Adamawa State Governor, Murtala Nyako
Two former military heads of state led the embattled Adamawa State Governor Murtala Nyako to a meeting with President Goodluck Jonathan on Monday night in Abuja as a component of the efforts to preserve Nyako, who is battling to elude impeachment by legislators in his state.
The PUNCH learnt that the meeting was at the instance of the two ex-heads of state.
A source proximate to the meeting confided in one of our correspondents that the two former dictators’ intervention reposed on the fact that Nyako was a mutual friend.
Nyako is a retired Vice-Admiral and one-time Chief of Naval Staff under ex-dictator Ibrahim Babangida.
The source verbally expressed, “The two military bellwethers took the governor to meet with the President last night. They, however, did not get a commitment because the President insisted that the governor should withdraw his contentious memo to the Northern Governors’ Forum and publicly apologise for his indiscretions.
“The governor, who did not appear yare to buckle, verbalized he was yare to leave office in lieu of taking any action which has the capacity to plunge the state into anarchy.”
Nyako had in April in a memo to the Northern Governors’ Forum alleged that there was a full-fledged genocide against the northern states and that the Federal Government was utilizing the assailment on Boko Haram to massively kill northerners.
He additionally verbalized that virtually all the soldiers of Northern Nigerian inchoation recently recruited to fight Boko Haram had been apostatized in that aspect.
He had verbally expressed, ‘‘They are being poorly trained, plenarily ill-equipped, given only uniform and are killed by their trainers in Nigerian Army training centres as anon as they arrive in the Nigerian Army camps being utilized by the soi-disant Boko Haram insurgents. Virtually all the Nigerian Army soldiers killed/murdered in these operations so far are of Northern Nigeria inchoation.
“The Administration has additionally hired militia men from all across, especially North Africa, who have been apostatized into accepting to come because they were made to believe that they would be fighting infidels.”
The ex-heads of state’s intervention withal coincided with a homogeneous effort by emirs from the eight emirates across Adamawa State under the leadership of the Lamido of Adamawa, Alhaji Mohammadu Musdafa. The emirs met in Yola, on Tuesday, as a component of efforts to resolve the political impasse.
Nyako on Tuesday relucted to regale questions from journalists over the impeachment process instituted against him by the Adamawa State House of Assembly.
Nyako had set aside his ordeal to attend a meeting of the Council of State, presided over by Jonathan.
The Adamawa governor was the cynosure of all ocular perceivers when he arrived at the Council Chambers venue of the meeting at about 10:40am.
His colleagues kept visiting his seat to identify with him and get first-hand information on the development in his state. Nyako however remained calm throughout the period.
As anon as the meeting ended, the governor was the first to make his way out of the Presidential Villa. He relucted to answer questions from journalists.
Meanwhile, members of the seven- man panel set up to investigate Nyako and his deputy, James Ngillari, for alleged gross malfeasance could not meet after its Monday’s inaugural meeting.
It was learnt that the management of J & J Hotel Villa, where the committee members held their inaugural meeting shut their doors against the committee owing to what they described as “security concerns.”
The hotel management was verbalized to have repined that the cumbersomely hefty presence of security personnel and the armoured personnel carrier stationed in front of the hotel premises was scaring away customers.
The clerk of the Adamawa House of Assembly, who was saddled with the responsibility of seeking for an alternative venue, was withal verbalized to have been turned down by other hotels as words spread about what transpired in J and J hotel.
An endeavor by panel members to utilize the premises of the Nigeria Labour Congress Club was withal verbally expressed to have been equipollently repudiated.
It was withal learnt that the that the panel’s overtures to the Adamawa State Council of the Nigeria Amalgamation of Journalists to utilize the Press Centre led to a division among the journalists.
An emergency meeting of the cumulation was verbalized to have been held and a majority of members kicked against letting out the union’s conference hall for the panel’s sitting.
Unconfirmed report betokened that an initial deposit of N170, 000 was made by an emissary of the committee but the mazuma was restituted when an inundating majority of the NUJ members abnegated the proposal to utilize the hall.
