Revealed: How Governor Lalong Is Paying Lip Service To The Plight Of IDPs From Riyom And Barkin Ladi
Yakubu Busari
A former House of Representatives member representing Barkin Ladi, Riyom Federal Constituency Plateau state Hon Simon Mwadkwon has accused Governor Simon Lalong administration of paying lip service in handling the issue of Internally Displaced Persons, IDPs, from Riyom and Barkin Ladi councils as he said their condition is now deplorable and stinking.
The communities were displaced and relocation from their original homes due to attack by Fulani Herders over two months ago on the Plateau.
Hon Mwadkwon who spoke to some journalists in Jos lamented that the two standing committees of Governor Lalong set up for the relocation of the internally displaced persons in Riyom and Barkinladi federal constituency back to their ancestral homes have stopped working as the displaced people now beg to eat and are sleeping on the grounds under the present harsh weather.
However, the former Member who the current candidate for the PDP ahead the 2019 election said; “we are not aware of their existence as he accused the standing committees of only existing in papers, on the Radio and not on the ground in the state.
Mwadkwon who won the PDP party primaries to run for the second time for the seat of member House of Representatives of Riyom/ Barkinladi federal constituency in the forthcoming National Assembly elections in the state, raised an alarm voice that the state government by its antics do not want his constituents to return back home before the 2019 general elections in February 2019.
According to him, the atmosphere in the state is becoming politically charged day in day out following the daylight robbery of the votes of the electorates by the state government of Governor Simon Lalong in the just concluded local government elections in the state that the results where hijacked by PLASIEC ,agents of Governor Lalong’s government in the state.
Mwadkwon who also served in Riyom Local government council of the state wondered why ” Governor Simon Lalong should squander the goodwill of the people of his state upon which he rode to power in 2015 from nowhere as he was not originally the one that was the people’s choice on the Plateau”
He maintained that, if Governor Lalong knew he was not prepared for local government polls in the state, the best thing for him could have been continuing with his transition implementation committees he installed in power on assumption of power in 2015 and not to waste the state resources to organise the state local government polls which his party candidates woefully lost at the polls and yet turned around to declare the election results in favour of his party candidates that lost elections in the 13 councils out of the existing local councils of the state that elections were conducted on the plateau recently .
He called on his party faithful not to allow themselves to be provoked over the madness that is ongoing in the state and work round the clock to win the state in all round in the 2019 general elections, saying the days of All Progressive Congress government in power on the Plateau are numbered waiting to expire.
