Elders of Sansani Community in Gassol Local
Government Area of Taraba on Monday
petitioned Gov. 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 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”.
“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,” he said.