In the face of increasing speculations that State Governor, Radius Ishaku, had perfected plans to have him removed as Speaker of Taraba State House of Assembly, Hon Abel Peter Diah, on Sunday evening resigned his lofty office. Diah was alleged to be in an impeachment plot against Ishaku.
Diah says he is leaving for personal reasons, though Jalingo, the State capital is awash with stories of the imminent collapse of his leadership, together with other principal officers of the Assembly, this week.
But the Governor says there is no truth to the story of his plan to remove the leadership in the House.
On Saturday, his Senior Special Assistant, Media to the governor, Mr Bala Dan-Abu, said the much-talked about plot was in the imagination of speculators.
Said Dan-Abu; “The social media was on Friday November 29, 2019 inundated with reactions to a certain unsigned fake news story containing essentially rumours of a purported impeachment plot against principal officers of the Taraba State House of Assembly including the Speaker, Abel Peter Diah.
“The article made spurious claims to the effect that Governor Darius Dickson Ishaku was the sponsor of that so-called impeachment plot and that he had committed N200 million Naira public funds to it.
“Nothing can be more untrue. It is yet another wicked and malicious attempt to cause confusion and conflict in the relationship between the executive and legislative arms of government in Taraba State on the one hand and Governor Ishaku and Peter Diah.
“Governor Ishaku will never sponsor and did not sponsor the so-called impeachment move, if indeed there was any such move by the Honourable members, let alone fund it with such a staggering amount of money from the public purse.
“The allegations are ridiculous, absolutely false and malicious. It is certainly for these reasons that the author of the article failed to sign it.
“Governor Ishaku wants the general public to ignore this article and the lies contained in it. Governor Ishaku is an apostle of peace and will not do anything that will rock the existing level of trust and understanding between him and members of the state House of Assembly.”