A former Minister of Information, Labaran Maku, yesterday, lamented that despite the N300 million monthly security vote taken by the Nasarawa State Governor, farmers still cannot go to their farms.
Maku, who is the chief scribe of the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA), made this claim in his Christmas message at his Wakma country home in Akwanga Local Government Area of Nasarawa State.
“In a poor state like Nasarawa, only one person is taking N300 million every month as security vote. Calculate that in one year, that is N3.6 billion every year, then multiply that in four years or eight years.
“How can one person be taking N300 million every month as security vote and yet people are being killed, farmers cannot go to their farms and nobody is arrested?” he asked.
Maku, however, noted that with N300 million monthly, over two thousand youths could be employed and 30 cottage poultries established, where young people could be employed and paid simultaneously.
He, however, blamed the incessant killings in the north to insincerity of her greedy leaders, lamenting that the north was currently at war with itself.
“The war going on in the entire north today started in Nasarawa in February, 2001, when so-called unknown gunmen murdered some Tiv people.
“The killing trend moved to somewhere in Taraba, then, later to plateau and Kaduna and spread to other parts of the north. Today, the entire north is at full blown war,” Maku traced.
The APGA chief scribe noted that the reason killings could not be stopped was because leaders in the north politicise everything including religion and tribe.
The former minister also said what was worsening the poverty level in the region, leading to insecurity was the level at which election results were being bought by some leaders and made to rule over people, who did not vote them to power.
He, therefore, concluded that where political office holders do not love and put first the interest of the people they are leading, the consequence is what was being seen in most states in the north.
