In what seemed a continuation of the acrimony that attended their contest for the Taraba State governorship, the duo of Governor Darius Dickson Ishaku and Minister of Women Affairs and Social Development, Senator Aisha Jummai Alhassan, trade accusations over the distribution of relief materials to Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) in Jalingo, the state capital.
Senator Alhassan, was scheduled to donate the relief items to the IDPs on behalf of the Federal Government. However, the items were seized by officials of the state government.
It is widely believed that the seizure of the relief items was an extension of the feud that arose between Ishaku of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and Alhassan, who was the candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in last year’s governorship election.
Sources said that hundreds of IDPs, who came from across the 16 local government areas of the state, had gathered at the premises of Federal Science and Technical College Jalingo to receive relief
materials.
But their hopes were dashed when Senator Alhassan, informed them that the 19 trucks of grains allocated to Taraba had been seized by the state government.
“Despite the letters of approval sent to the Taraba government by Federal government, the grains were seized.
“On behalf of Mr. President, let me first thank all the IDPs for investing your time to wait for the relief items.
“I want to urge you to remain law abiding. “The era of impunity is over, and the I want to assure you that the Federal Government will not take kindly to this,” she said.
But when contacted, Governor Isiyaku, speaking through his media aide, Mr. Sylvanus Giwa, said: “The minister is rude and due process was not followed. We expected her to accord the state government due respect, she had refused to even recognize the fact that there is a sitting governor in the state,’’ he said.
