FORMER SOUTH SOUTH GOVERNOR’S LARGESSE TEARS PLATEAU PDP APART.

The Last might not have been heard about the visit of some PDP governors to Plateau state two weeks ago.
The visit by the Governors who included an influential former governor from the South South and a serving governor from the South West, was ostensibly for the one year memorial service of the late son the President of the Court of Appeal, Justice Monica Dongban- Mensem
Joined by the host Governor, Barr. Caleb Mutfwang and former Governor Jonah David Jang, they entered the sleepy town of Demshin in Shendam Local Goverment, venue of the memorial service with fanfare.
Beyond the memorial service was the unending discussion of how the place- holding governor of Plateau State is going to survive the APC water- tight petition at the Tribunal sitting in Jos.
An all- night meeting was held with the dollar-splashing former governor who had told them some weeks ago, when they went to his state for a function organised by him and to solicite his support to reach out to the those that matter in Abuja including the Presidency.
He was said to have told them in clear terms that their case was a hopeless one and the only available option was to buy the tribunal members at both the trial and appeal levels.
To put pay to this, he was said to have doled out a whooping two million dollars ($2 million) to them. This time around it was not through the factional Leader of the Party in the person of Dara JDJ as he used to do for them in the past but through the state governor.
On Sunday after church service, they all happily went to the Yakubu Gowon Airport, Heipang to see the visiting former governor off to Abuja.
Another brief meeting was held at the Airport where the “Father Christmas” immediate past governor was overheard assuring the desperate PDP leaders in the state that they should not bother about the tribunal cases as he had adequately taken care of the judges and that what he had given them was just to take care of the counsels and sundry issues related to the case.
However, trouble started a few days later between the governor, the factional party leader who has put the Senator Jeremiah Useni faction abay and party chieftains how to share the largesse.
It is said that once beaten, twice shy. The governor had been shortchained from sharing such donations by the same governor whose problem is not the money but how to spend it.
Being at the helm now, he is insisting that he is the one facing the tribunal and since the N15billion Naira loan he was looking for, part of which was to take care of the tribunal expenses was not forthcoming, and this $2 million had dropped on his laps, he had to take the lion share for that purpose.
We learnt the sharing formula which was unacceptable to Dara and the Chris Hassan-led party leadership has created onother intra party squabble. How it will end this time around, only time shall tell.
It is reliably gathered that the governor while in Abuja these days is dropping dollar wads in places that matter for them to influence the Tribunal’s decisions in his favour.
The judiciary should be cautious as it no longer business as usual as President Bola Ahmed Trinubu is said to have deployed covert agents to put and eagle eye on all the tribunal judges.
Meanwhile, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu in his magnanimity, has approved the release of two months withheld local goverment FAAC allocation to the state to pay local goverment staff to cushion the effect of fuel subsidy removal.
The President believes that Governor Caleb Mutfwang being a democrat, would allow only democratically-elected Local Government Chairmen to operate at the third tier of goverment as a mark of respect for the court rulings in their favour.
But from all indications, it is apparent that the governor is going to divert the allocation to prosecute his case at the Gubernatorial Tribunal as the water tight APC petition is no longer going to be waved aside in one page that he had earlier postulated.
Local goverment staff who have been on strike for some months now are advised to press for the payment of their outstanding salaries and allowances as ythe amount released to the state is adequate enough to pay them all their claims.
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