Adamawa State: Impeachment Battle Against Nyako Shifts To Court

                  

The battle of wits between the Adamawa State House of Assembly and Governor Murtala Nyako over a plot to impeach the latter is set to move to the court.

It was learnt in Abuja on Friday that the House of Assembly, which has been unable to serve the governor with the impeachment notice, is set to approach court to seek an order for substituted service.

A source, who confided in one of our correspondents, said, “We are going to court. I want to believe that our lawyer would have gone there by now to ask for an order to serve the governor through substitution.”

But the Director of Press and Public Affairs to the Adamawa State Governor, Mr. Ahmad Sajoh, said his principal was yet to be served the notice.

When our correspondent asked whether the governor had prepared or was preparing a response to the charges contained in the impeachment notice, Sajoh said, “We have not been served so I am not in a position to respond to your questions on this for now.”

However, it was learnt that the governor’s supporters were also going to court to seek a judicial interpretation of the issues involved.

The source said, “What we would like the court to determine is whether the present House has the powers to call up a matter from the governor’s first term in office to make an issue out of it.

“We would also like the court to tell us the difference between a Chief Judge and an acting Chief Judge because the constitution stipulates that certain functions which the House is seeking to carry out through the back door are reserved for the Chief Judge.”

It was also gathered that a yet to be identified religious group is mounting pressure on the members of the House to drop charges against the deputy governor, Mr. Bala Ngalari.

This is even as the embattled governor with the former Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, Malam Nuhu Ribadu, and the Adamawa State Chairman of the All Progressives Congress, Mrs. Binta Koji, met with former Vice-President Atiku Abubakar.

The meeting, it was learnt, was aimed at drafting Atiku into the effort aimed at saving the governor from being impeached.

Nyako, who was at Atiku’s Asokoro residence in Abuja, was accompanied by the former Chairman of the EFCC Malam Nuhu Ribadu.

Chairperson of the All Progressives Congress in Adamawa State, Mrs. Binta Koji, also attended the meeting.

Meanwhile, facts have emerged as to why the EFCC froze the accounts of the Adamawa State government.

A top operative of the anti-graft agency, who confided in one of our correspondents on Friday, said the EFCC took the pre-emptive measure to safeguard the state treasury.

Spokesperson for the EFCC, Wilson Uwujaren, confirmed the freeze order, but declined to make further comments.

However, a senior operative of the agency, who has an insight into the case, said there was incontrovertible evidence “of barefaced looting” in the state.

The source said preliminary investigations revealed that some of the state government officials were involved in looting of public resources.

The development, the source added, led to the arrest and questioning of the Secretary to the State Government, the State Commissioner for Finance, former Commissioner for Local Government ( now Commissioner for Higher Education), the Accountant General of the State and the Permanent Secretary, Ministry for Local Government.

The source further said that the investigation followed a series of petitions alleging massive looting of the treasury by the governor and his cronies through an illegal department called Special Programme and Project Units (SPPU ) which engaged in over invoicing and inflation of contract.

The source said “In the course of investigation, a critical analysis of local government account reveals massive cash withdrawals.”

 The Punch report