Former Minister of Information and governorship aspirant of the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) in Nasarawa state, Labaran Maku has said that despite about N390 billion received by the state in the last seven years, the Al-Makura government has nothing to show to the people as achievement.
The former Minister who spoke after submitting his nomination form in Abuja also said that Nasarawa state governor, Tanko Al-Makura and Senator representing representing Nasarawa west, Abdullahi Adamu, are fighting because of the mandate stolen from him in 2015.
Maku contested the governorship election on the platform of the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) but lost and alleged that the election was rigged to Umaru Tanko Al-Makura, incumbent governor of the state.
Governor Al-Makura and Sen. Adamu are presently at logger head as the governor has set up a committee to probe his predecessor (Adamu) for allegedly defrauded the state.
According to the governor, Sen. Adamu awarded a hydro-electricity power project in May 2004 at the cost of N5.4 billion. It was billed to be completed within 36 months. The project was abandoned after Aliyu Doma, Adamu’s successor, reviewed the cost upwards.
But Maku insisted that the fight between the outgoing governor and Sen. Adamu was as a result of his stolen mandate in 2015 governorship election, saying “both (Adamu and Al-Makura) of them know that they didn’t win the election. They know that they are sitting on a sit that they did not win. They know it and they have been confessing it in recent times of this crisis. They know Maku won the election but they upturned it and now there is crisis,” he said.
“You know robbers fight at the point of dividing the spoils, so now the crisis has erupted, that crisis tells the people of Nasarawa state clearly that the mandate was stolen – I knew there will be a fight over it – all they can do now is call the owner and hand it over so the state can witness peace and development, they don’t need to fight over it.”
The former minister said from 2015 till date, things have turned worse in the state, saying “In the period of this four years that the mandate was stolen, things have gotten worse in Nasarawa state, killings have multiplied. In many communities today people cannot go to farm.
“The government has been run in the most criminal way, N390 billion have been collected in these seven years but there is nothing substantive on the ground.
On his chances of winning the seat back in 2019, Maku said: “I took the ticket of APGA on Christmas day within three months, on April 11, I defeated the sitting governor Al-Makura in his own ward by 200 votes, in his own local government of Lafia, I defeated him, I defeated him in his own zone in four out of five local governments then I took the rest of the states, the results were awaited, some conspired and changed the results in the full glare of the people.
“You are going to see a massive turnaround of the politics in Nasarawa state, i challenge the media to enter Nasarawa and make a survey anywhere, whether you see people in a bus, on a farm or in a hospital – or a wedding, ask them, you find out that six to seven people will tell you that they are waiting for APGA, they are waiting for Maku and the reason is that God has favoured me from 1999 as commissioner for four years from 1999 to 2003, deputy governor from 2003 to 2007.”