“The PDP stakeholders have demonstrated that the PDP is a party that has little respect for the judiciary and the rule of Law.”

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The Adamawa State government has accused the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, of being behind the plot to impeach Governor Murtala Nyako and his deputy, Bala Ngillari.

In a statement by Ahmad Sajoh, the Director of Press of the Adamawa Government House, the state alluded to a recent meeting of the PDP stakeholders as fuelling the impeachment.

The Adamawa State House of Assembly resolved to commence impeachment of Messrs. Nyako and Ngillari following allegations of corruption leveled against them. The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, has also frozen the Adamawa government’s account on the corruption allegations.

A court in Adamawa has, however, ordered the lawmakers to suspend the impeachment moves.

Read Mr. Sajoh’s statement below

EXPOSING THE UNSEEN HANDS IN THE ADAMAWA IMPEACHMENT SAGA

The meeting of PDP stakeholders in Yola on the 28th of June, 2014 proved beyond all reasonable doubt that the impeachment crisis initiated by the Adamawa State House of Assembly is tele-guided by some unseen hands in Abuja. At the end of the meeting, a communique was issued in the afternoon of Sunday the 29th of June, 2014. It was clear from the resolutions reached at the meeting that the participants were acting out a script written from Abuja. The communique was unnecessarily verbose and full of contradictory statements that betray the inherent self-interests in the impeachment imbroglio.

Going through the communique three things were clear:
1. The PDP has displayed their usual penchant for forsaking their own. Their attempt to forsake the Deputy Governor who they had earlier encouraged to abandon the Governor and be crowned as their Party leader is indeed unfortunate. Even though the PDP had encouraged Bala Ngillari to rebel against the Governor and remain within their fold, when it came to the promoting the self-interests of some of the party stakeholders they simply forsook the Deputy Governor. This is rather unfortunate and a clear manifestation of the role of PDP as an unreliable political platform that is ever willing to devour its own to achieve a selfish goal.

2. The PDP stakeholders have demonstrated that the PDP is a party that has little respect for the judiciary and the rule of Law. By disparaging the Judiciary in their communique, they have once again proved beyond any reasonable doubt that they have little respect for the Judiciary and the respect Men and Women of the Bench. A situation where the Speaker of the House went to court to seek a court order and did not get it; then he turned around to disregard the court judgment is really bad. But it is worse when a set of Party leaders support such acts of lawlessness. This further proves their lack of respect for the rule of law. And by supporting such an action, the stakeholders have endorsed an illegality. The PDP as a party has always shown disregard and disdain for the judiciary. We are therefore not surprised that they have expressed such in their communique.

3. The stakeholders claimed they are in support of the EFCC which has illegally frozen the accounts of the State government without going to court as required by section 34 of the EFCC Act. This is further proof of the anti-people stand of the PDP as a Party and those of the stakeholders of the Party in Adamawa State. While they complain of a minor deduction in staff salaries of May 2014, they have openly supported the non-payment of June salaries to Adamawa workers with all the attendant hardship on the workers, their families and the economy of the State. This is even as Adamawa Muslims join others in commencing the Ramadan fast. This is not only callous but blatantly wicked.

We observed that some of those who sat and took the decisions including some members of the communique committee still have questions to answer with the EFCC. We believe they are only in the plot as a bargaining chip to have their corruption charges dropped in the manner of several others who choose to kowtow to the biddings of the powers that be in Abuja in order to have their corruption charges forgiven.

Ahmad I. Sajoh, MNIPR
Director Press and Public Affairs
Government House, Yola
29/06/2014