Al-Makura, Sen. Abdullahi fights dirty over stolen mandate – Maku

Former Minister of Information and governorship aspirant of the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA), Labaran Maku, has said that Nasarawa state governor, Tanko Al-Makura and Senator representing Nasarawa west, Abdullahi Adamu, are fighting because of his stolen mandate in 2015

Maku contested the governorship election on the platform of the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) but lost and had alleged that the election was rigged for Umaru Tanko Al-Makura, incumbent governor of the state.

Both governor Al-Makura and Sen. Adamu recently disagreed politically with the governor setting up a committee last week to probe his predecessor (Adamu) for allegedly defrauding the state.

According to the governor, Sen. Adamu awarded a hydro-electricity power project in May 2004 at the cost of N5.4 billion, which was billed for completion within 36 months. The project was abandoned after Aliyu Doma, Adamu’s successor, reviewed the cost upwards.

The Senator replied, saying that probing him is a waste of tax payers money.

Speaking with journalists after submitting his expression of interest and nomination forms at the national secretariat of APGA yesterday in Abuja, Maku revealed that the fight between the outgoing governor and Sen. Adamu was as a result of his stolen mandate in 2015 governorship election.

He said: “Both Adamu and Al-Makura know that they didn’t win election, both of them are sitting on seats 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, now there is crisis.

“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 that 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 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 people conspired and changed the results in the full glare of the people”.

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.