Former Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party, Senator Barnabas
Gemade, has described governors elected on the platform of the Peoples
Democratic Party as reckless and insensitive.
He accused the governors of engaging in frivolous expenditure while
the people they are elected to govern suffer untold deprivation.
Gemade spoke in Jos on Tuesday at a public lecture organised by
friends of the Governor-elect of Plateau State, Mr. Simon Lalong, as
part of activities marking the transition programme.
He expressed gratitude to Nigerians, and particularly the people of
Plateau State, for voting out what he described as uncaring government.
The former PDP chairman, who is now a returning senator on the
platform of the All Progressives Congress, said while they failed to pay
salaries to workers, they also looked the other way as marauders,
masquerading as herdsmen, killed people with reckless abandon.
Gemade, who was represented by Mr. Ben Gwarzo, said, “Governors
elected under the PDP are very reckless and uncaring and while they
embark on frivolous expenditures, they left civil servants with months
of unpaid salaries. I am happy that the people of Nigeria and Plateau
State voted out uncaring and insensitive governments both at the
national and state levels.”
A
guest speaker, Mr. Haroun Audu, decried what he described as the
insensitivity of the Governor Jonah Jang-led administration in the
state, describing the condition of the people as apartheid-like
habitation.
He said one of the challenges of the incoming administration will be
how to bring back the glory of Plateau State, especially the one
envisaged by the founding fathers led by the late Joseph Gomwalk.
He said what Plateau had witnessed in the last eight years was
discrimination in all areas of life, including implementation of
projects, adding that the personal disposition of the governor was
divisive.
Audu said, “I however argue and maintain that the personal
disposition of the leadership, and here I speak of the governing
authorities, led by the governor, represents a vital component in
advancing and sustaining community confidence in any peace process.
“In a situation where the private and public body language of the
leader oozes discrimination in speech and conduct; where a leader is
plainly biased in his choice of public project interventions and where
he or she brazenly displays an arrogant disdain for the faith and/or
ethnic origin of other people, then I am afraid and not too sure that
the societal peace, harmony and the expected restoration of
inter-community relationship will take root.”
Speaking on ‘Plateau State yesterday, today and tomorrow’, Audu urged
the incoming administration to embrace all irrespective of class,
ethnic or religious affiliation and to ensure that it intervenes in
health, education, environment and infrastructure
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