Governor Murtala Nyako really needs all the help he can get to hold on to his seat as Governor.
The embattled governor of Adamawa State, Murtala Nyako as such has gone to seek the help of his party members, former Vice-President Atiku Abubakar, former Executive Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), Nuhu Ribadu, Governor Rabiu Kwankwaso of Kano State and Governor Aliyu Wamakko of Sokoto State over his impending impeachment.
Nyako met with Atiku and Ribadu yesterday in Abuja.
The governor and his deputy, Bala Ngilari, were served with impeachment notices by the Adamawa state House of Assembly on Wednesday.
Osun Defender reports: as follows:
The ex-vice president and Ribadu are from Adamawa.
It is understood that they have been trying to reach out to members of the Adamawa State House of Assembly to resolve the face-off with Nyako.
There were indications that a prominent Northern emir prevailed on Atiku to bail out Nyako.
A source said: “Efforts to resolve the impeachment are continuing with the governor’s visit to former Vice President Atiku Abubakar to draft him into the peace effort.
“Nyako, who was at Atiku’s Asokoro residence, was accompanied by Ribadu. The ex-EFCC chairman has also done his best in the last three days. Most stakeholders believe that Atiku is vital to the resolution of the Executive-Legislature face-off in Adamawa State.”
The Chairperson of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Adamawa State Chapter, Hon. Binta Garba Koji, was also present in the house.
Shortly upon the governor’s arrival, they went into a closed-door meeting.
Atiku was said to have committed himself to meeting the members of the state legislature last night to try and persuade them to drop the impeachment bid.
“Where this fails, we hope that the former Vice President will ask his loyalists to withdraw their signatures.
“Once he does that, the impeachment process will collapse because the requisite number for it to continue would have been lost,” the source said.
Another source said: “I think it is part of a series of meetings that these leaders had in the past few days. There was a communication gap between the governor and the lawmakers, and they are trying to see how this can be addressed.
“These leaders have opened up talks with some of the aggrieved lawmakers who have relocated to Abuja.
“There might be some headway because in this kind of situation, the two parties have to be mutually consultative.”
A third source said: “We learnt that a prominent emir in the North actually begged Atiku to save the situation in Adamawa.
“The emir, who is apolitical, was said to be concerned more about the aftermath of the impeachment than the politics of it.”
Many members of the State Assembly have already relocated to Abuja apparently to perfect their strategy.
They were hosted to a dinner in the Federal Capital on Wednesday by a former National Chairman of the party.
The assemblymen resolved on Tuesday to serve the impeachment notice on the governor and his deputy,Mr.Bala Ngilira, for alleged financial mismanagement.
Following the unavailability of the governor in Yola to personally receive the notice,the legislators pasted the impeachment notice on the wall of Government House in Yola.
A team from the Assembly, escorted by heavily armed mobile policemen, pasted the notice on the wall of the Government House,a source in Yola said.
“Although the Government House was under lock and key, they succeeded in pasting the impeachment notice when they could not locate the governor,” said the source.
“They are just desperate about the whole thing, fuelling concerns that some forces outside the state are sponsoring the plot.
“There are arguments on whether the process was valid or not. So, there may be legal issues out of the procedure adopted by the Assembly.
“I think some aggrieved people might go to court to challenge the desperate procedure adopted by the Assembly.
Another source said the governor and the assemblymen are in Abuja for “intense horse-trading” by both parties.
He said: “Virtually all the stakeholders, including the APC Chairman in Adamawa State, Hon. Binta Garba, are in Abuja to reconcile the governor and the lawmakers. This is the usual lobbying of the lawmakers.
“Governors Aliyu Wammakko and Rabiu Kwankwaso and some eminent Northerners have also waded into the impeachment saga.
“They are seeking to prevail on the lawmakers to have a rethink.
“These governors have been meeting all day with some of the lawmakers in Abuja to see how to avert the plot.”
At the Wednesday dinner for the state legislators, the ex-PDP National Chairman reportedly told his guests that “it is a good development that you are trying to ensure probity and accountability in Adamawa State.”
He asked them to be “fair and just in seeing through the impeachment proceedings.”
Meanwhile, the President, Civil Rights Congress of Nigeria, Comrade Shehu Sani, has described the impeachment plot against Nyako as a political vendetta.
Sani, who made his position known in a statement, accused the PDP of sponsoring the plot.
He said the impeachment notice is “nothing other than a scripted exercise by the ruling PDP to punish and persecute Governor Nyako for his principled stand to defect to the APC.The impeachment plot is a facade by the PDP and the Federal Government to retake the state.”
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