Mr Emmanuel Yakubu, Chairman of Senator Umaru Al-Makura support group has debunked the allegations in some quarters that the former Nasarawa state Governor had collected loan from Commercial Banks to run the state during his eight years in office.
The Chairman refuted the allegation while speaking to newsmen on Monday in Lafia, Nasarawa State capital.
He called on the people to disregard those he described as liars for spreading falsehood, saying the former governor served the state meritoriously which earned him a nickname as ‘The Architect ofModern Nasarawa State’.
He explained that Nasarawa State like any other States in Nigeria benefitted from certain interventions at different times between 2009 and 2019 as a result of certain economic realities at that time.
These economic realities include falls in oil prices globally, increase in salaries and wages by the government, which affected the ability of sub nationals to discharge their responsibilities effectively.
“As such, this prompted the intervention of the Federal Government in form of advancing support to the sub-nationals in the following areas; Budget Support Facility, Salary Bailout, Excess Crude, Sure-P, and Bridging Finance Facility.
“The sub-nationals did not deliberately solicit such interventions, rather they were extended to them to prevent total breakdown of governance at states and Local Government Areas that were not able to pay salaries and carry out developmental projects,” he added.
Former Governor Al-Makura
Mr Yakubu added that those were the interventions that the state government got when Al-Makura was the governor just like other states and he never borrowed from the Commercial Banks as is being insinuated to run the state.