Senator Jimkuta
Senator David Jimkuta, who represents Taraba South in the Senate, has dismissed allegations that he received N500 million meant for women empowerment in the district.
The lawmaker described the claim by the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) senatorial candidate for Taraba South, Dr. Jessy Adi Ashimate, as false, baseless and misleading.
Jimkuta said no government or organisation had at any time released such funds to him for women empowerment.
The controversy followed remarks by Ashimate during a campaign event, where he accused the senator of failing to use two separate allocations of N250 million meant for training women in the district.
According to Ashimate, “For the women in the southern zone, there was a budget of N250 million two times that was supposed to be used for your training, through the senator, was there any training?”
He also alleged that official records showed the project was marked as ongoing despite the absence of any training programme, saying he was “raising the issues to demanding accountability over public funds.”
Responding through the Director-General of his campaign, Hon. Garleya Gambo Suntai, Senator Jimkuta said the PDP candidate failed to provide any evidence to support the allegation.
“Everyone expected the PDP candidate for the southern senatorial district to come out and tell the people where the N500 million came from, when the money was released and his sources of information, he rather threw a vague allegations without substantiating them.”
Suntai said the people of Taraba South were aware of several empowerment programmes carried out by the senator since he assumed office over three years ago.
He added, “The whole of the people even beyond southern Taraba state are aware of the huge empowerment programs Sen. David Jimkuta has done since he was elected more than three years ago, the recent one that was done not over two weeks ago including fertilizer and tractors worth over N3 billion.”
The campaign director further disclosed that another empowerment programme would be launched soon.
According to him, “In the next few weeks, he is going to do another empowerment that is more than the recent one, as we speak, the senator is in China to procure the best machines for drilling of boreholes for his constituents, before the coming senatorial election, each and every community within south Taraba will be having source of good water courtesy of Sen. Jimkuta.”
Suntai also urged politicians to focus on issue-based campaigns instead of making unverified allegations.
He said, “We advice politicians who are seeking for elective positions to address issues base campaign instead of name calling, Dr. Adi was a commissioner for finance here in Taraba state, what empowerment candidate he claim he has done for his own ward, he was a medical Doctor, he only committed surgeries that ended People’s live at Kwalarafa Clinic in Aware.”
