Swear Us In Or We ‘Swear’ For You – Taraba Appointees

Barely four months after Governor Agbu Kefas of Taraba State listed 1273 for appointments as special advisers, senior special assistants, constituency special assistants, community special assistants, boards, commissions and agency members without inauguration, the appointees have threatened to swear for the governor if he failed to swear them in.

The first batch of appointments was released through the office of Secretary to the State (SGS) Barr. Gibon Kataps on the 19th of June 2024, with 134 of the appointees on the list, and the second list was out on the 25th of the same month, with 61 names.

The third list of the appointees was released on the 15th of July with 573 names, followed by another list on the 16th of July with names of 502 appointees as well as the recent list, which was released on 22nd of July 2024 with three names all from the office of the SGS.

All the appointees were directed to send their resumes to WhatsApp numbers via the SGS office.

After waiting four months without being inaugurated or presented with letters of appointment, the appointees became agitated. While some have declined the offer of the appointments, some who spoke to LEADERSHIP expressed their anger, stating that they would swear for the governor if he failed to inaugurate them into offices before the end of October 2024.

Some of the appointees who spoke to our correspondent said the governor has put their faith on the fence, claiming that their expenditures have increased as their allies put high hopes on them as political appointees of the governor. However, there has been no income out of the offer since the list of the appointments was out for the last four months.

One of the appointees from the Takum local government area who refused to give his name for fear of victimisation accused the governor of patronising strange persons who did not work for him during the electioneering campaign in the state.

“He brought 100 percent strangers in his government as commissioners while those of us who worked for him during the 2023 governorship election is left with our faith hanging for close to two years of the tenure.

“First of all, after his election, he left all of us in the state that worked for him during the governorship election and picked his commissioners outside the political cycle; we kept quiet and allowed it to go. Now, he appointed us for barely four months without a single letter to prove we are appointees nor to swear us in that we would get the monthly allowances so that we could back up our expenditures.

“People do come to us as political appointees of the governor, but there is nothing to show for it. We can’t just attend event anyhow since we are carrying the name SA to the governor, let him swear us in before the end of this month or we swear for him, the result will not be too good come 2027 general elections if he allows us to do that,” the appointee stated.