Stop Gov Al-Makura from Selling Nasarawa Assets, Maku Tells Buhari

By Emma Elah

National Secretary of the All Progressive Grand Alliance (APGA), Labaran Maku, on Sunday pleaded with President Muhammadu Buhari to intervene and stop Governor Umaru Tanko Al-Makura from selling Nasarawa State’s assets.

This is against the backdrop of a recent approval by the Nasarawa State House of Assembly of a request forwarded to it by the governor seeking to dispose state owned landed properties located in Lagos, Kaduna and Jos, as well as drawing the attention of the assembly to the liquidation of the Nasarawa Property Investment and Development Company (NPIDC) as government was set to sell the company's properties.

But Maku, who is a former minister of information, kicked against the decision to sell the assets by Governor Al-Makura during a press conference at Akwanga, headquarters of Akwanga Local Government of Nasarawa State, stating that the decision was to auction Nasarawa State to Al-Makura and his friends.

"I am calling on President Buhari to set up a panel of investigation to find out what is going on in Nasarawa State as it was because of the President that Al-Makura was elected as governor of the state on the platform of the defunct Congress for Progressives Change (CPC) in 2011."

"So the president has a special responsibility to stop the disaster that is going on in Nasarawa State because his name is at stake. If the governor goes on with these near criminal policies by selling the state to himself and his friends, we will blame the President because the governor had no reputation of himself to put to the table in 2011 general election. "

The APGA scribe lamented that the governor even seized some chunks of land belonging to peasants in the state but not satisfied and wanted to also sell the state’s assets which his predecessors dared not even thought of selling then.

"This is frightening given the fact that if Governor Al-Makura could summon the courage and temerity at this time when the state has been so impoverished in the last six years when workers are not paid salaries, pensioners not having either gratuities or pensions and personally rubber-stamped a bill to give him authority to auction every prime assets of Nasarawa State to himself and his friends, then the future of the state is bleak," Maku maintained.