Nasarawa House, CJ set to clash over Al-Makura

The Nasarawa State House of Assembly and the state Chief Judge, Justice Justice Sulaiman Dikko, may be heading for a showdown over the composition of the seven-man panel put in place to investigate allegations of wrongdoing by Governor Tanko Al-Makura.

The assembly wants Dikko to dissolve the panel on the grounds that it is made of loyalists of the All Progressives Congress of which Al-Makura is the leader in the state.

The Chairman of the House Committee on Information and Security, Baba Ibaku, disclosed this in a telephone interview with our correspondent in Lafia, on Monday.

Ibaku said that the lawmakers resolved to demand for the dissolution of the panel during their emergency sitting at the assembly complex at 10am on Monday .

He argued that the fact that the panel members held political positions in the state was against the provision of Section 188 of the 1999 Constitution   as amended.

The lawmaker said, “We had an emergency sitting to deliberate on the seven-man panel that was set up by the Chief Judge   on Friday last week. We asked him to dissolve the seven-man panel because the members of the panel are APC members that hold various political positions in the state.”

Ibaku said this amidst tension in the state as youths torched a car belonging to a member of the assembly, Ibrahim Muluku (Nasarawa Eggon East), in the Akuruba area of the state.

The youth were said to be protesting the lawmakers’ directive that the chief judge should dissolve the panel set up to investigate allegations of gross misconduct and abuse of oath of office against the governor.

It was also learnt that the lawmakers stormed Lafia, at about 3am and went to various hotels before reconverging at the assembly complex at 10am.

Investigations showed that when the members of the outlawed Ombatse militia group got the hint of the incident, they gathered at the complex.

Eggon youths and the Ombatse militia group were said to have threatened to set ablaze all the houses belonging to Kaberi people, who they believed to be All Progressives Congress supporters.

Another source, who did want his name in print, told our correspondent that it took the intervention of the state Police Commissioner, Idris Ibrahim, who appealed to the Ombastse militia and Eggon youths.

It was gathered that when Idris got the information that Ombatse militia and Eggon youths were threatening to burn Akuruba village belonging to the Kaberi, he quickly summoned them for a peace meeting.

The Police Public Relations Officer, Nasarawa State Command, Umaru Ismila, confirmed the incident to The PUNCH in a telephone interview in Lafia, the state capital.

But he said that the commissioner of police did not have any meeting with Eggon youths, who were threatening to burn down Akuruba village.

Muluku confirmed to The PUNCH in a telephone interview that his car was burnt.

He said his younger brother was driving out of his residence at Tudu Adabo in the Obi Local Government Area of the state to meet him at VIP Hotel when the APC youths sighted him.

He alleged that his brother was stopped by the APC youths, who asked him about the whereabouts of the lawmaker.

According to Muluku, the youths told his brother that they would kill him.

The lawmaker said that the youths followed his brother to the Akuraba area where they asked him to stop and thereafter set the car ablaze.

But the state chairman of the APC, Mr. Philip Shekwo, denied that the car was burnt by youths loyal to his party.

He also said that he was not aware that the House passed a resolution directing the chief judge to dissolve the investigative panel.