PEOPLES DEMOCRATIC PARTY,(PDP) PLATEAU STATE CHAPTER, 20/22 YAKUBU GOWON WAY OPP NTA JOS
28th Day of October 2021
PRESS STATEMENT
GOVERNOR LALONG’S EVIL PLAN TO IMPEACH SPEAKER PLATEAU STATE HOUSE OF ASSEMBLY RT HON AYUBA ABOK
The attention of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has been reliably drawn to the orchestrated plans by Governor Simon Bako Lalong to impeach the Speaker of the Plateau State House of Assembly, Rt Hon Ayuba Abok.
The plan is been facilitated on behalf of Lalong by the Chief of Staff, Noel Dongjur and the Secretary to the State government, Prof Danladi Atu via a nefarious and malicious petition, credited to one Abednego musa a faceless self seeking infiltrator masquerading as youths activist.
The petition is being sponsored to maliciously discredit, undermine and ridicule the achievements and enviable records of Rt Hon Abok. We can only imagine the desperation in orchestrating a needless accountability agitation when the state, led by Governor Lalong is broken morally with cronyism, nepotism, parochialism and embezzlement. The identity of this faceless activist needs to be known.
It is no longer news that all has not been well between the executive led by Governor Lalong and the legislative arm led by Abok leading to a sour relationship between the duo. It is an open secret that the cause of this needless feud is due to the high handedness of Lalong against the people who also thought that the speaker is his appointee or head of one of the agencies of government.
As a former Speaker, we expect Lalong to show respect to Abok and stop seeing him as a little boy. Former Governor Joshua Dariye, who is older than Lalong did not show such heavy disdain for him when he held sway as Speaker for 6 years.
As a party we would have ignored this petition coming from a rabble rouser and unscrupulous individual who is trying to exploit the media to disseminate false claims and misconception in a bid to deceive the public against the Speaker, who within two (2) years in office has distinguished himself by standing with the people in their moment of tribulations and trials.
As a party that stands for the people we condemn this, divisive and corrupt activities of a failed factional APC leadership in the state led by the drowning governor and his bunch of pretenders and infiltrators of no significant reputation.
The PDP will not sit and watch these elements ridicule governance in the state as a result of the failed leadership of the governor, the party would stand vehemently against any illegality in defense of democracy and accountability.
The PDP has since revealed how corrupt the government of Lalong is from 2015 to date, of which he has failed to either defend himself nor the government against the whooping revelations made. He has so refused to resign from office as corruption has completely killed his leadership initiative and sense of purpose of governance, instead he is now busy pushing forward mediocrity, dishonesty and the demise of rule of law.
Today the factional leadership of the APC has shamelessly come out to pose as accountability crusader with indecorous and self seeking calumny that is nothing but a crass thuggery and its usual rascality disguising to be activism when its own house has been eaten by corruption;
It is most laughable that the signatory to this petition failed to detail his petition to the general public on how corrupt Governor Lalong is from 2015 to date. But we can as well remind these petitioners that, they should also include in their petition the mismanagement of public fund by Governor Lalong through inflation of contracts awarded to his families and friends which includes the following:
- The award of contract to popular foods ltd for the procurement of assorted fertilizer for the 2015 farming season: which a supply of 175 trucks of NPK and 175 trucks of urea awarded at the total cost of #1,312,500.000.
- Supply of 150 trucks of NPK and also 150 trucks of urea by MBS Merchants Ltd, at the total cost of #1, 125000.000
3 The supply of 26Nos official vehicles by kefiano at the total cost of #1, 210,199,700,00
- Supply and installation of GPS by Organized global limited at the total cost of #1,381,063,700,00
- Rehabilitation/patching of some roads within Jos awarded to his brother through direct labour at the total cost of #525,675,696,30
These, all happened between 1st September 2015 to 27th September 2015.
Today we are all aware that the moves to impeach the speaker is to cover their corrupt activities as the Speaker has refused to cooperate with them as a result of his stand in defense of democracy and accountability, which led to his recent request to have access to some financial documents in MDA’s where funds were appropriated, which was denied the house committee access.
This action clearly shows that Governor Lalong have tempered with the funds meant for local governments, and the PARIS Club totaling #14 billion released to state government and the unlawful deduction of local government funds where billions were sent to PLASIEC for it’s just concluded local government election sham.
We want to remind Governor Lalong that, the people of Plateau are with the Speaker and the entire state assembly for standing with the people, especially when the communities of Jebu Miango and Yelwa Zangam were attacked. The speaker did not only identified with the people by granting them audience, but went as far as visiting the wounded victims of this dastardly act and also paid their bills while our dear Governor lalong, chairman of northern state governors was busy playing golf with some of his appointees at the Abuja IBB golf club in.
The level of corruption in Lalong’s government is unprecedented hence we dare asked the so called executive Director of Youths Right against corruption who owns the following family offshore companies with properties abroad?
- MC Hooms Nigeria Ltd
- PHK Hooms Nigeria Ltd
- Azanchi Nigeria Ltd
These are some of the companies that have been allegedly used by families of the executive Governor to purchase fertilizer for the state while some were fraudulently used as contractors to get in SUBEB totaling over #2,100,000,000,00 while the supply made was about #600,000,000 which the state house of assembly in discharging its constitutional function of check and balance, set up an Audit team to uncover.
All these illegality, level of corruption and the desperation to cover has made Lalong behave like a bull in the China shop, thereby using his chief of staff and the SGS to impeach the Speaker thinking that will help him out.
During the 2018 Local Government election in the state, at that time PLASIEC had over 2 billion naira domiciled in UBA and zenith banks and the accounts depleted to about #500 million in 2021 which necessitated the reported illegal deductions from local government accounts to fund the recent local government election. Again the state assembly requested for documents in respect to this accounts through the special Audit committee and Governor Lalong gave an order that no document should be released to the house committee.
The question is, what is Lalong afraid of? Indeed corruption has been plaguing the state since the inception of his administration in 2015.
We therefore wish to alert the unsuspecting general public that these petitioners are essentially busy body interlopers and hangers on, who are always at the service of anybody who can pay their bills since they lack the capacity to command any iota of respect. They have resorted to scavenging for a written script over the years against the speaker of Lagos state aided by a factional APC leadership in the state to smear and distract the speaker and his members from discharging their constitutional responsibility from where they were recruited to Plateau.
We call on our members in the state assembly and indeed well meaning Plateau people to disregard this antics of desperation from a failed and corrupt APC factional leadership in the state who are intimidated and threatened by the rising support and acceptability of Rt Hon Ayuba Abok the Speaker of Plateau State House of assembly for his stand and commitment towards the people.
Thank you and God bless Plateau state and the Peoples Democratic party (PDP)
Signed…
John T Akans ksm FICA JP.
State Publicity Secretary (PDP)
Plateau State