Taraba State governor, Darius Dickson Ishaku, on Tuesday berated one Benjamin Bako, a self-declared President of Jukun Development Association, over his (Bako) continuous attacks on his (Ishaku) government.
Bako has been unrelenting in his attacks of the administration of Governor Darius Ishaku since 2015.
The latest of his attacks came on Monday when he addressed a press conference in Lagos, where he accused the governor of abandoning his kinsmen (the Jukuns), while they were being killed, maimed, harassed, and displaced on a daily basis.
During the press conference on Monday, Bako had passed a vote of no confidence on Governor Ishaku, adding that the governor should as a matter of fact within seven days withdraw all the appointments given to the Tiv indigenous tribe of the Taraba State.
Reacting to the recent attack and allegations, Governor Ishaku, in a statement by his Special Adviser on Media and Publicity, Bala Dan Abu, described the allegations as baseless and flimsy coming from somebody who resides in Lagos and has a shallow knowledge of the happenings in the state.
The statement said, “It is obvious that one Benjamin Bako, a Jukun man who resides in Lagos and who has a very shallow knowledge of happenings in his home state of Taraba, is unrelenting in his one-man campaign of calumny against the office and person of Governor Darius Dickson Ishaku.
“On Monday April 13, 2020, Benjamin Bako took his desperate campaign of hate against Ishaku to the media through a press statement in which he single-handedly passed a so-called vote of no confidence on Ishaku, claiming that he was doing so under the umbrella of the Jukun Development Association of Nigeria.
“Benjamin Bako’s thinking, understanding and interpretation of events in Taraba State, are so beclouded with his hate for the governor that he has become blind and deaf to the good things that are happening to the state under the leadership of Governor Ishaku.
“On Monday while he was addressing the press to promote negative and unfair sentiments against Ishaku, a high-powered delegation of the Taraba State government led by Deputy Governor Haruna Manu was on its way to Lafia, in Nasarawa State, for a meeting with its Benue State counterpart on the same crisis he was accusing the governor of doing nothing about.
“That joint meeting of the delegations from both states is ongoing as we speak.”
While urging the Jukun nation and the entire people of Taraba State to ignore Bako’s rantings at his Lagos oress conference, Governor Ishaku said that Tarabans should continue to be their brothers’ keepers.
