Taraba Facts

Facts have emerged that northern states allocated more funds to education than their southern counterparts in the 2018 fiscal year in their bid to improve enrolment and provide adequate infrastructure in primary, secondary and tertiary schools. Figures gleaned from the budgetary allocations of the 32 states of the federation covered in this report showed that the trailblazers in fund allocation and disbursement to the sector in the outgoing year are Sokoto and Gombe states. While Sokoto voted 31 per cent of its total budget for education to top the chart, Gombe allocated 30 per cent of the 2018 appropriations to the sector to occupy the second position. Remarkably, Sokoto and Gombe were the only states in Nigeria that not only met but exceeded the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation’s (UNESCO’s) international benchmark of 26 per cent budget allocation to education. The only state in the south that came close to meeting the UNESC...

Eight members of the All Progressives Congress (APC), who participated in the party’s governorship primary election in Taraba State, have accused the reconciliation committee of misleading them. The aspirants, who were invited to present their grievances to the party’s reconciliation committee sitting in the Adamawa State capital, Yola, complained that they were told the reconciliation committee would sit Thursday only for them to discover on getting to Yola that the meeting took place on Wednesday. The aggrieved aspirants at a press conference in Yola on Thursday, said they were shocked when they arrived in the Adamawa state capital and met nobody at the venue. Their spokesman, Mallam Marwan Aliyu Bacci, said, “We came from Taraba to Adamawa for the meeting but learnt that the committee sat at Banquet Hall in Government House Yola on Wednesday, November 28 instead of Thursday, November 29, as indicated on the official invitation card sent out to aggrieved aspiran...

18 Governor Darius Ishaku Gov. Darius Ishaku of Taraba has said that the state government would allocate N100 million to the Hope Health and Rehabilitation Centre, Jalingo to enhance its operations. Ishaku disclosed this during the one year anniversary of the rehabilitation centre in Jalingo on Tuesday. Concise learned the centre is a unit of the Hope Afresh Foundation, a pet project of the governor’s wife, Mrs. Anna Ishaku. “Thank God, the speaker of the house of assembly is well represented here; the director of budgetary allocation is also here. “’On my part, I am going to do everything humanly possible to ensure that the centre is included in the annual budgetary allocation of the state, and I will start with N100 million.” Ishaku, who lamented the high level of drug abuse by the youths in the state, said that the health centre had rehabilitated many youths that were engaged in the illicit act. “You will not know the level of destruction drug abuse can...

Facebook Twitter Google+ Pinterest LinkedIn WhatsAp Nine out of a hundred residents in Taraba state and the entire Northeastern region are drug addicts, suffering from substance abuses, wife of the Taraba State Governor, Anna Darius Ishaku said on Tuesday. She spoke in Jalingo at the one-year anniversary/fund raising ceremony of the Hope Health Centre, a medical centre her NGO -Hope Afresh Foundation (HAF) established for the rehabilitation of victims of substance abus “Statistics from studies on substance abuse in Nigeria has placed the Northeast region, to which Taraba state belongs, in the fifth position with the statistic of 8.54 percent. “This means about nine out of of 100 persons, suffer from drug abuse,” she said. Mrs Ishaku said her Hope Health Centre came about from a state-wide sensitisation campaign and workshop on the dangers of substance abuse by her Foundation. She added that she collaborated with key related bodies such as the NDLEA, NAFDAC, State...

The senior special adviser to Governor Darius Ishaku of Taraba State on Political Affiars, Alhaji Abubakar Bawa, has lamented the deplorable state of federal road linking Mambilla Plateau in Sardauna local government area of Taraba State to Jalingo the state capital. He said the road has become a death trap to hundreds of motorists who ply the road on daily basis. Bawa, who stated this yesterday in Jalingo during an exclusive interview with LEADERSHIP expressed worried that the condition of the road has become an embracement to the federal government. He added that motorists and heavy trucks fall on daily basis on the road. “One thing that kept surprising me is that, recently, President Muhammed Buhari announced that a huge sum was earmarked for the construction of the Hydro Power Project, they know fully well that the road is bad, and they have heavy equipment that would be sent through the road to the project site. He stressed that the bad road has claimed th...

Hunters association have offered itself to help join forces in the fight against kidnappings and other forms of crimes in Taraba State and parts of the North- East. The secretary of Hunters association Taraba State branch, Mallam Usman Mamadu told North East Trust in an interview that the association is ready to assist security agents in their effort to reduce the rate of crimes especially kidnapping and armed robbery. He explained that the association has over 15000 members across the 16 local government areas of the state and has been assisting in curbing activities of kidnappers, cattle rustling and armed robbery in their localities. The secretary stated that over the years members of the association have assisted security agents in Taraba and in other states in the North East in the fight against insurgents and other criminal elements.  MallamUsman Mamadu said members of the association had participated in fighting kidnappers in Bali, Gassol, Gashaka and Donga lo...

The Taraba State Government and the Nigeria State Health Investment Project on Saturday signed a Memorandum of Understanding to boost primary health care delivery in the state. Signing the MoU in Jalingo, the state capital, the Commissioner for Health, Dr. Innocent Vakkai, said the MoU was to scale up more hospitals in the NSHIP programme. Vakkai said, “In the time past, primary health care facilities in the state used to be in bad shape and could hardly offer services, but the NSHIP has greatly improved both health care delivery and infrastructure development of some of our PHC facilities. “The programme is aimed at strengthening health care development at the local level and I want to call on the beneficiaries to take the programme seriously.” He said Taraba is now 13 out of the 36 states in terms of improved PHC delivery going by arecent assessment. He commended Governor Darius Ishaku for his prompt payment of counterpart funds for the project, adding ...

As part of measures to check youth restiveness, the Nigeria Incentive-Based Risk Sharing System for Agricultural Lending (NIRSAL),in collaboration with an entrepreneurship firm, Supernova Global Investment Company is to engage over 100 Taraba youth in smart farm project. The Chief Executive Officer of Supernova Global Investment Company,  Barr. Sani Marke disclosed this in an interview with our correspondent in Jalingo, the Taraba state capital. Marke said they have acquired 118 hectares of land in Donada,  Lau local government area of the state for the smart farm which will help check poverty,  unemployment and criminality. According to him the smart farm project which will target dry season rice farming with NIRSAL providing adequate support will soon take off in the state. He explained that the initiative was to take youth out of the streets, check   criminality and boost the economy of the state. “Our target is youth and women  and...

Over 5000 Internally Displaced Persons, IDPs who have been confined to Government Day Secondary School, Jalingo and Government Day Secondary School, Kona in Taraba state on Wednesday heaved a sigh of relief when another batch of relief materials were delivered to their camps. Most of the IDPs who have become refugees in their home country were displaced by marauding herdsmen from their various communities spread across Lau and Ardokola local government areas of the state. Most of them who looked malnourished and frail have been surviving by the goodwill of the state government, groups and individuals who regularly bring relief materials as succour. According to some of the IDPs, their communities were still under siege and were afraid of going back for fear of being attacked. IDPs Some of them who spoke with Vanguard noted that most of their life investments domiciled in their various communities have been reduced to nothing and hope that someday they would be able to see their...

Sen. Yusuf A. Yusuf Senator Yusuf Abubakar Yusuf represents Taraba Central in the Senate. In this interview with RUTH CHOJI, the lawmaker explains why the Taraba APC is engulfed in crisis over the last primaries. Taraba state APC seems to have been divided since the conclusion of th primary elections. What actually played out? Honestly I will not say it is divided into factions but it is divided into caucuses. What actually happened is that, after the outcome of the 2015 elections, the APC became very strong and united. When the chairman of the APC in the state was appointed as an Ambassador, we needed to have an acting chairman and immediately we picked one, some forces in the party started manipulating the party. Who are these forces? The forces were led by the former minister of women affairs, Senator Aisha Alhassan. I cannot wish her away because she had done a lot for the party and all of us were together at a point. But she wanted to run the party with he...

The Taraba State Police Command on Thursday said they have arrested 35 suspects in connection with the recent violent clash involving suspected political youth groups in Jalingo,  the state capital. State Police Public Relations officer ASP David Misal told our correspondent that the command responded to a distress call when suspected political thugs engaged in a violent clash around the Jalingo market area which resulted in the burning down of shops. According to him,  on receipt of the distress call, the Commissioner Police Taraba State Command, Mr. David Akinremi gave a directive for the deployment of operatives of the command to quell the uprising. “But before the arrival of the police, a shop had already been burned down. “From the information we gathered,  one of the rival political thugs was killed the previous day which led to the uprising. “We will not relent in our efforts to rid the state of all criminal elements. “We, therefore, warn crimi...

The fact that the presidential and gubernatorial polls would not hold on the same day is part of the challenge facing supporters of former Vice President Atiku Abubakar and Governor Darius Ishaku in Taraba State. It is perhaps in anticipation of the intricate linkage between the presidential election and the governorship that most Tarabans are not leaving any stone unturned to ensure victory for the Peoples Democratic Party ‘s (PDP) candidates. As campaigns kick-off effectively, supporters of the two PDP candidates are exploring all legitimate paths to ensure that the incumbent governor especially secures a second term mandate. What makes the governor’s position precarious is the fact that two oppositions parties are also putting all tactics together to over-power him at the polls. On one hand is All Progressives Congress (APC), which has a presidential incumbent and on the other is the United Democratic Party (UDP), which has as its governorship standard bea...