2011: Jang To Drop Tallen As Rift Worsens

PHOTO: A FILE PHOTO OF PLATEAU STATE GOVERNOR, MR JONAH DAVID JANG (Middle); HIS ESTRANGED DEPUTY, MRS PAULINE TALLEN (L) WITH US OUT GOING AMBASSADOR TO NIGERIA, MS. ROBIN SANDERS, DURING HER VISIT TO JOS IN 2008.

JOS, July 27, (THEWILL) - The rift between Plateau State governor, Jonah David Jang and his deputy, Mrs. Pauline Tallen has deepened as THEWILL has learnt of plans by Jang to drop her from his reelection bid in 2011.

The Plateau State governor is said to be considering doing away with Tallen due to irreconcilable differences arising from how he has been running the state.

Tallen THEWILL leant has been complaining that she is not being involved in the running of the state and that most of the projects of the administration are concentrated in the Northern senatorial zone of the state where the governor comes from, to the utter neglect of the southern zone where she comes form to give the impression that she is a lame duck deputy.

Currently the deputy governor has been disallowed from appointing her own aides without the approval of the state governor and the number has been limited to three.

Our correspondent found out that efforts by the deputy governor to appoint a media aide was shunned by the state governor who is said to have ordered that such key offices be centralized in the government house.

The state governor has however allowed his wife to appoint a press secretary.

Tallen has also been barred from representing the governor on any occasion, while efforts to curtail the movement of the deputy has intensified since it was learnt that her frequent journeys to Abuja were to lobby the presidency to support her gubernatorial ambition.

THEWILL learnt form a very reliable source in the Plateau government house that she has been denied her travelling allowance anytime she travels outside the state especially within the last four months and she makes up for the expenses from her own purse.

Recently when her daughter wedded in London, the state governor refused to attend the wedding and did not send any representative. No state official was sent to represent him and even the members of the state House of Assembly who made the journey were refused their travel allowances on grounds that the journey was not official.

But when the son of Jang, Pam Jang, had his traditional wedding in Ghana in 2008, almost the entire members of the cabinet of the state government went to the West African country for the wedding and were paid offhand their travel allowances.

Jang is said to have contacted the Chairman of Tallen’s local government of Shendam, Nshe Kemi, to be on standby as possible replacement for Tallen as his running mate in the next elections.

Kemi was one of the Tallen protégés who rose to limelight winning the local government elections on the bases of the support from the deputy governor, but turned around to betray her when he started revealing her secrets to the governor.

Jang rewarded him with the chairmanship of the Association of Local Government Chairmen in the state.

It is expected that when the campaign for elections begins in earnest, Talllen would stand against the governor to contest the next gubernatorial elections.

She is known to be immensely popular and well liked by the people of the state.