Taraba APC, LP Gov’ship Candidates Oppose Ishaku’s N20bn Loan Bid

The governorship candidates of the All Progressives Congress (APC) Senator Emmanuel Bwacha and his Labour Party (LP) counterpart, Senator Joel Dalami Ikenya have kicked against the ongoing arrangement to secure another N20 billion loan by Governor Darius Ishaku.

While at the Taraba State House of Assembly during the passage of the 2023 appropriations bill submitted by the governor, LEADERSHIP Friday gathered that though all arrangements had been perfected to secure the loan from commercial banks, some members insisted that the administration’s period was too short for such a facility.

While Bwacha who is the senator representing Taraba South at the National Assembly asked the banks to reverse the decision, he described the facility as a parting gift to the governor’s cabinet members.

“The banks which are well known financial institutions should be aware of granting such a facility to a government that has already acquired huge amounts of other loans without any meaningful impact, why secure such a huge loan at the tail end of an administration that has nothing to prove of it,” he queried.

On his part, Ikenya challenged the governor to show the people of the state what he had done with the recent N5.5 billion loan he acquired in the last three months before he takes another N20 billion.

He lamented that the government of Ishaku had accumulated over N100billion loan for the state in the past seven years as governor of the state without any meaningful project to show for such loans.

Some of the electorate in the state who spoke to LEADERSHIP Friday warned the members of Taraba State House of Assembly not to grant the governor the N20billion loan facility, reminding the members that the state is already enslaved through the procurement of loans by the administration.

Those who spoke to our correspondent stated that members of the assembly who agreed to the loan would be rejected at the 2023 polls since they did not mean well for the state.