechanism (APRM) and complaints by some of the Special Assistants that they were not paid for five months, prompted government to take such a prompt measure to solve the problem.
To do a thorough job, the Special Programmes unit was directed to screen the SAs and come out with a comprehensive Report. The Governor had also directed the transfer of the SA Programme to the Office of the Governor, in order to stop forthwith, the alleged fraud that was going on. The Exercise has been concluded and payments have resumed.
*ALLEGATION…. Fictitious and False Payments for Accommodation of so-called Government Guests to the tune of N356m.
FACTS:
Totally untrue; we could not trace any such payments. It is difficult to imagine that the Administration could have spent such a huge amount in eight months on its visitors.
There were only two allegations raised (INEC and Inauguration) that were not in the original purported impeachment list. (1) According to the Daily Trust report, the Governor allegedly bribed the Adamawa State Resident Electoral Commissioner, Suleiman Bello with N14.2 million.
FACT:
The Adamawa State INEC office formally requested for assistance to furnish its new office complex. That took place months before the Governor's election was annulled. When new elections were ordered, Suleiman was already transferred. In short, the re-election was presided over by a newly posted Resident Electoral Commissioner, Dr. Abdu Bulama.
Besides, it is normal for Federal Agencies represented in States to ask for some form of assistance from their host. The Police, Army, Airforce, Immigration, NDLEA and all other Federal Agencies have requested and received some form of assistance or another; and this is not peculiar to Adamawa State alone.
(2) Allegation…. According to the petitioner, N186m was spent for inauguration as against N100m provided in the 2007 budget.
FACT:
The inauguration was handled by a Committee chaired by the interim Chief of Staff, Auwal Bamanga Tukur, who had since retired every kobo requested. The general public may take a look of the cost of inauguration in other States and compare.
In conclusion, as can be seen, except for two, these were the same allegations levelled against the Governor by the House of Assembly during the impeachment saga, to which adequate reply addressing all the issues raised were answered despite the fact that Government did not have to do that following the withdrawal of the purported impeachment notice that was never served anyway.
We therefore urge the good people of Adamawa State not to be distracted with such propaganda from a drowning political party that is only good at rhetorics and creating political cacophony.
The government of Vice Admiral Murtala Nyako will continue to work assiduously for the betterment of the quality of lives of the people of the State. It can never loose focus or become distracted.
•Aminu Iyawa, Principal Special Assistant (Media), Govt. House, Yola.
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