Press Statement


The Taraba State Government is greatly dismayed and disappointed by the false allegations that it is training an illegal security outfit in the state. The allegation made by one Lt Col Sani Adamu is false and a gross misrepresentation of facts done deliberately to please his pay masters and to misinform the general public. We hereby debunk his claims as false, tendentious and unacceptable.

The truth is that the Taraba State Government is not involved in any illegal training of security personnel anywhere in the state. The training being conducted for the government by a licensed security agency – GH Security Services Ltd - is for Marshals as approved by the Taraba State House of Assembly under the state’s Open Grazing Restriction and Establishment of Ranches Law.

The legislation which was duly made by the State House of Assembly provides for Marshals that will assist in the enforcement of the law. The current training in Serti, Gashaka Local Government of Taraba State is the second of such exercise in the state and we would like to say with emphasis that this training does not involve the use of any form of weapons.

Before the training started, all the formations of the security agencies in the state including the one which Lt. Col Adamu heads, were informed in writing. The letters were duly acknowledged as received. The duly signed acknowledgement copies of these letters returned by these agencies are in our possession. The government is, therefore, surprised that one of the recipients of these letters could turn round to deny knowledge of the training which is being conducted in the open - in a public school.

Government has done nothing illegal and had no reason to hide the training exercise from the agencies, hence the notice given in advance to security agencies in the state. It is also important to note that several states in the country have introduced or are in the process of introducing similar security outfits to deal with security problems peculiar to them. It is, therefore, difficult to fathom why a similar effort by the Taraba State Government is being given a bad name.

We would like to use this opportunity to caution against the attempt by security agencies to politicize genuine and patriotic efforts of the government to solve some of the problems affecting the unity and peaceful co-existence among our people.

We wish to reiterate our commitment as a government towards ensuring peace and good neighborliness among our people and to also emphasize that no amount of blackmail would distract us from such patriotic path now or in future.

Bala Dan Abu

Senior Special Assistant to the Governor on Media and Publicity.

NOTE:
Bellow are detailed and duly signed,stamped and received  Documents by all security outfits in the state before and during the training including details of the first batch trained