These timeless words kept on bubbling and re-echoing in my mind when I started flipping through the pages of the findings of the investigations carried out on the seven years tenure of Nyako by the Justice Bobbo commission of inquiry where heart pouring revelations and atrocities of Murtala Nyako were flown to the limelight for public consumption.
With the towering revelations emanating from the Justice Bobbo Commission on the activities of past terminated government, the name “Nyako” when mentioned in the state creates an impression of a word that is interwoven with either freakish fraudster, swindler or a blind man who captains a ship with the influence of back-seat drivers.
Not long ago, Bello Ali (not real name) likened the financial devastation of Nyako to the havoc caused by bevy of monkeys that stormed a farm land. He was quoted saying over the media in Hausa that “Gomana barnan biraye akan barnan Nyako don barnan da Nyako yayi wa Adamawa yafi barnan da biraye zai yi wa babban gona”.When translated means that the nature of devastation Nyako reposed on the treasury of the state supercede that of the one caused by monkeys on a large farmland.
These revelations has written the name of Nyako with golden pen in the first page of the Guinness book of record of the state as a governor whose tenure and government was a symbol of corruption and injustice. It was a government where corruption and the act of injustice is virtually institutionalized.
The justice Bobbo Commission which is primarily set up to investigate the ousted government of Nyako was shocked to bone marrows after coming face to face with the reality of the intensity of how the government in questioned plundered the resources of the state, which compelled the commission to exclaimed in its first meeting that: “the assignment was not like investigating one ministry. It was a thorough investigation of a government which was dominated by mediocre and cronies, which displayed total impunity, disregarded all facets of transparency and accountability, completely ignored the importance and need for complying with due process. A government that at its inception had no economic, social or even political plan for the state, completely frustrated and demoralized the bureaucrat structure, disobeyed all known set rules and regulations, carried on, as if it has no constitutional limitations and lasted seven years. What was important was not how the state was going to benefit but how the commonwealth was going to be shared”
The Justice Bobbo commission discovered that the government of Nyako had misappropriated not less than five hundred billion naira in seven years. For the governor to make the embezzlement easier, he literally assumed the duties of the “Accountant general”, while the appointed “accountant general” was merely playing the functions of a “cashier”. The manager of a new generation Bank in the state became a “defacto” account holder of the state government.
The intensity of plunder was high, a situation that compelled the commission to describe his government as “no system system” government. The total alteration of structures gave them leverage to abolished structures meant to effect checks and balances mostly in the case of tender boards to facilitate easier plundering of resources. The system of government was deliberately designed to enable the state government to transfer the supervisory responsibility of the internal revenue to the office of the SSG as the chairman of the board surrendered his functions to the SSG memos generated to transfer of funds were written and initiated by the SSG to ease and facilitate easier diversion of the state funds.
Another strategy employed by the government for easy diversions of state funds was the transfer of all state government accounts to the Zenith as a product of conspiracy and evil alliance between the Governor, accountant general, the director board of internal revenue and a manager of Zenith which made embezzlement easier.
On 27 August, 2008, the state government collected a loan from Zenith bank for the project of street light in the state capital and Mubi, the project that was never executed inspite of the fact that a whooping sum of over ten billion naira was charged as interest over the period by the Bank.
The government of Nyako reduced the ministry of local government affairs to a milking cow by hijacking the entire federal statutory allocations of the LGs through illegal deductions to level that about 109% was deducted every month leaving the LGs with a negative of 9% every month. This pushed many LGs into taking loans and overdrafts to pay salaries and wages of their staff.
From 4 December, 2012 to the day Nyako was impeached, the state government deducted about 9.8 billion for the funding of security challenges in the state which is illegal. On 22 July 2013 about N20, 369,326:00 and also N28, 974,000 were removed from the treasury of JAAC to sponsor the trip of the wife of Nyako to China and South Korea. The sum of N50, 144,000:00 was approved from JAAC for the supply of sanitary materials and provisions to government lodges. About 4,808,000:00 was deducted from JAAC accounts to allow local governments' participation in the 2013 Abuja Trade Fair.
The commission also revealed that the Nyako administration diverted N1 Billion naira meant for scholarship to private pockets. The September and October 2011 workers’ salaries of N2 billion was also cornered by the state government.
More disturbing is that, after SSG took over the control and operation of the Board of Internal Revenue, the proceeds of rents from the Adamawa plaza Abuja, were directly remitted to his private accountant rather than the account of the Board of Internal Revenue. The plaza facility manager had reserved no secret to dig out how the revenue generated to the state vie the plaza was squandered. He confirmed that the sum of three hundred and fifty four million, nine hundred and thirty one thousand, two hundred and seven (N 354,931,207) naira from 2010 to 2014 was remitted into the account of SSG with only the sum of N9 million remitted into the account of the state government.
The farmer turned politician who was widely acknowledged for nepotism and promotion of ethnic agenda was accused of operating a policy that largely accommodates the Fulanis. Nomadic Fulanis and relations of the sacked governor are often seen in Banks to withdraw their allowances under S. A. programme. The Nyako aborted government spends N175million monthly on the S. A. programme.
Nyako operated an aristocratic government where corruption and injustice are committed with great impunity at the expense of the state and the people.
With these revelations of great impunities and kleptomaniac elements by the ousted government flown to the limelight for public consumption, I am surprise after coming face to face with the reality that the front line actors of the impunity are still having mouth to say that their impeachment is a product of conspiracy. I believe that had been that Adamawa state is in civilized countries where fraudsters and criminals are not tolerated, they would have grown slim by now with their families behind the iron bars of prison, but since they are in Nigeria where criminals are celebrated we are still seeing them on the streets of the state.
Let me conclude with the words of Dr. Umar Ardo At a Press Conference on September 28, 2011, where he summed up the rot and decadent personality of Nyako that: “The old age did not bring in the expected fear of God; the high positions earlier held did not improve the understanding of the issues; the past experience did not serve as lessons for the present. On the contrary, the old age became an impulse to acquire as much as quickly as his insatiable greed can contain before the lights are dimmed; the high positions earlier held seem to serve as an eye-opener to the present opportunities so as to more than make up for lost ones of the past; while the pas experience serves as an impetus to just do as he pleases with the people’s common wealth put in sacred trust into his hands believing that nothing will happen. In consequence, Adamawa state has today become the worst off for it in several areas of governance.”
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