Media associate to Governor Kashim Shettima of Borno State, Isa Gusau, has accused a cabal of very desperate politicians struggling for power ahead of the 2015 general elections as being behind different groups, including a so-called “Concerned Borno Citizens” that engage in the fabrication of all manner of reports published online and in newspapers against the Borno governor.
Gusau, who was reacting to a paid advertorial published weekend in a national daily and signed by one Kolo Adam, said Governor Shettima would not be deterred by such reports as he remains focused on bringing the much needed peace in Borno State as well as providing the people of the state with effective leadership which it deserves.
In a statement issued yesterday, Gusau accused the cabal of deliberately selling falsehood to the public even when it was clear that Borno citizens and, indeed, the members of the public had now become too advanced to be manipulated with such fabricated lies.
“The Nigerian public is too advanced to be manipulated by cheap campaigns. A certain Kolo Adam cannot be an issue to me as Governor Shettima’s boy, not talk of him being an issue to the Governor himself.
“A cabal whose thuggish wing is led by a cruel and hurt sacked commissioner is behind all the blackmail. Interestingly, the cabal is the architect of its own misfortune. The members want power at all cost but have lost out in the APC and are not being welcomed in the PDP in Borno, so they are politically homeless and would stop at nothing to set other homes on fire.
“The cabal expected, on defection, that the entire APC movers and shakers would move with them. Shockingly to them, they are going in their bits and pieces; no one (from elected to appointed and most party members) is ready to drown with them and this makes them really frustrated, hence their loud noise as an empty vessel. To make matters worse, those they met in the new party they entered feel better without their entry. So, that publication on LEADERSHIP SUNDAY is one of hundreds of fabrications by the cabal that is drowning and which is brutally desperate for power ahead of 2015 elections”.
He noted that in an attempt to distract Governor Shettima, the cabal had gone to every length to discredit the governor using a newspaper associated with them and using other media platforms.
“The Daily Post online and National Trail newspaper are nothing short of their newsletters”, Gusau said noting that “The group is so desperate that they can accuse Governor Shettima of buying off Wall Street, the New York Stock Exchange and even the White House. This is their level of desperation”.
The media associate pointedly accused a sacked commissioner in the state of being the architect of some of the falsehoods being perpetrated by the cabal, alleging that since his sack from Governor Shettima’s cabinet, the former commissioner had channeled his arsenal towards attacking the Borno State government for selfish reasons as well as to please his paymasters.
“A former commissioner of Information in Borno and member of that cabal, Inuwa Bwala, went as far as telling some very ridiculous lies a month ago in an interview granted to LEADERSHIP when he alleged that Governor Kashim Shettima was giving him N10 million every month for the purpose of denigrating former governor of the state, Ali Modu Sheriff. Bwala even said that N200million was set aside for that. I didn’t bother responding because from the feedback I got, nobody took him seriously.
“First of all, Bwala only got to know Governor Shettima in 2011 which, incidentally, was the same time he became close to Sheriff. Those who know Governor Shettima know that such stupidity is not in his character as he is so harmless, and Bwala knows this much. And then, even if Shettima was going to assign such a task to anyone, he could never have trusted Bwala to an extent of giving him such an assignment. He never gave me such a task or any other person he trusted; how could it have been the former commissioner that everybody knew was close to Sheriff?
“Inuwa Bwala concocted that story to manipulate Sheriff and gain material favours. It is true that there was a time the governor cautioned him against issuing controversial statements without his clearance. What happened was that, on a Friday in 2012, a newspaper carried a story that Sheriff was arrested in Cameroon.
“Sheriff called Governor Shettima while we were in Kaduna; the very day the publication came out, Governor Shettima called me and gave me the phone to speak with Sheriff which we did. Sheriff, the Governor and I agreed that someone close to Sheriff outside government officials was going to issue a statement in his defence and the editor of that newspaper promised me that the statement was to be given front page prominence the following Monday and the Monday edition had better circulation.
“While we had made our arrangement, we all just saw a sudden reaction on Saturday issued by Inuwa Bwala as a commissioner and the story read that “Borno Government denies Sheriff’s arrest” and it was controversial because Bwala was serving and spokesman of the government.
“He disrespecfully didn’t bother to refer to the governor before issuing that statement; everyone felt bad because we had concluded on a better approach and he was not with us and didn’t have the courtesy of calling the governor or anyone around him to discuss the publication. The governor did call both us and told him it was wrong for him to have issued that statement as a serving commissioner because it was unusual. He then gave Inuwa Bwala the task of getting a good spokesman for Sheriff with a pledge to foot the bills of salary and any media cost. But Inuwa Bwala went and told Sheriff that the Governor directed him never to defend him, the same claim he made in LEADERSHIP, and this is an arrant lie”, he said.
Gusau accused Bwala of being part of the cabal that is telling all manner of lies against Governor Shettima, saying that early last year, the cabal had alleged that the governor had not completed a single project even when they knew that most of the projects were big and, at that time, Maiduguri was passing through security challenges, so the works were being stalled.
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