Insecurity, Land Grabbing: Governor Ishaku Warns Taraba Traditional Rulers

BY AMEH IDUJAGI, JALINGO – Governor Darius Ishaku of Taraba State has warned the 49 third class Chiefs in the state against illegal allocation of lands in their domains to strange people and foreign investors.

The governor, who gave the warning at a meeting with the Royal Fathers at the Government House, Jalingo, said that allocating lands without due process is one of the major causes of crisis in chiefdoms, adding that henceforth, no Royal father should allocate without the approval of the State Government.

Ishaku, had on May 13, 2020 met with the 3rd class chiefs after their appointments to further their discussions on peace and security in all the Chiefdoms.

The Governor said that even a Local Government chairman does not have a right to issue out land Certificate-of-Occupancy to anybody or investor without following due process.

According to Ishaku; “We leant that some Chinese citizens were coming to our state without even a passport and some time ago, I warned against cutting of Madrid tree which these Chinese people used to connive with some of our citizens cutting the trees.

“These are people that you cannot go to their country and do such things and they leave you”.

While reminding the traditional rulers of the purpose of their appointments, Governor Ishaku charged them on the need to ensure that people at the grassroots are feeling the impact of the government policies and programmes.

He said; “We are doing our best in paying your salaries, but am not happy that some of you do not pay their District heads and Village heads based on the reports i received.

“The information we need has to come from the village heads to the District heads down to the Chiefs, so if you don’t pay them salary how would they have the morale to work hard. Therefore, I want you to desist from such act.

“I also have reports that some of you do not give security reports on timely basis and I don’t know either your local government chairmen are calling you for security meetings.

“We are worried especially on the high rate of kidnapping and land disputes in most of your Chiefdoms and no chief has a right to sell out any land without the concept of the government.

“I am also aware that some of you do travel without the approval of the local government Chairman. Henceforth, no Chief should travel without the approval of LG Chairman, because I will not accept that.”

“We also have boundary problems among the new chiefdoms, which we are working on how to resolve such issues and I am also not happy that some of you are not in good term with each other.

“I wonder how this thing is happening because there is nowhere I ever heard that Royal Fathers are having conflict between them. So, I urged you to be on the same page with one another,” Ishaku said.