Aliyu says He named Speaker as Acting Governor because His Deputy was to Travel
Governor of Niger state, Babangida Aliyu, has revealed that he appointed the Speaker of the House of Assembly as the acting Governor in his stead during his travel for the lesser Hajj because he had thought the Deputy governor would be travelling for the same purpose.
Governor Aliyu said, as opposed to rumours that his move was to spite his deputy, Ahmed Musa Ibeto, who recently defected from the Peoples Democratic Party to the All Progressives Congress, he had received a notification letter informing him that Ibeto was also going for the lesser hajj.
The Governor, who stated this on Wednesday when he signed the 2015 appropriations bill into law, said the notification letter was the reason he asked the Speaker to serve as the acting Governor.
He said: “The Speaker had to be the acting governor because my deputy governor was not in town for me to verify if he was traveling out of the country or not.
“Without any discussion, I saw a letter that he wants to travel for lesser Hajj, I saw the deputy governor on the television attending a meeting of the APC where he had defected and I assumed that he would leave for the lesser hajj from Abuja and since I could not get him, the constitutional thing was to appoint the Speaker as the acting governor.
“The appointment of the acting governor was no spite on anyone. The deputy governor is still the deputy governor of the state until the end of our mandate.”
Speaking further on the ejection of the deputy governor from government house, the governor explained that right from the onset, the deputy governor’s office had not been in the government house.
“Many of you are aware that before I came as governor, the office of the deputy governor was not in government house. I was the one who felt that he needed to stay close to me, that we were one ticket, and if a ticket decides to cut into two and there is a bigger size of the ticket, I think people just say and write what they want to write.
“This is a straight-forward issue for me, constitutionally, he is still the deputy governor, he will function as the deputy governor and if he is available, why not, he will be given the acting governor.”
