PDP govs are reckless, insensitive :: #PDP

Former Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party, Senator Barnabas Gemade, has described governors elected on the platform of the Peoples Democratic Party as reckless and insensitive.

                  

He accused the governors of engaging in frivolous expenditure while the people they are elected to govern suffer untold deprivation.

Gemade spoke in Jos on Tuesday at a public lecture organised by friends of the Governor-elect of Plateau State, Mr. Simon Lalong, as part of activities marking the transition programme.

He expressed gratitude to Nigerians, and particularly the people of Plateau State, for voting out what he described as uncaring government.

The former PDP chairman, who is now a returning senator on the platform of the All Progressives Congress, said while they failed to pay salaries to workers, they also looked the other way as marauders, masquerading as herdsmen, killed people with reckless abandon.

Gemade, who was represented by Mr. Ben Gwarzo, said, “Governors elected under the PDP are very reckless and uncaring and while they embark on frivolous expenditures, they left civil servants with months of unpaid salaries. I am happy that the people of Nigeria and Plateau State voted out uncaring and insensitive governments both at the national and state levels.”

A guest speaker, Mr. Haroun Audu, decried what he described as the insensitivity of the Governor Jonah Jang-led administration in the state, describing the condition of the people as apartheid-like habitation.

He said one of the challenges of the incoming administration will be how to bring back the glory of Plateau State, especially the one envisaged by the founding fathers led by the late Joseph Gomwalk.

He said what Plateau had witnessed in the last eight years was discrimination in all areas of life, including implementation of projects, adding that the personal disposition of the governor was divisive.

Audu said, “I however argue and maintain that the personal disposition of the leadership, and here I speak of the governing authorities, led by the governor, represents a vital component in advancing and sustaining community confidence in any peace process.

“In a situation where the private and public body language of the leader oozes discrimination in speech and conduct; where a leader is plainly biased in his choice of public project interventions and where he or she brazenly displays an arrogant disdain for the faith and/or ethnic origin of other people, then I am afraid and not too sure that the societal peace, harmony and the expected restoration of inter-community relationship will take root.”

Speaking on ‘Plateau State yesterday, today and tomorrow’, Audu urged the incoming administration to embrace all irrespective of class, ethnic or religious affiliation and to ensure that it intervenes in health, education, environment and infrastructure.