Two Girls Detained Over Big Shark's Death In Hotel Room

Taraba State Entertainment Industry says it regretted the death of Mr. Samuel Awar, a  comedian.
Awar, popularly known as BIG SHARK, died  in the early hours of Thursday  while lodging in an hotel in Jalingo, the state capital.

Lamenting the death, the state Commissioner for Culture and Tourism, Mr. Atosuma, James Gani, said  it created a big vacuum in the state entertainment industry that would be difficult to fill.

It was gathered that the comedian, on Wednesday, went out with some young men who helped him to place posters around Jalingo preparatory to Taraba Peace Concert billed to hold  on December  17 after which he returned  to his hotel room.

He was not seen the next day until his aides looked for him and found him dead in the hotel room.
Taraba State police public relations officer, Mr. David Misal, confirmed to Sunday Vanguard the death of the comedian.

He revealed that two girls were detained for questioning over the incident and that they were still with the police as of the time of the report.


By John Mkom, Jalingo

Governor Ishaku: A Sun Is Rising In The North-East

The farthest states from Lagos and Abuja are frequently under-reported. Unless a disaster occurs, in Zamfara, Nasarawa, Yobe or Adamawa, they might as well not exist as far as the leading Nigerian media houses are concerned. 

Borno State jumped to the front pages on account of Boko Haram and as the war is winding down, news from the state are now tucked into the middle pages – if at all they get published. Media awards invariably go to the Governors of Lagos, Rivers, Akwa Ibom, Delta states and once in a while to those close to Lagos.

There is a strong correlation between our perception of excellence in governance and the revenue the state generates annually. For some reason hard to understand, there seems to be a collective perception that the Governor of Nassarawa or Ebonyi State cannot possibly be providing excellent leadership to his people simply because the state is poorer by comparison with the big seven – Lagos, Akwa Ibom, Rivers, Delta, Bayelsa, Kano and Kaduna.

Yet, quietly, some state governors in the states we choose to ignore are running governments that might be more cost-effective than even some of the biggest which are more financially endowed.

Architect Darius Dickson Ishaku, FNIA, of Taraba State is one of them and it was by accident that we met and he bitterly raised the issue of neglect of the smaller and poorer states by the media, especially his own. He was absolutely right. Perhaps the biggest news report to come out of Taraba State in the last ten years was about the former Governor who crashed his self-piloted aircraft. Disaster again. It is quite possible that if one assembled ten thousand Nigerians from all the states, except Taraba and ask who Darius Ishaku is, none might provide the correct answer. Yet, by contrast to those who left the state and themselves in ruins, this is the first Governor to have launched a RESCUE AGENDA for a state that was moribund when he came to the helm of affairs last year.

RESCUE AGENDA

“If you don’t know where you are going, any road will take you there.” Those were the words carved on stone for all leaders of people by Yogi Bera, an American comedian in the 1970s. So, to avoid mindless activities the newly-elected Governor Darius Dixon Ishaku, a Felloe of the Nigerian Institute of Architects, FNIA, in 2015 armed himself with a road map called

THE RESCUE AGENDA.
Only a few aspects of the RESCUE AGENDA can be touched upon here, but, the government of Taraba State had taken this as the guinding principles of the administration. In other words, this is not a government flying blind, it has a compass.

Two components of the agenda are worthy of mention and notice:

The purpose of our Rescue Agenda is to restore Taraba State to a peaceful and secured state; to speedily unite the diverse people of Taraba State; and to urgently transform the state in order to guarantee its sovereignty and sustainability, and ensure the wellbeing of its citizens.

The Goal of our Rescue Agenda is to unearth all economic natural resources and unlock every requisite human potential in Taraba State for an inclusive and accelerated socio-economic growth and development.

To those who might have heard such lofty promises elsewhere before, without fulfillment, these might sound like one of those political promises. But, Taraba had been devoid of promises to which leaders can be held. This is the first time the governor of that state would venture to commit himself so publicly. That is the significant difference.

NEW LEADERS EMERGING IN THE NORTH 

Ishaku represents a new and fresh face of Northern leadership, which includes people like Governor Dankwabo of Gombe State, next door. While Dickson is a professional architect, his neighbour is a professional accountant and together they have brought professionalism to the management of public affairs.

Talking to Ishaku, one could be forgiven for wondering if the man in front of you is not talking as the Managing Director of Shell or First Bank. The sense of purpose is palpable and the thought lurking in one’s mind is: where were people like these since 1999 to actually move Nigeria forward? The reader would forgive me for disclosing that I had spent some part of my life in Taraba when it was part of Gongola State.

Taraba was created when the former Adamawa province was sliced out of Gongola and the state which emerged was left destitute of virtually all amenities which made life worth living. Operating out of Yola, in the 1980, official trips to Zil, Jalingo, Mutum Biu, Zakin Biam, Wukari, Takum and most of all Gembu were absolute tortures. One customer Danjuma Tsokwas, a distributor of Peugeots and beer in Yola and Wukari was the main reason for making those trips. It was hell. The return to civil rule in 1999 and the rising revenue allocation provided an opportunity to rapidly develop Taraba – given its numerous potentials.

But, for the most part it was opportunity lost. Every Governor before Ishaku had been enmeshed in scandal; funds were stolen; over-inflated contracts were awarded to cronies; contracts were awarded, fees paid and not executed; etc. Every device known to Nigerians was employed to rob a state which, in July 2006, collected N3.4 billion, Delta took home N18.2 billion and Rivers walked away with N23.5 billion.

Today, the N3.4 billion allocated to Taraba, ten years ago, appears like a fairy tale since the state Ishaku inherited was already neck deep in debt and the monthly allocations had tumbled to N2.2 billion by January this year and is even less now. It requires a stout-hearted person, sharply focused, and persistent to lead the state at this time and Taraba appears to have the man.

MAJOR ACCOMPLISHMENTS 

The first question posed to him was all-encompassing, on account of time constraint. What are the major achievements of his administration since it started work on May 29, 2016? He pointed to several but, the project which would provide the reader with an idea of how the man’s mind works is the 400 MEGAWATTS KASHIMBILA DAM. Though a Federal project but, it was Ishaku who got Jonathan to approve it when he was Minister of State for Power.

By Dele Sobowale

Birthday: Gen T.Y Danjuma, Abonta Of Jukunland @79, Buhari Celebrates Him

President Muhammadu Buhari celebrates with his longtime associate and senior professional colleague, General Theophilus Yakubu Danjuma (rtd), on the occasion of his 79th birthday.

In a statement by his senior special assistant media, Garba Shehu, the President describes General Danjuma as “one of that rare breed of Nigerian leaders, who have consistently proven themselves able and trustworthy in the varying positions they had occupied in government over time.”

He says of the retired General that “Each of the many times he has been called upon to serve Nigeria, both in the military and as a civilian, his performance has been remarkable.”

“President Buhari prays that God will grant General Danjuma many more years of good health and active service to Nigeria, particularly as he oversees the incipient effort to develop the North-east of the country, which has been ravaged by Boko Haram terrorists ” Shehu said.

In the same vein the entire people of Taraba also felicitate with this iconic leader who has brought nothing but honour to the state.

Gov Ishiaku Round Off Polio Outbreak Response Campaign

The Taraba government on Friday rounded off the polio outbreak response campaign with five successful rounds of immunisation for under-five children.

Gov. Darius Ishaku, who inaugurated the final round at Lankaviri near Jalingo, expressed satisfaction that the last four rounds of the exercise recorded 100 per cent success in the 168 council wards of the state.

The governor said the campaign was imperative given the nearness of Borno which recorded new cases of wild polio virus recently.

He called on all to encourage women and children to take advantage of the services offered during the immunisation as well as the maternal and child health week to achieve the intended purpose of the programmes.

In his address, the Commissioner for Health in the state, Dr Innocent Vakkai, thanked Ishaku for his continuous support which had been the bedrock of the success the ministry recorded so far.
Vakkai said the ministry had immunised 953,564 children in the fourth round with the support of World Health Organisation, UNICEF and other partners.

He said that the fifth round would involve deworming of children under five, provision of Vitamin A, anti-malaria drugs, iron tablets for pregnant women and free HIV counselling and testing, among others.

Vakkai called on the people to take advantage of the opportunity and come out en-masse to participate in the week-long programme.

He appealed to stakeholders to continue to create awareness about immunisation services and other maternal and child health programmes to reduce the risks facing children in the state.

Taraba State Government And 21 Months Unpaid Salaries Of Taraba Footballers

Taraba United and Taraba Queens players last week Friday locked up the gate of Taraba State government house in Jalingo as they demand for their unpaid salaries.

The Taraba Queens players claimed that the state government owed them 21 months salaries while Taraba United Football Club players claimed the state government owed them salaries for eleven months.

Now, according to Grace Michael, Taraba Queen captain, she said they were at the Government House to hear explanations from the State Governor, Darius Ishaku on why they were neglected for two years.

Grace stated that the players could not feed nor attend to medications due to lack of salaries for twenty one months.

"We are here because we need explanations from the Governor on why we are being treated this way, we are not going anywhere till he comes out to address us, we are not going to listen to any other person because others have been deceiving us for too long."

Also the captain of Taraba United Stephen disclosed that the players of the team have been feeding from road side food vendors for so many months on borrowed money.

Stephen said one of the players was almost arrested yesterday in one of the local restaurants over a debt of N8000, which he incurred at the sestaurant.

The Senior Special Assistant to the Governor on Media and Publicity, Sylvanus Giwa, representing the governor only confirmed it but failed to address the issue. The case of these patriotic Tarabans were not properly handled, otherwise why would the governor not address their concerns.

Football in Taraba is unifying and governor Darius whose primary interest is to build on the peace he has restored in the state, should endeavour that these players are taken care of and are paid their entitlement.

How Lasting Peace Returned To Taraba – Gov Ishaku

Darius Ishaku, an architect is the governor of Taraba State. He has not allowed the tortuous journey to the Government House to weigh him down. Having inherited a thoroughly balkanised state, Ishaku said his preoccupation is to unite every section of the state through the ‘Rescue Taraba Project’.

In this interview, he speaks on peace initiative in the state, plans to privatise government investments, the ambitious Mambilla hydropower project and opposition politics in Nigeria among other issues. Excerpts:

How far have you gone in implementing your rescue agenda?

The rescue agenda is on course and we thank God for the opportunity to serve our people. We came up with what I called the Green Book which stipulates the rescue agenda we have. The agenda is to attack all areas of the state. However, because of the lack of resources, we had to prioritise so that we can concentrate on certain areas of health, agriculture and education. We hope to work on these areas for two years before shifting to other areas depending on the resources available. However, that does not mean that we cannot intercede in other areas needing quick attention such as infrastructure, roads, water. We will attack these areas depending on the seriousness of the need. But we have started in the area of health because our health system has seriously decayed. I did not meet any functional hospital except the Specialist Hospital in Jalingo. That specialist hospital didn’t even have equipment to diagnose and treat people. Fortunately, we made it functional. But in other parts of the state, there is no functional hospital.

So, once somebody is sick even for a simple ailment, they have to rush him to Jalingo and I think that is a very bad situation. I decided to take one hospital per zone; one in Wukari, one in Gembu and the Bambu hospital; which is one of the oldest hospitals in the state. They are all located in the three senatorial districts and we are hoping that by December, work will start on them. By the grace of God, we got two containers of medical supply given to us free from abroad which we had to clear and pay the customs duties. In agriculture, we have not made much impact, but we are winning in some areas. One of the areas where we have made some level of impact is revitalization of the tea and the tea factory is running 24 hours right now because we had a small mini dam which was constructed with the help of the United Nations in collaboration with the state government. That dam is working providing 24 hours services.

We refurbished the old tea factory, removed the obsolete machines and replaced them with brand new ones and right now, it is working very well. That has made the people in Kakara village and the surrounding villages busy, providing the tea which hitherto was not in use before now, sell it to the factory and go there every week to collect their payment. That tea is said to be the second best in the world.

Areas of comparative advantage in Taraba

Taraba is blessed. In agriculture, I can boast of feeding the whole country with rice. We have a very huge rice project in Gashok. As I am talking to you right now, we would have been eating that rice, but for the problem we had with the investor and his American partner. The foreign partner moved out and has refused to come back despite my intervention and the Nigerian investor is looking for another partner to join hands and continue the project. That is a very huge rice farm lying in the Benue valley. We are working very hard and I am sure that before the end of this year, we should be able to resolve all the obstacles in that area. Taraba can also comfortably supply the whole country with sugar. We are working assiduously on that and have given a company about 10,000 hectare of land, but we are yet to agree on the modalities because the perception of the company is different from our thinking. They want 100 per cent mechanized farming with no benefit for our people, but I disagree completely with that.

That has stalled the whole project for about nine months now. But we are getting to the end of the disagreement and they have calmed down and we think that should take off before the end of December. But the problem with sugar is that it takes three years to plant and get matured before you have enough to feed the plant. But we are going on with that. Corn is another area where we have an advantage; if you go to areas like Baisa, you will plant corn for about four times a year and they don’t even need fertilizers there. That is the one we are exploiting now to bring in investors. All these are giant farms with multinationals that are coming. I am hoping that by next year, we should be able to produce things like corn and rice and selling them. Sugar may be a little bit delayed. The other front which we will aggressively pursue by next year is coffee. In Taraba State, we have the monopoly of tea and coffee because they are some of the plants that can only be grown on the highland. I want to pursue coffee aggressively and I hope to be in Kenya by the end of November because I understand that they have a very good model. I want to go and copy their model. In October, I was in India and went to virtually all the tea farms in India to see what they are doing correctly that we are not doing. Right now, four of our boys are in India, being trained. We want to pursue aggressive nursery for the tea. For coffee, we want to learn the model and from what I have read and heard, the Kenyan and Ethiopian model seems to be best suitable for our climate.

The other huge potential we have now is that we can easily boast that over 70 per cent of the beef you eat in this country comes from Taraba State and we want to better it. We have gotten a German firm that is interested in processing the beef. We want them to come and set up the farm where they will grow the cattle from where they will get milk and beef and turn the waste to electricity. Without electricity, everything I am saying will not be possible. The tea factory is successful because they have electricity.

The money they were using for fuel is exactly the profit they were making. That model seems to catch my fancy because the waste is used to produce electricity which in turn is used to milk the cow and bag the milk and put the beef in freezers. So, it will be like a circle of production. Three months ago, they came around to see the place; they have gone back and we hope they will soon return. We also grow cocoa in my state. I have also set up a kind of marketing board that will buy up all the excess, store it and sell at reduced price and if possible, sell them outside and get more money to help our farmers.

Source of funding  for the projects

In fact, people have asked me this same question over and over again; where do you get the resources to do even what you have done in one year? I do very simple planning and allotment of resources. We have very lean resources and what that means is that we must manage it well. When I became governor, I discovered that we had a lot of leakages, particularly in salaries. One person could be collecting about 40 people’s salaries. We have been able to reduce these leakages substantially.

I wish I could eliminate it completely. That has helped me with free money that I am now investing in infrastructure and other areas. The other thing is I do not believe that government has any business in business because all the companies set up by the state government in the past have all gone under; including the tea factory that I talked about. It is my intention to privatize most of it since it is working well now so that the private sector can take over the place while we use the funds we have for other things. What we are doing right now is attracting investors from the private sector as many as possible. Maybe the state government will hold about 20 per cent shares.

My major concern is that I do not want 100 per cent mechanized farming or 100 per cent mechanized industrial set up, but a set up that has a trickle-down effect that the people living around the area can have input and benefit from whatever establishment that is located there. I feel that if the ordinary man is benefiting, the purpose would have been achieved. Every week, the people living there go to the company to collect their money for the tea leaves they have supplied. They pluck these leaves every day and take it to the factory. With the light there, they are able to rear chicken which is an added source of income for them. This is the kind of effect I want for my people and that is why I want to attract private investors because I believe they are the key people to turn this country and Taraba State around for good, for the benefit of all of us.

On peace initiative 

I inherited a state with crisis in different facets. There was war virtually everywhere. There was inter-tribal war, religious war, those based on sentiments and political crisis. I had to initiate policies that will bring about peace. What I did was to reach out to all the different people. I reached out to the traditional leaders, visited stakeholders, community leaders, talked to political leaders and became aggressive in the preaching of peace. I even gave some examples of what peace will bring for us and what lack of it has denied us. I reached out to the religious leaders and thank God that they all keyed in and reached out aggressively and helped me greatly in preaching the message of peace to the people.

Aside that, I did not sit down but try to make sure that the law enforcement agencies are up to the task; we made sure that anywhere we found breakdown of law and order, we take a decisive action against those involved. By the grace of God, we started eliminating them gradually and today, I can tell you that we have relative calm in the state and peace has returned to the state and development is beginning to spring up. What I told them earlier when I came on board which was ‘give me peace and I will give you development’, is beginning to manifest. Somebody who has no light in his home before, now has 24 hours light, somebody who has no means of livelihood could go to a factory and be depositing his tea leaves and at the end, get some money; somebody who has no road before to his village now has one.

The road that used to take about 45 minutes or more now takes you about five minutes. So people are becoming excited and know that peace is indeed golden and lack of it is evil. This has worked and I thank God for this; we are still working hard because we have not reached the apex yet. We are also trying to aggressively pursue enhancement. We have gone to the wards; picked some people that we are training on simple things which people neglected in the past. For example, there is a kind of cloth that our people used to weave with pure cotton. It was a tradition that was passed down from generations, but virtually forgotten. We are gradually reviving it and people are becoming excited because they were buying the fake ones before. The women and children are now engaged in it. We are also training tailors, soldiers and also manufacturing simple machines that are already available and are being distributed for drying fish and you can see the happiness in people. I can tell you that a lot of things are helping us in that regard. I must tell you that I inherited a very poor civil service in the state. We are completely reorganizing it and retraining them because they are the engine room of governance.

But what I inherited was terribly poor. One thing I discovered is that a lot of people believe that they are engaged in government to collect salaries and not to work. So, if you ask me of percentage, I will tell you that less than 10 per cent of people in my civil service believe that they are there to be productive while the rest believe that there are there to earn the bonus that the government will give. I am trying to retrain and refocus their mind-set that they are here not only to collect free bonus, but to work and produce for government. We are achieving some results. Those who are dead woods, we have to do away with them because we don’t need dead woods if you are trying to achieve results.

Mambilla hydropower project and expectations

Mambilla hydropower project is going to be the biggest power project in Africa and not just in Nigeria because it is going to have 3050 megawatts which is more than the power we are generating now. So, we are going to almost double the power that Nigeria is producing now. It is going to take between five to seven years to complete. I am happy that Mr. President has taken the bold step of awarding this contract and I am working assiduously to clear the encumbrances; which is the act of getting to the site. As I speak to you now, the Federal Government has done nothing in terms of remuneration and compensation for the people and getting the site cleared of encumbrances. Right now, I can’t take you to the site of the project because the access is not there.

There is no road to where the dam will be built. People are still living in the valley of the dam as we speak. There is a Bible College right where the dam is going to be built. Will you just come and start the dam and clear the people? The people must be sensitized and made aware of what is coming. I am going to resettle 150,000 people in five different local government areas. The area of this dam is bigger than the area of Lagos State. When people talk about the dam, they talk as if you will just drive there and start work. It is not done like that. Processes of compensation take a long time, the same thing with sensitization.

As at the moment, the Federal Government has not done anything. We have held meetings with the Minister and up till now, I have not seen any result and this will take us about one year. So, if you say the project will take seven years of construction and for one year nothing has been done especially in trying to get to the site, it means a lot still needs to be done. I am happy with the project and we will do everything possible to make sure the project is realized to the benefit of the country in general and Taraba State in particular. But a lot needs to be done in terms of moving to site because there is no accessibility to that site. So many things that need to be in place before the contractor can move to site have not been done. As I speak with you now, the road to Gembu is virtually cut off at Likitaba and it is a federal road. The Federal Government is telling us not to intervene in their road. So, the people who want to build dam can’t even go on the existing road. I am going to see one of the contractors to go and rescue that road because if I don’t rescue that road, our people will be completely cut off. We have reported this to them, but they have not come.

Due to this talk about the Mambilla project and opening up Taraba State, the first thing I did when I came on board was to open the Taraba airport. Before, you cannot access Jalingo by air, but right now, you have Overland on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays and we are hoping that by December, it will be a daily flight. All the engineers and contractors that will come to the state should have easy access. It is one hour flight from Abuja to Jalingo and it takes you six hours from Jalingo to go up the mountain. The airport is supposed to be a cargo airport and so, we are looking at expanding it so that from there, we can export agricultural produce. If I package beef, it needs to be in the market immediately; the same applies to fruits and other agricultural produce. So, the first step to opening up the state was to reopen the airport which is working now. These are the things I did to unlock the state, otherwise, we are stuck in a corner of the country. In terms of travelling by road, it takes you between nine to 10 hours from Abuja to Jalingo depending on how many road blocks you have on the way.

Opposition in Taraba

We have opposition in the state; but if you ask me I will say they are bad opposition. They are not opposition that criticise based on facts or based on showing government better ways of doing things. They are opposition for the mere fact that they want to smear the names of people and insult people for the sake of it. Most of the time, I don’t bother to listen to them. For example, the APC chairman once came out criticising government because of somebody who was removed from office, saying the man was removed for voting APC. How would the Head of Service know who voted for which party? This was a corrupt school principal, who was found guilty by a panel that recommended his dismissal, but the Head of Service pleaded that he be demoted instead and he was demoted and sent to a smaller school.

They just went on air without verifying anything. These are the kind of opposition we have in the state. Somebody will just wake up, go to the press and start insulting the governor without having basis for that. I wish the opposition will come and ask, why are you constructing road from A to B and what purpose will it serve? When I came in, there was no water and people were going from one place to the other with buckets on their head looking for water. If you go to Jalingo now, we have more than seven tanks and we are doing one of the biggest water projects and even the blind man can see that tanks are being built. If you want to criticise, do that based on facts. Constructive criticism means that you have a better solution to what is being done. But I do not have constructive criticism from the opposition.

I will say that we have a lot to learn about politics in this country. Imagine, when they declared Donald Trump as winner of the US elections, Hilary Clinton who we all thought was on the popularity list congratulated the winner and said she was ready to work with the winner. What happened in my case in Taraba? I was taken to all the courts in the land and given the most ridiculous judgement you can think of until we got to the Supreme Court. Thank God there are still people that fear God; otherwise, the state would have lost hundreds of lives. That is to tell you the kind of politics we play in this country. I won a clear election in the first instance and they said no, there should be a rerun, cancelling all the polling units where I won. Despite that, I won more votes in the rerun than in the first election because my people were very angry.

Crisis in the PDP

The crisis in PDP is sponsored from outside; but we are working hard to make sure we end the crisis. Prominent Nigerians have approached us that we have to solve this problem in the PDP because you need a vibrant opposition in any democracy; a democracy that does not have a strong opposition is running for tyranny and dictatorship. Whether you believe it or not, we have Presidents in Africa that stayed in office for 40-50 years because of no vibrant opposition. You must, as a necessity have a vibrant opposition. We copied the American constitution, but left out the vital parts. As a governor, the police are not under me. That doesn’t make sense. In the US, they have the federal, state and local police. If we want to copy, we should have copied everything. If I had my own police, I would have gotten that peace in the state far earlier than now.

On restructuring

A lot of people are talking about restructuring; we will get there, but first, you have to have vibrant parties; the restructuring should start from the political parties. By the time you have a governorship candidate, you should ensure that he is the best candidate so that the people going for the final selection process should be the best to rule that state and the country and any of them should be the best to rule. So, it is not only the country that should be restructured. The parties also should be restructured because if they have the system already in place, it will help the country to come out with better people. Nigeria is blessed with intelligent people, but getting there is like passing through the eye of the needle.

So, the good people don’t want to bother themselves because they know they won’t get there. We need to change the system and put in place a system that will better serve us. But unfortunately, we are not doing that. I want to assure you that the problem in the PDP will soon be a thing of the past. I also assure you that the PDP as it is now will not be the PDP that it used to be because the PDP has learnt its lesson of putting round pegs in square holes and putting square pegs in round holes. The PDP has suffered and the PDP that will evolve will be a better PDP and a party prone to serve the country.