My six years on the saddle have been torturous – Gov Ishaku

Sylvanus Viashima, Jalingo

Taraba state Governor Darius Ishaku has described his six years in office as state governor as a combination of both pleasant and torturous moments that have given him room to both celebrate and wish for more.

The governor made the remarks while interacting with journalists to mark the sixth anniversary of his swearing in as the state governor in Jalingo.

He noted that while the state has recorded tremendous Infrastructural turn around and educational upgrade among other developments, paucity of funds has constrained him from executing some of his desired projects.

He regretted that the current state of killings and carnage in the state caused by a misunderstanding from Benue has been unleashed on the people in the state instead but assured that the government was working hard to ensure safe return of the people to their homes.

‘The six years of DDI on the saddle in Taraba state has been a combination of the good, the bad and the ugly, or the sweet, the sour and the bitter, however you look at it. It has been a torturous journey, expected of any leadership. You would remember that when we resumed here, there were a lot of crisis in different ramifications from ethnic and religious violence, banditry, cattle rustling and others qand they keep changing faces. It degenerated to insurgency but now we have substantially surmounted the evil days. We still have security challenges but but as intense as it was in 2015, went up in 2017 with the crisis on the Mambila, but now the gragh is flattening out. Of course you know that the whole country is battling with insecurity and we are no exceptions.

‘On the developmental side, we have done a lot and I will score myself 80% both in the visible and invisible. We have recorded giant strides in education, roads construction, agriculture, and others. Now there are other components of development that are not very visible for example Chieftaincy that has helped to reduce tensions, look at efforts at getting people to accept to live with strange people, and others that are intangible but indispensable components of development that must be put in place for tangible development to take place. So summarily, it has been a story of success and tears. Tears because I wish I had done more, I wish I had the enabling environment because even if you have all the resources but you don’t have peace, even the things you put on ground will be useless because nobody will enjoy it.

‘So we have done our best given the prevailing circumstances and like I said, we have scored ourselves more than 80% and I assure you that in the remaining two years we would be able to finish all the projects that are already in the pipeline so that we can hand over a better state and allow those coming in to have a softer landing’.

The Governor said that the current security challenges that are overwhelming the country can be solved by constitutional reforms and institution of state and local police.