•His stunning questionable acquisitions
• Misruling at the mercy of PDP lawmakers
Gov Umaru Tanko Al Makura of Nasarawa State’s administration has been dogged by many scandals.
Al Makura continues in office at the mercy of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, dominated House of Assembly; his worries are further compounded by the graft charges, corruptions among other allegations levelled against him by the state Assembly.
Recently at the expiration of the one-month notice given to him to rename the model school he named after his private business, Tanko Al-Makura, TAAL, Nigeria Limited, the Nasarawa State governor on invitation to the House, ostensibly led political thugs to shut down the state House of Assembly indefinitely
Even as a Muslim, if there is any prayer that is now a refrain on the lips of Al-Makura, it will probably be: “Lord if it is your will, let this cup pass over me.”
For the Nasarawa State governor, the ‘cup’ in question is the intense searchlight the state Assembly is now beaming on his two-year administration on account of alleged mindless pun he is playing with the state commonwealth in the mould of award of spurious contracts.
The alleged Al-Makura heist is coming at a time when his continued stay at the Shedam Road Government House rests squarely on whatever decision the opposition lawmakers in the state come up with. Al-Makura has survived eight impeachment notices in the last two years in office.
The Nasarawa State House of Assembly had threatened to impeach Governor Al-Makura over the naming of the ‘state of art’ TAAL Model School, and the painting of the school with the colour of the defunct Congress for Progressive Change, CPC. Other contentious issues threatening Al-Makura’s two years in office include: the naming of the 200 tricycle units Keke TAAL. The House resolved that the governor should repaint the entire model school constructed under the collaborative efforts of the Universal Basic Education Commission, UBEC, and the Nasarawa State Universal Education Board, NUEBS.
Investigation revealed that TAAL, the acronym for Tanko Al-Makura, is a registered company which the governor has substantial interest in. But the government sees nothing wrong with naming a public school after a private company owned solely by Governor Al-Makura.
Speaking through his chief press secretary, Mr. Iliyasu Ali Yakubu, Governor Al Makura said, “There is nothing wrong with naming a school after the governor’s company; TAAL stands for Tanko Al-Makura.”
The House posited that Governor Al-Makura could easily claim the property after the expiration of his tenure in office.
Again, the state House of Assembly, on Wednesday, August 14, invited some key officials of the state to appear before it to give account of how they run their agencies. The three officials invited were commissioner for Works and Transport, Wada Yahaya; chairman of Nasarawa State Universal Basic Education Board, Abdulkarim Abubakar and the special adviser to the governor on interparty affairs, Hajiya Hajo Danyaro.
Al-Makura, according to our source, was blackmailed into awarding the contract for the construction of the state House of Assembly complex to the members. After the negotiation, it was reportedly agreed that the money for the job be routed through the legislators’ salaries so that they can take their share and pay the balance to the contractor.
Through that means, the House effectively jerked up the salaries of members to about N100 million monthly, but as soon as the approval became official, the lawmakers refused to pay the contractors the sum agreed. Thus the state government was faced with the problem of paying the new monthly largesse appropriated for the legislators as well as the N2.869 billion contract sum.
Records obtained showed that from the initial contract sum, the Doma administration paid the contractor, Katta Construction Company Limited, the total sum of N1.29.408.722 while the present government has paid N500 million, bringing the total sum paid to the contractor to N1.240, 456,320.09.
With the legislators collecting N70 million monthly that should have gone into the construction of the state Assembly complex, it means they have collected N840 million every year for about six years, which would amount to over N5 billion, nearly double the cost of the state House of Assembly quarters. In addition, Al-Makura pays the legislators N10 million every quarter for constituency projects in their various communities.
The CPC-led administration inherited close to N40 billion debts, and at the time Al- Makura took over, the state was said to be borrowing not less than N850 million monthly to pay salaries in addition to other liabilities despite the huge financial resources accruing to the state.
Also under Doma, Nasarawa State collected N109, 289,698,459.60 as federal allocation in four years, investigations further revealed. This is in addition to N3, 030,000,000 as security vote between June 2007 and May 2011.
A total of N 10, 471,000 was refunded to the state as ‘hanging funds’ from Paris Club debt relief. The refunded sum which was shared between Nasarawa and Plateau States went down the drain.
It was furthered gathered that as the Al-Makura’s administration battles with the excruciating debt, the state’s chief executive has