Taraba State Government, APC bicker over kidnapper Wadume’s confession

 

BY EMMANUEL OGWU

The Taraba State Government and the state chapter of the All Progressives Congress (APC) have engaged in verbal attack following claim that Governor Darius Ishaku gave the arrested suspected kidnap kingpin, Hamisu Bala (aka Wadume) N6 million during the last election.

While Ishaku’s Media aide, Mr. Bala Bala Dan-Abu, said the governor was never a victim of “Wadume’s duplicity” and had never lost money to the suspect, the state APC chairman, Mr. Ibrahim El-Sudi, said Hamisu Bala’s confession that he received N6m from the governor was a clear vindication of the APC’s earlier stand that Ishaku harboured criminals.

“The revelations by the suspected kidnap kingpin Hamisu is a clear testimony of what we have been constantly accusing the governor of doing during the recent general election.

“We accused the governor of keeping so many criminals close to him and now we are vindicated. There is another one called Fusky.

“I learnt that even Fusky has been arrested.

“More investigation should be done to unravel those who have been behind criminality in Taraba State,” he said.

But in a statement in Jalingo, Monday, Governor Ishaku, through his Special Assistant on Media and Publicity, Bala Dan-Abu, said he has never given such amount of money to Wadume.

“We wish to state categorically that Governor Ishaku was never a victim of Wadume’s duplicity and never lost money to his antics.

“We urge the general public to disregard Wadume’s confessions on the alleged defrauding of Governor Ishaku as the rantings of a drowning criminal.

“Governor Ishaku has never met the kidnap suspect and would not even recognise him if they were to meet today.

“Ishaku uses this opportunity to commend security agencies for promptly arresting Wadume, who is the reason behind the dastardly murder of three Police officers and one other person in Ibi earlier this month.

“Ishaku urged the security agencies to expand their dragnet to all the nooks and corners of Taraba State where the accomplices of Wadume and other criminal gangs may still be hiding, to arrest them and bring them to book,” the statement read.