Fresh trouble for Gov Nyako

From Umar Dankano, Yola

There are indications that there is no respite for the embattled Adamawa state governor, Admiral Murtala Nyako, as the state House of Assembly yesterday ordered him to urgently refund the deductions allegedly made by government from this month’s salaries of the workers in the state on or before Friday, May 30, 2014.

All members of the 25-member Adamawa Assembly are now in the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), with the defection last week Thursday of the only three All Progressives Congress (APC) lawmakers to the PDP.

The lawmakers were reported at the weekend to be plotting to impeach Governor Nyako, a scheme alleged to have been hatched in Abuja by the Presidency.

The Adamawa governor has had a running battle with the Goodluck Jonathan Presidency over a memo he recently circulated to his colleagues in the Northern States Governors’ Forum (NSGF), in which he accused the central administration of promoting genocide against northerners through the seeming intractable Boko Haram insurgency.

The Adamawa Assembly lawmakers, allegedly worried by what they described as “indiscriminate deductions” from the workers’ salaries by the Nyako government, had summoned the state Commissioner of Finance, Hon. Ibrahim Buba Yokna and the Accountant General of the state, Alhaji Abubakar Mohammed, to appear before them yesterday, to defend the deductions.

This was part of an earlier resolution passed by the lawmakers, who queried the governor, demanding to know why workers’ salaries would be deducted without cogent reasons and prior notification to the civil servants. They also demanded to know whether the state had declared a new tax regime.

After an interaction with the state executive officials yesterday, the Assembly directed the executive arm of government to refund the deductions.

It also directed that the pending salaries of new teachers employed in the last 19 months should be paid by end of this month, failure of which could lead to “drastic action” against the governor.

The lawmakers accused the state government of making the alleged indiscriminate deductions to the workers’ salaries in the name of tax, by implementing an unacceptable tax regime that the entire Adamawa workforce was not aware of.

The House also faulted the state government for not keeping up to its promises to the workers.

In the meantime, there are speculations that some of Governor Nyako’s colleagues in the APC have moved in to help stop the rumoured plot to impeach him by the state Assembly members.

Kano state governor, Dr. Rabiu Kwankwaso, was in Yola, the state capital, yesterday and held a meetiing with Nyako, the state Assembly Speaker, Rt. Hon. Ahmadu Umaru, some members of the state legislature as well as other critical stakeholders in the state at the Presidential Villa in the state.

Our correspondent learnt that the Sokoto state governor, Alhaji Aliyu Magatakarda, was also billed to be part of the meeting but did not because his jet could not land at the Yola Airport due to bad weather.

Source close to the meeting told our correspondent that the parley, which was held behind closed doors for over two hours, tried to assuage the lawmakers who are now fully in the opposition PDP.

But when approached for comments by newsmen at the end of the meeting, on his mission to Yola, the Kano state governor said he was in Adamawa to discuss issues of mutual interest between Adamawa and Kano states, with his “brother”, Governor Nyako.