NKRUMAH BANKONG-OBI/Lafia

The need to maintain cohesion and promote unity among Party faithful has been fingered as the reason the governor of Nasarawa State,  Abdullahi Sule has directed that money paid for party nomination forms be returned to the unsuccessful aspirants.

Chairmanship aspirants, including those who lost out in the consensus arrangement adopted by the All Progressives Congress, APC, in the State, paid N5 million while councillorship aspirants parted ways with N1.5million.

This was clarification was given by the Senior Special Assistant to the governor on Public Affairs, Hon. Peter Ahemba, at an interactive session with reporters in Lafia, on Monday.

Ahemba said the governor has issued the directives to the party hierarchy and the order is already being implemented to safeguard unity and coexistence.

“His Excellency has already directed the leadership of the APC to refund monies paid as nomination fees to aspirants who could not make it to be so-selected or elected as candidates during the Party primaries.

Already, the Party is complying with that,” he said, noting that “This is because His Excellency is doing this to promote internal democracy and also to enhance the unity that we have been able to achieve as the ruling party in Nasarawa State. He is not resting at all, he will continue to do things that will deepen internal democracy and enhance peaceful coexistence not only in the Party but in the entire Nasarawa State,” the government spokesman said.

He also outlined strategies that the state government is adopting to ensure food security in the Northcentral state. a key part of which, he said the cultivation of the ten-thousand-hectare rice farm at Janga community in Awe Local Government Area. Another strategy, Ahemba pointed out, is the distribution of fertilizers to farmers in the State.

“Tractors were distributed to farmers in Nasarawa State across the thirteen local government areas. As we speak, additional forty tractors are at the Government House and will soon be distributed to our farmers.

Others are being assembled and manufactured. All these are efforts that are geared towards ensuring food security of the state,” he said.

This initiative, Ahemba noted, is for effect: “Now that the state government has keyed-into the Federal government’s food security initiative, the state government expects all the local governments and the local farmers to key into the state’s vision for the provision of food,” the outcome being that with the way things are going and the way His Excellency is going, by next year, I don’t think anybody will cry of hunger.”

The SSA also spoke of the government’s commitment the minimum wage, once the State’s labour unions give him a prompt. The continuous distribution of various forms of palliatives to the different strata of the Nasarawa State society, to cushion of the effects of the hardship resulting from the removal of subsidy on petroleum products by the Federal government.