The Taraba State chapter of All Progressives Congress, APC, has indicated that it would probe the state governor, Darius Dickson Ishaku of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), if the Appeal or Supreme Court declares the APC candidate, Senator Aisha Alhassan winner.
The appeal court recently reserved judgment in the appeal filed by Gov. Ishaku challenging the governorship election petitions tribunal ruling that sacked him from office and declared Alhassan, who is currently the Minister for Women Affairs, Governor of Taraba.
Briefing journalists yesterday in Jalingo, the state capital, the Taraba chairman of APC, Alhaji Hassan Jika Ardo, accused the present government of siphoning the N9.4 billion bailout money granted to the state by the Federal Government as well as widespread misappropriation of the state resources.
Mr. Ardo disclosed that if the APC eventually takes over power from Ishaku, he must be ready to subject himself to a probe in order to know how all the resources allocated to Taraba State was spent.
“The sum of N9.4bn has been released to Taraba State to bail the outstanding salaries, they have not paid the outstanding salaries, yet you can see people protesting now. We will probe them and find out where is the whereabouts of this money.
“You over heard the former commissioner for Finance, the present Chief of Staff, Rebo Usman saying that they have released N2bn to the local governments, which is blatant lie”, the Taraba APC chairman said.
According to Ardo, the Taraba APC has information at its disposal that shows that the Darius administration only released N700 million to the 16 local governments areas, asking where the balance of N1.3 billion went.
“All these things we have to probe and find out, and what about their recoveries and the state allocations, what are they doing with the money? So if we cannot probe, we cannot progress”, he said.
The APC chairman noted that every month, the state collects allocation from the Federation Account, yet Ishaku could not pay salaries of local government staff, pensions as well as gratuities.
“We have to probe and find out who are those siphoning these monies and where they are taking the money to, they must bring that money back”, the APC chair insisted.
Ardo, however, urged the people of the state to be more patient and wait for the verdicts of the upper courts.
Mr. Ardo, nw yhu & co. instead should get ready to be probed by Goggon ka A’isha Jummai over the multi_cash she gave yhu to rig elections bt to no avail. I was a PDP agent in one of polling units here in Jalingo the state capital where I personally witnessed lots of rigging acts by Apc agents & when reacted to that twaz so close to a rampage bt fortunately God took wheel that hour. if yhu doubt i present yhu the record.