The Adamawa State governor, Admiral Murtala Nyako and his Deputy, Mr
James Bala Ngilari were yesterday said to be in Abuja, begging to be
saved from impeachment by members of the state House of Assembly.
The House, Wednesday accused the Nyako and Ngilari of gross misconduct
in its notices of impeachment on the two leaders. The notices, it was
gathered would now be served through substituted service.
However,
this was even as the Adamawa State government yesterday said that the
Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, had frozen its accounts
in all the commercial banks in the country.
The embattled
governor yesterday visited former Vice President Atiku Abubakar, begging
him to intervene in the political imbroglio.
Nyako was said to have
visited Atiku along with to the former Chairman of the EFCC, Mallam
Nuhu Ribadu and the Chairman, Adamawa State chapter of the All
Progressives Congress, APC, Hon. Binta Koji.
Sources told Saturday
Vanguard that the trio went into a closed door meeting soon after the
governor arrived the former Vice President’s residence.
Atiku, who
travelled to South Africa for the inauguration of the country’s
parliament, returned to the country at about 7 pm yesterday ostensibly
to also play a fatherly role in the matter.
It was gathered that
Atiku would beg the legislators to sheathe their swords by saving the
jobs of both the governor and his deputy.
”Where this fails, we hope
that the former vice president will ask his loyalists to withdraw their
signatures. Once he does that, the impeachment process will collapse
because the requisite number for it to continue will have been lost,” a
source close to the meeting said.
According to the source, both Nyako, Ngilari and the legislators were in Abuja for the reconciliation meeting.
Apart from Atiku’s alleged intervention, it was also gathered that the
Northern Nigerian Governors’ Forum, NNGF, also met to resolve the issues
at stake and save him from being impeached just as the Senator
representing Taraba North, Senator Aisha Jummai Al – Hassan reportedly
called a meeting of senators from the North East to intervene in the
matter.
However, the Adamawa State Commissioner for Justice, Mr
Ibrahim Tahir, told newsmen in Yola yesterday that the EFCC had written
the state to the effect that it had frozen all the bank accounts of the
state government in commercial banks.
The EFCC said it ‘’froze the
accounts as a precautionary measure to safeguard the state treasury amid
evidence of barefaced looting uncovered in an on- going investigation.”
According to sources at the Commission, there was massive looting of
the state treasury by top officials of state government, a development
that led to the arrest and questioning of the Secretary to the State
Government, the Commissioner for Finance, former Commissioner for Local
Government (now Commissioner for Higher Education), the Accountant
General of the State and the Permanent Secretary, Ministry for Local
Government.
“In the course of investigation, a critical analysis of
local government accounts revealed massive cash withdrawals,’’ it said
last night.
The government further said that apart from freezing the
accounts, the Presidency had also ordered securitymen to monitor
Nyako’s movements.
Members of the Adamawa State House of Assembly,
Tuesday, gave impeachment notices to both Nyako and Ngilari over alleged
fraudulent activities running into several billions of Naira.
Following the impeachment notices, all the legislators in the House had
relocated to Abuja along with Nyako and Ngilari, as efforts were being
made by elders from the state to resolve the issues amicably.
In 2008, the governor faced similar impeachment threats from the legislators but the matter was later resolved.
However, following Nyako’s alleged penchant to tackle political
gladiators from the state, he was alleged to have lost the political
good will of most leaders, especially within the ruling All Progressives
Congress, APC, and the opposition People’s Democratic Party, PDP.
Among the political leaders who had at one time or the other quarrelled
with Nyako include the former Vice President, Atiku Abubakar, former
Military Administrator of Lagos State, Brigadier General Buba Marwa and
his erstwhile political god-father, Senator Jibril Aminu as well as
former National Chairman of the PDP, Alhaji Bamanga Tukur.
As a
result of the development, most of the political leaders in the had
supported the impeachment of both the governor and his deputy to pave
the way for another election within three months.
Meanwhile, the
Director of Press and Public Affairs at the Adamawa Government House,
Yola, Ahmad Sajoh, has blamed the Presidency over the political tension
in the state, saying that it had ‘’exposed the desperate efforts by
President Goodluck Jonathan to witch hunt officials he perceived as
enemies even if it means subjecting the electorate to hardship.’’
According to Sajoh, the closure of the government’s accounts would
affect workers as salaries would be delayed just as other social
services especially would be disrupted during the Ramadan fasting.
‘’President Jonathan has made it clear that the impeachment plan against
Gov. Murtala Nyako must sail through and has also mandated security
agents to be on the trail of the governor, who will
immediately be arrested by the EFCC once he is impeached and he loses his immunity,” he said.
Nyako who was said to have been disallowed from travelling to Abuja by
flight on Thursday, traveled by road to attend the peace meetings.
Source: Vanguard