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It is now clear that some of us praised the Nigerian Judiciary a tad too soon. The way things are going, some (PDP) governors would end up spending about seven years in office as just one term. Gbenga Daniel of Ogun, Uduaghan in Delta and a few others are headed that way. Tenure elongation by another name. The Federal Courts of Appeal and Maurice Iwu are seeing to that. But as the Judiciary and Yar’Adua continues to let the nation down, and hopelessness and Babaginda are let loose and stalks the country again, up pops Governor Murtala Nyako of Adamawa State – a retired military officer – to remind us all what military rule was like.
Murtala Nyako who - thanks to Iwu and the Judiciary, gets to spend five years in office as governor had his honeymoon abbreviated as the State legislators served him a well put together notice of impeachment. The Adamawa State House of Assembly is composed of 25 members (17 PDP; 8 AC) of which 20 signed the impeachment notice.
By way of a very brief background, Nyako was a Vice Admiral in the Nigerian Navy before he was retired. His first act as a newly elected governor was to appoint 1,600 aides! He then set up each of his four wives as First Lady of his very impoverished State. Each First Lady was then given specific official role to play. This came complete with offices, aides, budgets, etc. His subsequent actions as governor has followed in that lamentable vein.
The legislators thought they’ve had enough as served him what would appear a credible notice of impeachment. In that notice, Nyako was accused of gross misconduct and running the State like his private estate. The main allegation against him is that he set up something called “Special Project Directorate.” The Directorate manages some State contracts. The problem is that these contracts are all fictitious. The contracts were never in the State’s Appropriation Act nor even brought before the House of Assembly. Furthermore, the Directors of the Special Project Directorate are: Rabi Nyako, Maryam Nyako, Hassan Nyako, and Dr Murtala Nyako – all Governor Nyako’s children. The coordinator of the Directorate is one Abdulazeez Nyako, a serving Naval Commander and, yes, Governor Nyako’s son.
In this ingenious Directorate, contracts were awarded to do nothing. Three contracts were specifically mentioned at N45 million, N106 million, and N360 million. The N106 million was paid by the Directorate to something called “Policy Formulation” manned by Nyako’s children. The N360 million contract was recorded as spent on Hajj even though Adamawa State did not sponsor anybody for Hajj. A further N60 million was recorded as “debt gratuity” to one Abdul Isa. As I write this, nobody in the State has any idea who Abdul Isa is or what “debt gratuity” means.
Other payments were: N182.38 million for the shipping and handling of 15 hospital equipment; N25 million to the Commissioner of Agriculture to travel to South Africa for a conference; N35 million to buy a vehicle for the Speaker of the House of Assembly; N141 million to furnish the governor’s personal house, even though furniture were never supplied; N60 million to enable government “facilitate” free medical care.
After all of this, Nyako then predictably turned on the Local Government Areas’ funds. He simply and very heavily raided their monthly allocations. The Local Government Areas in his State has since resorted to borrowing money just to pay workers’ salaries. He was also accused of taking a N5 billion loan. The payment schedule for this is N457 million every month. This arrangement has just about completely crippled Adamawa financially.
When Nyako got his impeachment notice, he did not bother to deny even one of the allegations levelled against him. His immediate response was to send the Police – complete with an armoured tank! – and a full compliment of hired thugs from Jimeta and Yola to go shut down the House of Assembly. When the legislators turned up for work they were simply chased away. Nyako remained hunkered down in his bunker, err…sorry, in his home, where PDP chieftains and other leeches turned up one after the other to pay ‘solidarity’. They all poured invectives on the legislators.
It was reported that the PDP was annoyed that the legislators served Nyako the impeachment notice in the first place. Before you can say ‘bloody civilians’, Vincent Ogbulafor, the PDP chairman was in the media declaring that it is a family affair and that blames will be apportioned where necessary. He said: "it is a family problem and it's being taken care of." Our servant leader then invited all concerned to Abuja. After a sit down session with our apostle of ‘Rule of Law’ and some PDP leaders, Nyako and the Speaker, James Barka (who had earlier declared that there was no going back) emerged hugging each other as they posed for the cameras. That seems to be that. No investigations. No fuss. Rule of law will have to wait.
This is happening in a State that manages an annual budget of about only N36 billion. Not too long ago, the International Red Cross had to come to its aid with nearly N8 million for the rehabilitation of displaced persons. Nyako conquered the State twice. With the help of Yar’Adua, he now appears to have conquered the House of Assembly as well. Since May 29 2007, not even a pin has been developed in that State. The people of Adamawa and their common weal are a distant afterthought. So, for those who might be feeling exceedingly exasperated and disillusioned by the wet blanket that is being draped across the land by Yar’Adua’s ineffectual leadership and governance, please look at what one of our sound military minds has produced in just one year in Adamawa.
demdem@hotmail.co.uk
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Posted by Robot| 29.06.2008 14:42