Community petitions governor over ruler’s alleged excesses

Elders of Sansani Community in Gassol Local Government Area of Taraba on Monday petitioned Governor Darius Ishaku over alleged excesses of their traditional, the Lamdo Gossol, Alhaji Idris Chiroma.
The petition, signed by 16 elders and copied to the Speaker, Taraba House of Assembly, security agencies and other traditional rulers, alleged that Chiroma was promoting indiscipline by pitting village heads against district heads.
It said that Chiroma, a third class chief, had confiscated lands and fish ponds belonging to peasant farmers, leaving them without any means of livelihood.
It also alleged that he confiscated a cultivated farm belonging to the District Head of Sansani, Alhaji Nuhu Abdulmutallib, an act he repeated a week ago by sending palace guards to plant rice on a land belonging to seven peasants at Sarki Dukku village.
They accused the ruler of selling peasants’ farms to herdsmen, pitting the farmers against the buyers of the farms.
The petitioners urged the governor to intervene in the matter so as to avoid clashes and bloodshed.
According to them, appeals for a just treatment of his subjects had not been heeded by the ruler that had been on the throne for 10 years.
But Chiroma, who reacted to the allegations, dismissed them as “falsehood put together by my enemies who do not mean well for my chiefdom”.
He said: “The allegations are all lies. This is not the first they are cooking up such lies against me.
“The petitioners are bad elements that have not contributed anything to the growth of the chiefdom. They are only bent on causing trouble. I have told them that the long arms of the law will not spare any of them.”