PDP Handed Over A Comatose And Collapsed System To Governor Al-Makura-APC Secretary
The secretary of the ruling party in Nasarawa state,Aliyu Bello has fired back on the recent press statement released by the publicity secretary of the opposition party, the people’s Democratic Party in the state following the statement that the All Progressives Congress under governor, Umaru Tanko Al-Makura has demoralized and exposed the civil servants to untold hardship and amongst other issues, Rabiu Omaku, our Nasarawa State correspondent writes.
The Excerpts:
The PDP in Nasarawa state are accusing governor, Umaru Tanko Al-Makura of demoralizing the civil service, according to them this has forced workers to turn beggars in other to keep body and soul, what was your reaction to this sir.
I really appreciate the work of opposition political party as the essence of opposition is to make the ruling party wax stronger, but the reverse is the case as they opposed everything government does either negative or positive, and really what we want from the opposition is constructive criticism but not what is obtainable today which is more of liars, blackmail, falsehood, deceit and other vices and negative tendency. And for the purpose of record and if really PDP want to know who demoralized civil servants they should visits Ekiti state where a civil servant commit suicide over the nonpayment of 11 months’ salary or they should go to Taraba state where local government workers are owned 20 months and state civil servants were owned 11 months salaries respectively, it was the same story in Delta state where a girl friend to the governor swindled N1m from the state bailout fund, the story is also applicable to Gombe state where workers were owned 7 months salaries.
If you can remember when President Muhammad Buhari came on board 27 states are insolvent and cannot pay workers salary, here in Nasarawa our major trepidation is Just January salary and you are saying civil servants were demoralized ?.the trepidation were are facing as a state emanated from the bad legacies left behind by the People’s Democratic Party, what are we talking about, the records of Federal Allocation Account Committee (FAAC) is something that is public and what I want the PDP to ask is what was the wage bill of civil servants in Nasarawa state but not the Cook and bull stories in the name of opposition party.
What is your take on the Institutional decay under governor Umaru Tanko Al-Makura as reeled out by the PDP?
The APC under the amiable governor Inherited nothing less than collapsed government institution, there was nothing like institutions of government apart from the ones in comatose, on assumption of office, the people of Nasarawa state will bear us witness of the stewardship of his Excellency to reposition the civil service been the engine room of government businesses, this era is far away from the era of impunity, an era wrongs are committed on daily basis.
The PDP also raised alarm over lack of training, retraining of workforce?
The lack of training and retraining of workers since the inception of this government in Nasarawa state may not be unconnected to the illegal employment at the local government level, the PDP succeeded in over blunting of the civil service, other problem we Inherited also include backlog of pension and gratuity from the past regime.
How can you score Al-Makura in barely six years in terms of physical and human development?
Let me start from Doma, your country home, the opposition are not talking about the ongoing development in and around local governments ,thank God you are from Doma and an eyewitness of the projects executed by governor Umaru Tanko Al-Makura,he succeeded in turning around the fortune of the state cut across all sectors, he constructed Doma-Agyaragu road making life easier for road-users within that axis, it makes Journey easier from Doma to Makurdi without going through Lafia, is this not achievement Omaku ?efforts were put in place to reposition Doma-Dam, the governor did this by inviting the minister of water resource to Doma, the brain behind this was to revive and encourage irrigation farming in Doma, is this not development ?
Besides the gigantic developmental stride of governor Umaru Tanko Al-Makura which are spread within the length and breadth of the thirteen local governments he also embarked on the total rehabilitation of Obi-Keana road, While Awe-Tunga road construction is ongoing, and without mincing words he succeeded in turning Lafia into mega city in less than Six years, apart from roads the governor also extended his olive branches to markets and schools development.
What can you say on the issue of percentage payment?
Without any fear all I know is that the organized labour in Nasarawa state are aware of what is going on, blaming the state government on percent payment is a disservice to workers in Nasarawa state, percentage payment has been signed between the government side and the Nigeria Labour Congress/Organized Labour that anything that comes in should be share to workers even if is percentage or the money should be kept until the following month to enable the government pay 100 percent to civil servants, you are a Journalist, Nasarawa state remain the best state in times of payment of staff salary.
During the last strike we discovered that there was political undertones to that strike, what we want is that the organized labour should tell it members that the federal allocation accrued to Nasarawa state is not just for civil servants alone rather after payment of salaries ,pension and gratuity part of the allocation would be channeled into the building of hospital, procurement of hospital facilities and drugs, provide potable drinking water, schools, light and amongst other social amenities to the broad-spectrum populace.
The opposition, that is PDP is also blaming the ruling APC for making the civil service unfriendly, what is your view on this?
Whether we like it or not Nasarawa state is the best in times of payment of staff salary if you look critically on what is coming to the state,i can categorically confirmed to you that the state was plunged into intermittent mass exodus of PDP supporters to the ruling party ,do you know why, is because of the good work Al-Makura is doing, you can attest to that ,we welcome staunch members of the PDP and we are still expecting more of them ,a third time senator representing Nasarawa West, Senator Abubakar Sodangi is already with us, another mover and shaker of of the people’s Democratic Party, Ahmed Aliyu Wadada a third time member federal House of representatives representing Karu, Kokona, Keffi federal constituency, we senator John Danboyi, and the current Deputy speaker of the Nasarawa State House of Assembly, Godiya Akwashiki, their defections is a clear trajectory of the ongoing display of core dividend of democracy.
You were a product of PDP before you change tent to the ruling party, what is the reason why you build a house and abandoned your house, I mean the PDP?
I dumped PDP because of impunity that enveloped the party while my second reason is corruption that pervaded the party; i dumped the party because of lack of internal democracy that was what killed the party at polling unit, ward level, local government, state and the federal level.
Can you say that president Muhammad Buhari has fulfilled his campaign covenant with the people especially the ongoing war on insurgency in the North-East as well his administration’s drive of fighting corruption hook, line and sinker?
President Muhammad Buhari is a unifying factor to this nation called Nigeria, he has fulfilled parts of his campaign promises of fighting insurgency in the North-East as well combating the hydra headed monster called corruption, the citizenry of this country can pass judgement in the North-Eastern part of the country and whether we like it or not the war is in favor of the federal government, while the APC government also succeeded in fighting corruption at least 40-45 percent, this was also extended to issues of kidnapping, in addition to the issue of insecurity 85 percent of our problem is political insecurity ,nothing short of that, do you know that the current recession was a product of PDP government, do you know that president Muhammadu Buhari inherited empty foreign reserve while the legacies of institutional indiscipline was imported by PDP. Tell anybody that if not Buhari this nation could have collapsed.
There was widespread rumor of President Muhammadu Buhari’s dead, what would be your message to Nigerians?
As a Muslim I don’t want to comment on that death wishes for Mr. President but all i know was that every life must test death and this is purely a campaign of calumny and i will advise us as people to shun such ungodly act,” let’s be patriotic as people but not to be celebrating the death of our leaders.
Any message to Nasarawa PDP or its leadership?
The state chairman of the party, Francis Orogu should blamed himself over his utterances, the chairman was amongst the arrow heads that compromised the future of the state for selfish gains, do you know that the impeachment attempt on governor Al-Makura was for the gain of the few ? because the governor refused to dance to their tune they take to impeachment and the populace of Nasarawa state resisted the attempt, secondly can Francis orogu tell us how much he collected, sorry the last Assembly collected as constituency allowance ? An individual collected N160m in four years as constituency project allowance, can he boost of executing any physical project in Keana constituency when he held sway as the representative of Keana constituency from 2011-2015.
Take a critical look at the mansion he built along Government House-bye pass, that house worth N200m, he used the four years to full his pocket but not for the sake of his people, the immediate House of Assembly members used their status as lawmakers to frustrate the governor with impeachment notice, but mind you the former Assembly members got N4.5m per month not the current members that are collecting N1.7m without constituency project allowance.
Just of recent the Nasarawa State Independent Electoral Commission (NASIEC) defended her 2017 budget of N900m, sir what are the chances of your party clinching the thirteen local governments in the forthcoming council election?
Our party have what it takes to spring surprises in the next council election, in fact if NASIEC is to conduct local government election in the state we will sweep all the chairmanship seats as well as all councillorship, if we are to go by the reality on ground.
The APC experienced a lot of internal rumpus during its party primaries at the thirteen local government but the most hit was Nasarawa local government and how do you intend to addressed the internal wrangling that exist in your party before the forthcoming election?
That experience was before we take over the saddle of party leadership and I don’t think we will experience such in our party again because internal democracy exists in our party.
