From Sylvanus Viashima, Jalingo
Members of the National Union of Pensioners in Taraba State on Monday took to the streets protest what they referred to as ‘government insensitivity’ to their plight after 30 consecutive days of protest in August this year.
The pensioners who March to the state House of Assembly Jalingo lamented that the state governor Darius Ishaku has remained insensitive to their plight despite collecting a lot of loans from different institutions, apart from the federal government bailout and the Paris club funds.
Mr Silas Jephthah, the state chairman of the union demanded for accountability all the debt collected by the governor since 2015 to save the future of the state.
“We are out again to protest for our rights, we want governor Ishaku to be sensitive and pay us our retirement benefits. The governor has collected a lot of loans including a bailout and Paris Club refund. He has no project to point at as to what he has used the monies for. He keeps borrowing and Taraba state is gradually becoming the most indebted state in Nigeria but our entitlement is still not considered after retiring for over ten years.
“While we demand that the 5.5bn loan that was approved last week Wednesday for rural roads completion should be used to begin payment of our entitlements, we also demand an immediate investigation into all the monies collected by the governor since the governor has no reasonable project on ground to point at”
Meanwhile, Senator Danlami Ikenya the governorship candidate of the Labour Party LP and Senator Emmanuel Bwacha of the All Progressives Congress APC in the state have kicked against the decision of the state governor to borrow over Five Billion Naira only months to the end of his tenure.
The duo challenged that the governor lacks the capacity to pay back 5.5bn in the next seven months of his administration and should not add more debt to the ones he has already incurred for the state.
“No serious commercial bank should give such loans to an administration that is about to leave office in the next few months without the capacity to pay back. The money being borrowed is not for any meaningful project but to be embezzled. What kind of project is the government ready do in the remaining seven months? For some of us, we believe any commercial bank that gives such funds is doing it at their own risk”.
Our correspondent recalls that the state House of Assembly last week approved a request from the state governor to take a loan of 5.5bn, supposedly, to improve rural roads and the decision has met stiff opposition from a section of the people who feel the money will allegedly go down the drain like other loans incurred by the administration in the past.