An investigation by SaharaReporters has exposed a simmering confusion as to who is in political control in Kaduna State with both Governor Mukhtar Yero and Deputy Governor Nuhu Bajoga out of the country. “It is an act of irresponsibility that the governor and his deputy are undertaking foreign trips at the same time,” said a member of the Kaduna State House of Assembly who confirmed the development. He added, “If
something happens today in the state, there is nobody on ground to take charge of controlling the situation.”
The deputy governor, SaharaReporters confirmed, is Israel as part of a large entourage of governors, legislators, aides, and political friends who traveled out with President Goodluck Jonathan. Our correspondent learned that Governor Yero traveled to Germany.
The Kaduna lawmaker, who asked for anonymity, said he was not aware that the governor officially wrote to the leaders and members of the state legislature about his foreign trip. “But no matter what the case may be, it is totally wrong for both the governor and deputy to be outside the state without cogent reasons bordering on health or incapacitation,” he said.
The legislator’s sentiments were echoed by a statement sent to SaharaReporters by the Kaduna Salvation Movement (KASMO), a civic pressure group. Condemning the absence of the state’s two top officials, the group’s leader, Mohammed Soba, stated that his group “views the absence of both Kaduna State Governor Mukhtar Ramalan Yero and his Deputy Nuhu Bajoga from the state as a sign of ignorance of the ethics of governance.” The statement added, “It is unfortunate that while the Deputy Governor Bajoga is away in Israel, Governor Yero also decided to embark on a jamboree tour to Germany leaving Kaduna State without any form of leadership against the letters and spirit of the constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. This singular action has exposed the ineptitude and incompetence of Governor Yero who has never demonstrated even elementary knowledge of what governance is all about.”
Mr. Soba continued: “Never in the political history of Kaduna State has governance been treated with so much contempt, impunity and unseriousness than under Governor Yero who has a penchant for executive truancy and absenteeism to cover his complex and incompetence. No serious Governor that understands the functions of a government would leave his State at a time when the Deputy Governor is not on seat and out of the country to take charge.”
The group called on the Kaduna State House of Assembly to probe the absence of both the Governor and his Deputy “with a view to finding out the circumstances surrounding their absence from the state at the same time when there is no cogent reason to justify their conspired absence and to invoke the provisions of the constitution by applying the appropriate sanctions including impeachment. Kaduna State has had enough share of executive impunity and therefore, Governor Yero must be made to account for his unofficial absence from the State at a time the Deputy Governor is not also on seat in the face of multiple problems bedeviling Kaduna State.”
SaharaReporters was unable to get an official reaction to the disturbing absence of the state’s two top officials