The Adamawa State House of Assembly on Wednesday passed a resolution
calling on the EFCC to probe the alleged procurement of 50 Hilux vans
and two bullet proof jeeps at the cost of N580 million by the six
month old administration of Governor James Bala Ngilari.
The House further called on the state government to re-instate the
sacked Director General of the state Public Procurement Bureau, Malam
Bello Umar, who it said was sacked by the executive for querying the
purchase and for not following due process.
At its plenary presided over by the Speaker, Rt. Honourable Ahmadu
Fintiri, they also recommended the honoring of Malam Bello Umar with a
national award for doing his job in querying the purchase and other
executive excesses that cost his sack.
According to the resolutions which came under Matters of Urgent Public
Importance raised by the Deputy Speaker, Honourable Kwamoti Laori,
told the house that the state government had sacked the Director
General of the state Public Procurement Bureau for querying among
others the executive decision to procure 50 hilux vans at the cost of
N400 million and two Lexus jeeps at the cost of N180 million.
Laori who described the affected contracts as exorbitant and reckless
claimed that the cost of new bullet proof jeep per unit was N35
million, adding that the ones purchased by the government we’re fairly
used ones.
Laori observed that sacking of the Director General through a letter
from the Secretary to the state government did not follow due process
as the law stipulates that he can only be sack through Board members
recommendation to the executive with the approval of the house.
Meanwhile, the Speaker Adamawa House of Assembly, Rt. Honourable
Ahmadu Fintiri, has declared the seat of three lawmakers vacant.
This was done at the Wednesday plenary of the House where he cited
section 108 of the constitution pointing out that the affected
members, Umar Abdulkarim (PDM-Nasarawo/Binyeri), Hamman Tukur
(PDM-Jada/Mbulo) and Adamu Usman (APC-Toungo) where elected to the
House under PDP but they defected to other parties to contest in the
last general election.
The House unanimously condemned the purported impeachment of the
speaker and his deputy by nine law makers at the conference hall
Government House.
Honourable Fintiri then constituted a five man committee to
investigate their activities.
Similarly, the group of nine lawmakers who sat at Government House
conference hall to prosecute the “impeachment” of the speaker on
Tuesday had also sat on Wednesday at the same Government House
conference hall under the leadership of Jerry Kundisi (PDP-Gombi) as
Speaker.
Kundisi described the actions taken by Fintiri as “illegal”, adding
that his group would move their sitting to the House of Assembly
complex on Monday.
Meanwhile, security has been beefed up at the Adamawa House of Assembly complex.
In the same vein, the Adamawa state Government has congratulated the
factional leader of the group which sat at the Conference hall of
government house for doing a good job.
Media aide to Governor James Bala Nggilari, Mr. Phineas Elisha made
this known in a statement sent to newsmen on Wednesday.
According to him, as far as government was concerned, they are
recognizing the jerry Kundisi faction and not the Fintiri faction.
