Police present 3 wanted Adamawa commissioners to Assembly

From Umar Dankano, Yola

As the on-going probe into the activities of Governor Murtala Nyako-led administration embarked upon by the Adamawa state House of Assembly continued yesterday, the Adamawa Police Command presented three of the four commissioners declared wanted by the House.

It will be recalled that on Thursday last week the house directed the state Commissioner of Police to produce the four commissioners that failed to honored the house invitation and that the affected commissioners should be brought to the house on yesterday (Monday) at 10 am.

Three out of the four commissioners brought personally to the floor of the House by the Commissioner of Police, Mr. John Abakasanga were that of Health, Barr. Lillian Stephen Kayode; Agriculture, Mrs. Lucy Ishaku and Commerce, Alhaji Ahmed Garko while that of Land and Survey was “still at large”.

Presenting the commissioners into the assembly’s chamber on behalf of the Commissioner of Police who left before the commencement of plenary, the Assistant Commissioner of Police in charge of CID, Mr. Salau Usman, told the lawmakers that, the police could not get the commissioner for Land and Survey.

“I called him on phone and he promised that he will come”, Usman said.

The Speaker, Hon. Ahmadu Fintiri, thanked the police for reacting accordingly to the House’s directive and urged it to look for the commissioner for Land and Survey, still at large.

Meanwhile, the Secretary to the State Government, Mr Kobis Thinnu, the state Executive Chairman Board of Internal Revenue, Alhaji Ahmad Tuta and the state Coordinator of Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), Alhaji Adamu Garbajo, who were due to also appear before the house on Monday had written a letter on why they could not make it and we’re given new dates on which to appear.

But in a swift reaction, Governor Murtala Nyako of Adamawa insisted that his commissioners went to the house on their own and were not arrested by the police.

Speaking through his Director of Press and Publicity Ahmad Sajoh, in a press release, said that the drama that took place at the floor of the House yesterday was a mere blackmail.

He explained that Nyako’s commissioners went to the House on their own and were waylaid by the leadership of the House, who later claimed that the police presented them to the House as if they were common criminals.

According to Sajoh, “It was most unfortunate and smirks of blackmail, for both the House and the Police to have acted the way they did. The claim that the Commissioners were arrested by the police was false, malicious and a calculated attempt to ridicule the Government and embarrass the persons concerned”.

He explained that due to the tight schedule of the commissioners they sent their permanent Secretaries to represent them on the scheduled dates because they were not in the state.

Nyako’s spokesman said that it is an affront on natural justice for a person who sends a representative to be deemed to have refused or neglected a summons, stressing that the whole process adopted is not it tandem with the provision of section 128 of the Constitution and violated the fundamental rights of the officers concerned.

“What transpired amounted to mere harassment and intimidation of the said commissioners”, he stated.