The Nation Newspaper

Tag: Adamawa State

  • Heritage site: we need FG, UNESCO’s intervention – Official

    Heritage site: we need FG, UNESCO’s intervention – Official

    Mr. Anthony Sham, the care taker of Sukur, a UNESCO’S World Heritage Site has expressed optimism of government and UNESCO’s intervention on the destroyed structures by activities insurgents.

    The Sukur Cultural landscape is located on the hill above the village of Sukur in Madagali Local Government Area of Adamawa State.

    It is situated in the Mandara mountains close to the boarder with neighbouring Cameroon.

    Sham spoke in a telephone interview with News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Monday in Abuja.

    “A team from the Head Quarters came to the sites sometimes ago and took inventory of the damage done to the sites by members of the Boko Haram.

    “We are still expecting their intervention for the destroyed site; we have written to remind them; I don’t know their reasons for not responding.

    “Similarly, we made a presentation about the destroyed site to UNESCO in a programme in Tanzania last year.

    “They promised to send an active monitoring team to come and look at the level of damage at the site, but up till now, we have not see them,” he said.

    Sham explained that Sukur community members who earlier fled when the insurgents invaded the area and destroyed house have restored their houses.

    “They are now coming back to their houses, but the monumental structures are yet to be restored.”

    NAN reports that the Sukur community was invaded in late 2014 by the insurgents and destroyed structures at the site including houses belonging to the community members.

    NAN also reports that Sukur is a stone-age iron smelting community; the recent history is traced to the Dur Dynasty of the 17th century.

    The Dur established the region as a major supplier of raw material for iron manufacture to northeastern Nigeria; this was perpetuated to the first decade of the 20th century.

    Its UNESCO inscription as World Heritage Site was based on cultural heritage, material culture and the naturally-terraced fields.

    Sukur is the first African cultural landscape to receive heritage list inscription in 1999 at the 23rd Session of UNESCO (NAN)

  • Paris Club: Committee begins verification of LG workers in Adamawa

    The Adamawa State Committee for the payment of outstanding salary liabilities from Paris Club Refund on Tuesday commenced screening of yet to be paid Local Government workers.

    The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that no fewer than 6,000 workers comprising local government staff, teachers and primary healthcare workers were affected.

    The committee attributed the initial delay to some hitches including non-capturing of names on the payroll.

    Chairman of the committee, Alhaji Abdulrahman Abba-Jimeta, said in Yola that workers affected were from central zone which comprised Yola North, Yola South, Girei and Fufore local government.

    Abba-Jimeta who urged affected workers to cooperate with the committee for a smooth exercise, assured that the state government was committed to ensure that no genuine worker was left out.

    Commenting on the two weeks exercise, the state chairman of Nigeria Union of Teachers, Rodney Nathan, and his counterpart of Medical and Health Workers Union of Nigeria (MHWUN), Jeremiah Ngwakwar, lauded the exercise.

    “I have about 1,500 of my members (teachers) that are affected which we hope would be screened in good time,” Nathan said.

  • Presidential delegation visits Madagali blast victims

    Presidential delegation visits Madagali blast victims

    A Presidential delegation led by the Special Adviser on Policy Development and Strategy, Alhaji Ibrahim Bapetel, visits Michika, Adamawa to console with government and victims of Madagali twin bomb blast.

    Presenting drugs, consumables and money to the victims at Michika General Hospital on Tuesday, Bapetel said President Muhammadu Buhari was very concerned with their plight.

    According to Bapetel, the president wants to assure you that his administration is committed to containing the insurgency.

    “Mr president has received with deep shock, the news of the unfortunate incident and immediately directed me to come and commiserate with you, identify with your plight and access your health condition.”

    Receiving the items, the Principal Medical Officer of Michika General Hospital, Dr Tanko Bathuel, thanked the delegation and promised to utilise the drugs and other items donated judiciously.

    Also briefing the delegation, Regimental Medical Officer of 115 Battalion Michika, Lt. Abdul Saliu, said that five patients out of the 76 admitted to the hospital had died.

    According to him, the remaining ones are responding to treatment as eight of them have undergone major surgery.

    The Chairman of Madagali Local Government, Alhaji Yusuf Mohammed, who also briefed the delegation, thanked them for the gesture.

    Mohammed said that normalcy had returned to the area and the people were now going about their normal businesses.

    Reacting, one of the victims of the blasts, Sajoh Buba, thanked the delegation for the support.

    Buba also lauded other groups and organisations such as Military Medical Corps, NEMA and Red Cross for their support.

  • Adamawa govt. relocates 350 IDPs from Mubi

    Adamawa govt. relocates 350 IDPs from Mubi

    The Adamawa Government says it has relocated no fewer than 350 Internally Displaced Persons(IDPs) made up of mostly women and children.

    The IDPs were relocated from the transit camp in Mubi to the designated camp in Malkohi, Yola South Local Government Area of the state.

    Mr. Haruna Furo, the Executive Chairman of Adamawa State Emergency Management Agency (ADSEMA), made this known to the News Agency of Nigeria ( NAN) in Yola on Saturday.

    Furo said that the move was to ensure adequate welfare of the IDPs and easy coordination of operations.

    The relocation, he said, would also enable the state government to re-open the Mubi Burnt Brick Factory initially used as transit camp.

    ” We relocated about 350 Internally Displaced Persons, mostly women and children, from the Mubi transit camp to Malkohi camp in Yola South Local Government Area.

    ” The development is to bring together all IDPs in the state under designated and secured camps, ” Furo said.

    He said that all the IDPs arrived safely and were camped successfully.

  • Adamawa State and its political intrigues

    All is not well in the All Progressives Congress in Adamawa State due to the intrigues of the purported coming into the fold of the party by the gubernatorial candidates of the Peoples Democratic Party, Malam Nuhu Ribadu and that of the Social Democratic Party, Markus Gundiri.

    The two were defeated by Governor Mohammed Umaru Jibrilla with a wide margin in the election that saw the then ruling party (PDP) becoming the main opposition party. Those opposing the governor hinged their grouse essentially on the basis that they were discarded by him immediately he ascended the mantle of leadership of the state. Their aim was to draw the people of the state against the administration due to their selfish interests. However, the people are now wise enough to see the revolution in infrastructural development by the governor’s administration.

    A year in office, the Governor Jibrilla has creditably done a lot especially in the construction and complete rehabilitation of roads in the state capital of Jimeta, Yola and Mubi. Only recently, the governor flagged off the construction of Shelleng Road; which had been completely cut off for the past twenty years. The holocaust visited on the state by successive administrations since the advent of the democratic rule in 1999 is being remedied The people would not be disposed to the holier-than-thou e crop of these politicians, that want to come into the fold of the APC  having left the party and contested the gubernatorial election on a different party platform.

    I am of the strong conviction that nobody can navigate the storm of the state to do more than what the governor is doing now. The people of the state cannot be divided on the basis of religion or tribe.

     

    • From Usman Santuraki

    Jimeta, Yola.

     

  • Ribadu rejoins APC, says ‘I heeded calls to return’

    Ribadu rejoins APC, says ‘I heeded calls to return’

    Former chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC),Malam Nuhu Ribadi, is back in the All Progressives Congress (APC), and it is official.

    Ribadu,in a statement on Friday in Yola,Adamawa State, said his return was in response to “ calls on me to return to the All Progressives Congress (APC), a party of which I was a founding member.”

    He re-registered on Thursday through the party’s online portal after which  the leadership of the party in his  Bako ward of Yola South Local Government Area visited him at his Yola residence to “welcome me back to their fold.”

    He said:“This afternoon (Friday), I visited the Yola South secretariat of the party to present myself and submit to the leadership as a loyal party man. My decision to return to the APC was triggered by my belief that all politics are local.

    “Almost everyone around me, and with whom we started my political journey believed the time had come for us to make sacrifices and make concessions. That is in addition to the unbelievable love that my friends in the APC have showered on me in the past months.

    “They demonstrated in words and action that they wanted me back home. The intractable crises in the PDP also made it impossible for one to contribute to the necessary task of building a viable opposition platform for our country.

    “I also did a deep and long reassessment of the circumstances that warranted my exit from the APC in the first place. I left the APC in 2014 owing to fundamental disagreements with the ways the chapter of the party in my state was run after it fell into some hands.

    “Some colleagues and I tried hard to reposition the fold and save the then APC administration from an orchestrated impeachment plot. We didn’t succeed.

    “Events in the last 15 months have addressed many of the issues and healed some of the wounds. More so, with the genuine and sincere invitations I received since last year to retrace my steps into the party, I decided to return after consulting family and political associates at all levels.”

    He expressed gratitude to  “all those members of the party who privately and publicly prodded me to return to the party. My appreciation also goes to the leadership of our party, from my ward in Bako to the national leadership, for the enthusiasm they showed in having me back.”

    Ribadu left APC in 2014 after failing to get the governorship ticket.

  • I never promised to refund N5m to EFCC – Madaki

    I never promised to refund N5m to EFCC – Madaki

    The outgoing Chairman of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) in Adamawa, Mr Joel Madaki, on Tuesday denied media reports that he promised to refund N5 million to the EFCC.

    The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that Madaki’s name was among those listed to have received money from former Petroleum Minister, Diezani Allison-Madueke for the 2015 Presidential Campaign.

    Madaki in a statement issued in Yola said he never made such promise to the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC).

    “I never promised to return the N5 million.

    “What I said was that if it is proven beyond reasonable doubt that the N5 million is from the Presidential Campaign Fund and when it is discovered that it was not used for that purpose, then the Adamawa PDP Secretariat and myself shall arrange to refund.”

    Madaki acknowledged that he received N450 million as campaign fund for the state, but said that the money was delivered to a “Disbursement Committee” at the Government House, Yola.

    According to him, the disbursement committee gave the party only N5 million out of the money.

    “Since I was not a member of the distribution committee, as soon as the money was handed to the committee and they counted it to be correct, I left the venue,” he stated.

  • Adamawa SSG apologises over alleged hate speech

    Secretary to Adamawa State Government, Dr Umar Bindir, has apologised over the alleged hate speech he made against Yola Fulani race.

    Addressing newsmen on Wednesday in Yola, Bindir said the reported audio speech now trending in YouTube was doctored by some mischief people to malign him.

    Bindir said as a Yola Fulaniman himself there was no way he would go out of his sense to attack his kinsmen as being portrayed in the speech.

    He explained that the purported audio speech was made during a courtesy call on him by the state branch of Nigeria Society of Engineers where he spoke on lack of development in Yola over the years due to pettiness of the various tribes citing his tribe, Fulani, as example.

    “As a Fulaniman from Yola, I decided to give example with our people.

    “I am here to say that if the material posted on YouTube ended up annoying other people, demonising other people and so on, I say I am sorry,” Bindir said.

    He noted that as an educated person that has a successful career world-wide, he could not come home now and start anything that could create problems and impede development.

  • Adamawa assembly speaker dismisses plan to impeach governor

    Adamawa assembly speaker dismisses plan to impeach governor

    Alhaji Kabiru Mijinyawa, the Speaker, Adamawa House of Assembly, has dismissed alleged plans to impeach Gov. Muhammadu Jibrilla.

    Mijinyawa, during a special sitting of the house on Monday in Yola, described the alleged plan as “malicious”.

    “The attention of the house is drawn over false publication that members of the house are gathering signatures to impeach the sitting governor.

    “The publication was purely a mischief from the enemies of the state who always wish us bad luck,” Mijinyawa said.

    Similarly, the Chief Whip of the house, Mr. Hassan Burguma, condemned the allegation.

    Burguma, at a news conference in Yola on Monday, also said that the house had never signed any document to impeach the governor.

    “As far as the house is concerned, there was nothing like impeachment discussion in the house.”

    He assured that the house was ready to work with the press as partners.

     

  • Jibrilla apologises to women over poor representation

    Jibrilla apologises to women over poor representation

    Governor Muhammadu Jibrilla of Adamawa has apologised to women in the state for being under represented in his new appointments.

    Jibrilla made the apology while swearing in 49 newly-appointed Development Area Administrators at the Government House, Yola on Tuesday.

    He urged the women to bear with him, adding that he would compensate them in future political appointments.

    The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that only one woman, Ms Esther Pius, made the list of the 49 administrators sworn in.

    “This is just the first major appointment made by this administration, I want to assure the women that they will be considered in future appointments,” he said.

    The governor said that the administrators were selected on merit and should therefore work toward justifying the confidence reposed in them.

    He said that his administration had embarked on various projects in major towns across the state and would soon reach out to the grassroots.

    He advised the people of the state to be security conscious and support security agencies in the fight against insurgency.

    Responding on behalf of the administrators, the Administrator of Madagali North Development Area, Mr Titus Ndzau, thanked the governor for the appointment and promised to deliver on their mandates.