Governor Kashim Shettima at the weekend directed the Borno State Police Command and the Department of State Security, DSS, to investigate and arrest anyone found culpable in the alleged diversion of rice meant for Internally displaced persons which were said to have been supplied by the National Emergency Management Agency, NEMA.
The governor’s directive follows the circulation of video clips and still pictures on the social media in the last couple of days which show some bags of rice purportedly from NEMA being re-bagged by officials of Borno State Emergency Management Agency. Shettima spoke at the Government House when he hosted heads of all security and paramilitary organisations in the state alongside members of Borno State Executive Council for Ramadan Iftar.
The governor explained that whereas he would await the outcome of the investigation and quick arrest by the police and the DSS, he was aware that a group of Abuja-based politicians who hail from Borno State had sworn to bring down his administration using all kinds of mischief, including the one of May 29, 2016 when hundreds of his posters were dubiously produced and pasted along strategic points in Abuja and Kaduna claiming that he was aspiring to be President in 2019 with the Governor of Imo State, Chief Rochas Okorocha, as his running mate. Said Shettima: “When Borno wasn’t safe, they retired to Abuja and completely stayed away and left us but now that peace is emerging, they have lost relevance in their party, the PDP, and they have started their brand of politics.
“They know that they can’t take us in terms of performance and their party is crumbling so they have set up an office in Abuja with another one in Maiduguri with some youths hired to foment mischief.
“They don’t care if the whole of Borno goes up in flames so long as they bring Shettima down. They are coming up with all kinds of mischief including trying to set me up against the Presidency; they don’t care if doing that obstructs our success against Boko Haram.”
Shettima recalled that campaign posters with his picture allegedly aspiring for the 2019 Presidency were produced by the political group and pasted on strategic places in Abuja and Kaduna knowing that President Buhari has associates in Abuja, mainly to cause disharmony between the Borno State Government and the Buhari Administration even when they know that doing that can affect the success in the fight against Boko Haram insurgents.
Credit: NationalMirror