The Plateau State Governor, Simon Lalong, has explained the reason why former Deputy governor of Plateau State, Pallen Tallen rejected her ambassadorial appointment.
Tallen, who is one of the 46 non-career ambassadors President Buhari recently nominated and forwarded their names to the Senate for confirmation confirmed had rejected the appointment citing her desire to be close to her ailing husband as the reason.
But Lalong in a chat with State House correspondents at the end of a meeting of some APC governors with President Buhari on Monday said she did not reject the appointment on the grounds of her husband’s ill-health alone.
The governors had gone to complain to the president about how they are being sidelined in the appointment of persons from their states.
Lalong said the rejection had more to do on the need for all zones in the state to be treated fairly in terms of federal appointments.
The governor added, “The rejection is not only about her (Tallen’s) husband. I think it is the dimension of Plateau politics, because I had already made complaints to Mr. President that appointments should not be concentrated in one zone.
“All these appointments came again from that particular zone.
“The complaints that are coming from our state are not about her own personal interest; it is the fact that two ambassadorial appointments are coming from the same zone that we had complained about. That is my zone.
“We had said that the next appointment should go to the other zones, the central and the northern zones. So, when that appointment came, the kind of uproar that followed that appointment also necessitated an intervention.”
Lalung said the President had asked that state governors, who had complaints to put them in writing while promising to look into them.
“So, all the states that have complaints are going to put them into writing and the President promised that he is going to look into it,” he said.
