collaboration with the Adamawa caucus of the Peoples Democratic Party,
PDP, in Abuja impeached former Adamawa State governor, Murtala Nyako. Haruna said going by the way and manner Nyako governed Adamawa he needed no outsider to influence anybody to impeach him. According to Haruna, Nyako governed the state in a manner that made him potentially vulnerable to the most extreme sanction by the legislative arm.
“Trying to link the Presidency with Nyako’s impeachment in Adamawa
and indeed, in any other state for that matter, is a worthless blackmail,”
Haruna, who ruled Adawama State between 1999 and 2007 said.
Excerpts:
There is the notion that beyond what we read in the media on the impeachment of former governor Murtala Nyako, that the Presidency, in collaboration with Adamawa caucus of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, in Abuja, actually impeached Nyako.
Well, I don’t know what they are talking about. But let me say I am not one of those, celebrating the former governor’s ouster because he wouldn’t have stopped the PDP from winning Adamawa in 2015, even if he was still In office anyway. If I may ask those making this kind of allegation, where were they when the former governor narrowly escaped being impeached in his first term under the speakership of Honourable James Barka?
Was the Presidency, which is now being accused of complicity in the governor’s recent impeachment also responsible for that impeachment attempt during Barka’s speakership?
Where were these people when the ousted governor, who, in order to scuttle another impeachment attempt under the speakership of the current acting governor, Hon. Ahmadu Fintiri, sealed off the Adamawa State House of Assembly, using thugs and miscreants for about six weeks? This was few weeks to the 2012 governorship election.
By the way, when the president helped the ousted governor to win that election by pleading with the major PDP stakeholders, who had resolved to dump him, where were these latter day supporters of the ousted governor?
It is also to be noted that when all these impeachment attempts were made, the former governor was still in PDP with majority membership in the state House of Assembly.
The point being made here is that the recent impeachment of the ousted governor has nothing to do with the Presidency or his being in the opposition. He has all along governed the state in a manner that made him potentially vulnerable to the most extreme sanction by the legislative arm without the members necessarily having to be prompted by any interest from outside.
So, trying to link the Presidency with the recent impeachment in Adamawa and indeed, in any other state for that matter, is a worthless blackmail.
Politics is local. It is an Adamawa affair, which was so handled by the representatives of the people, who gave the ousted governor their mandate. I cannot believe that ousted governor Murtala Nyako is complaining and accusing people for his travails. This was the same person, who was the arrow-head of the contrived impeachment attempt against me eight years ago. Was he an agent of the Presidency of that time also? While I successfully fought the impeachment process, which they crudely attempted to execute, using harassment, intimidation, detention and suspension as weapons against some principled members of the state House of Assembly then. The ousted governor was effortlessly routed out of office. His ouster reminded of how Saddam Hussein of Iraq was caught like a rat from a hole by the American soldiers or better still, like the then strong man of Libya, Colonel Muammar Gadaffi, who was picked from a filthy gutter by the rebels. A General, a former Chief of Naval Staff, who never missed any opportunity to remind you of his pedigree.
For those that do not know, com- pared to the contrived plot to remove me from office years ago, which was co-anchored by the ousted governor, the impeachment process that removed him was conducted with some civility. In executing the impeachment process, no member of the state House of Assembly was cajoled, harassed, intimidated, detained, suspended, blackmailed and to the best of my knowledge, bribed.
Those alleging bribery and accusing the president should hear this: No member of the Adamawa State House of Assembly needed to be bribed to dispose of their expired product. Rather, it might have been the makers of such allegations, who, in a desperate effort to save their own, may have contemplated bribing these courageous and fearless legislators. Running from pillar to post, today they accuse the president, tomorrow they turn around to say he is not involved. Let them hear this: The recent impeachment of the immediate past governor of Adamawa did not require the support of the president. It is a local affair and it was so handled.
As a General (Admiral), he should face the challenges as they come and stop dragging the name of the president into an Adamawa affair.
The All Progressives Congress (APC) alleged that the sum of $300,000 was given to each of the Adamawa State House of Assembly lawmakers to impeach Nyako. Were you a party to the deal?
These are the kind of malicious claims people make in order to mis-lead gullible minds. We are talking about Adamawa. Most of the makers of this kind of allegation are not from Adamawa. No member of Adamawa State House of Assembly needed to be bribed to sanction the former governor, given the manner he governed that state. I was the governor of that state and I know what I am talking about.
Let me give you some insight into when I was the governor and the situation that befell us after in the past seven years. When the ousted governor took over after me in 2007, he claimed in his maiden broadcast to the state that I left a debt of N22 billion. I swiftly issued a statement, challenging him to make full and detailed disclosure of the said debt. Up to the time he was removed (impeached), he never responded. Few weeks after he made that malicious claim against my administration, he was reported to have accessed a loan of N10 billion.
It became obvious that his malicious claim against my government was to justify his access to the loan within one month of his assumption of office. On his removal from office, On his removal from office, thr ousted governor is reported to have left a debt of N6 billion and liabilities of over N45 billion on projects he himself initiated and abandoned after paying so much on them, with little or no work done and most of which are allegedly executed by his cronies. In contrast, we left a relatively zero debt profile and liabilities of only about about N3 billion on some fully completed and substantially completed (on-going projects), such as the new state high court complex, Jimeta Modern Market, Garkida General Hospital and Other hospitals, electrification projects et cetera. Except the Jimeta Modern Market, which was one of the projects I left at 95 per cent level of completion. The ousted governor did not pay any of the numerous (fully and substantially) completed projects I left. This was not because there was no money.
No! We recovered and left behind over N200 million US dollars on foreign loans that were taken as far back as the Second Republic administration of the defunct Gongola State, which was refunded by the Federal Government to the administration of the ousted governor. He did not need the loan he took immediately on assumption of office. We had laid the foundation in every sector.
In education, we paid for all the Foundation examinations (NECO, WAEC, JAMB, et cetera) for every child in our public schools irrespective of their state of origin. But today, 70 per cent of these children from 2007 to 2014 throughout Adamawa have not sat for these foundational examinations.
The reason is that the ousted governor refused to continue paying for these examinations. The implication is that the future of these children has been messed up by the very government their parents voted into power. They are an army of potentially vulnerable group for recruitment into activities that may be inimical to our national growth and development. We restored boarding and feeding in our school system after it was stopped in 1979 (20 years after). This was not sustained in the past seven years. While every state is supposed to be working hard to meet the 2015 Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) through progressive policies and actions and help to upscale the performance index of the nation, our own state, for seven years, was drawing us back. A governor who will tell his people to go and cut firewood, go to the market and sell it if they want to educate their wards will not require a member of the Adamawa State House of Assembly to be bribed to sanction such a governor.
We left a vibrant civil service. We paid workers’ salaries and entitlements as at when due. Our receipt from the Federation Account for eight years was just N114. 8 billion, while in seven years, they collected over N350 billion. Out of this. We paid workers’ salaries and entitlements close to over N39 billion. We built/rehabilitated schools, hospitals, roads, bridges, built the Adamawa Plaza in Abuja, the Jimeta Modern Market, completed abandoned projects, paid off inherited liabilities dating to as far back as the Second Republic administration.
We established a state university and in deference to his much-touted pedigree, we appointed the former governor as the pioneer chairman of the university’s governing council. After we left, the university was to be headed by one of the kitchen cabinet members of the ousted governor who had written a whole book criticizing my decision to establish the institution. This was through flagrant abuse of the law establishing university by first coming in as a sole administrator.
We left the university highly solvent with uncommitted funds in its accounts close to over N1billion. Today, just as the state has been left in debt by his ousted “oga at the top,” so is the university grappling with debt, maladministration and ineptitude. Given the diverse nature of our state with over 74 ethnic nationalities, we ran an inclusive government. We reflect this in our appointments, postings, promotions and even award of contracts. We are getting close to three years now without a substantive Chief Judge.
I have taken time to give you this overview so that you can appreciate the frustration of the people and the level of the state’s stagnation for the past seven years. Nobody is in a better position to give you this narrative than myself. These are the issues that have made the former governor vulnerable.
So, where does the President come in his impeachment matter? Are Adamawa people fools? As unfortunate as the situation is, many indigenes of Adamawa see the action of the members as a call to duty without necessarily being prompted from without.
Another burning issue raised by the party was that the offences Nyako allegedly committed five years ago were not impeachable while in the PDP, but impeachable in the APC. What is your take on this?
I said earlier that there had been several attempts by the state legislature to impeach the former governor. His being in the opposition has nothing to do with his recent impeachment. On the contrary, more PDP governors have been impeached in the Fourth Republic than governors from the opposition.
In fact, none from the opposition. Go and check the records. During our time from 1999 to 2007, all the governors that were impeached were PDP governors. Most of those that were prosecuted were PDP governors. I survived a maliciously contrived impeachment as a PDP governor at the height of the Obasanjo-Atiku political fight. I took a lot of blows, including prosecution until January 16, 2014, when I was cleared by the Federal High Court in Yola to the disappointment of my traducers.
I had also told you earlier that the conduct of the ousted governor in administering Adamawa had made him vulnerable to what has happened to him. His changing of party from PDP to an opposition party did not change his vulnerability. It was an accident waiting to happen and it happened.
Even if he was still in PDP, he would have still been impeached at the rate he was going and given the manner he ran the affairs of Adamawa State.
With Nyako’s impeachment, how prepared is your party, the PDP, to take over Adamawa State?
Point of correction please. We have already taken over Adamawa. We are only going to reaffirm our take over the governorship bye-election expected to hold within the next 90 days and consolidate our hold on the state in the 2015 general elections. As at today, Adamawa is relatively a one party state and that is PDP. Forget all this noise you are hearing. Nobody has the capacity to package or repackage the opposition as to threaten PDP in Adamawa.
Quote me.
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Presidency had no hand in Nyako’s impeachment |
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