Comrade Sabo Mohammed is the Senior Special Assistant to the Bauchi state Governor on media and communication. He recently granted audience to journalists in the state where he debunks the claim by critics that his principal is not performing. He also speaks on some of the achievements of the administration. NAJIB SANI was there.
It is now almost two years since the APC government led by Governor Mohammed Abubakar took over the mantle of leadership of Bauchi state but critics have continued to lament that up to now, no single project has been commissioned by him. How true is this claim?
When His excellency Governor Mohammed Abubakar was sworn in on 29th may 2015, he made some pledges to the citizens of the state. Some of such promises he made were prudence and transparency in governance. He also promised to be fair to all and sundry irrespective of ethnic, religious, sectional and political differences.
He equally promised to investigate and recover all public funds carted away by the officials of the previous government and return same to the coffers of the government for the good of the state. That was why immediately he took over the mantle of leadership, he set up a recovery committee headed by retired Air commodore Tijjani Baba Gamawa which succeeded in seizing government’s cars, generators, plots of land, refrigerators and many other things.And only three of the affected former government officials went to court which stopped the committee from recovering government property. But the state government has appealed against the judgment and is committed to restoring all public properties stolen by the past government. More so, to redeem his promise of ensuring prudence in governance, Governor Abubakar had after taking over, slashed his salary by 50 percent, his deputy’s by 50 percent too while those of political appointees like me were slashed by 30 percent. It is common for governors to purchase luxurious cars for themselves and their aides but M.A Abubakar did not do that. Up to now, he uses the old vehicles left behind by the previous government. He equally reduced the government house running costs to the minimal level.
Apart from that, the governor had set up another committee to probe how the past administration awarded and executed contracts and major projects. In addition, he promised to boost the state internally generated revenue through agriculture and excavation of the abundant unharnessed mineral resources endowed in the state so that we will not rely entirely on the federal allocations. Right now, the governor has taken a private public partnership bill to the Bauchi state house of assembly so that such minerals could be excavated although it belongs to the federal government but we can collect taxes from miners.
It may interest you to know that as part of efforts to generate income to the state, the governor has upgraded the Yankari Games Reserve, Sumu wild park and people all over the country and beyond now pay to hold conferences there. It is worthy of note that the government owes no salary or pension to civil servants and retirees because it has settled all arrears now. In terms of social amenities, the governor has flagged off the construction of roads in various cities in the state and everybody can see that works are ongoing. Are all these not achievements? People should be appreciative of these developments and i believe before the expiration of our first tenure, many projects will be carried out.
But some politicians complain that they are not being carried along and it is a fact that the governor can’t succeed without their support. What do you say about that?
It is not true because people from all the senatorial zones are being represented properly in this government. For instance, his deputy Nuhu Gidado has contested against the governor during APC primaries. But due to the governor’s magnanimity, he took him as his deputy after that. And he accorded him absolute power and relevance in the government to enable him contribute his quota towards the progress of the state. The deputy governor is also holding the position of commissioner of education which is the biggest ministry at present. This is in addition to his appointment as the state amirul hajj, the first time a deputy governor holds such appointment in the history of the state. Governor Abubakar in his quest to carry everybody along has invited all the governorship aspirants during the last 2015 election to come together to move the state forward. It is as a result of that, that i found myself being appointed as his SSA Media and communication because to be frank, i did not vote for him during the primary election. I supported another aspirant. There are many others who did not support him but are now holding the positions of commissioners, special advisers, chairmen and members of boards as well as local governments caretaker chairmen.
In fact, there are people who were not even members of the APC before but are now in the government. Therefore, the governor needs to be hailed for playing politics without animosity or rancour. Recently, the President gave slots to state governors to nominate people for various federal appointments and it will be of interest to you that he recommended all his fellow governorship contenders including the person that is currently challenging his victory in a court. Similarly, the President had recently given governors three slots for federal boards chairmen and 20 slots for boards members. In view of his fairness, he divided the three slots among the three senatorial zones in the state and the 20 slots among the 20 local governments.
Despite all these claims, members of the National Assembly who are at loggerheads with the governor still say that he has not done well. How will you react to such opinions?
We always ask them three questions and up to now, they have not been able to respond them. The works being carried out by the governor are visible. But we ask them, what do they do with the huge funds being disbursed to them as constituency allowances? Our investigation revealed that every senator collects not less than N30 million as constituency allowance while every member of the House of Representatives collects N18 million monthly. So, where is the money and where are the constituency projects? We have been asking these questions but none of them has ever responded. Secondly, is the allegation made by Abdulmuminu Jibrin that no senator or representative earns less than N20 million monthly true? If yes, then what are they doing with the money to impact on the lives of their constituents positively? The third question is, since their election into the national assembly, what developments have they facilitated for their state? Inspite of this, the governor is ever ready to reconcile with them whenever they apologize.
President Buhari was billed to visit Bauchi to commission the newly constructed Airforce base and some projects executed by the state government but he suspended the visit twice. Does that have any political coloration?
Those who make such insinuations don’t even know what is politics. The president was not coming to commission governor’s projects. He was coming to commission the air force base constructed by the federal government. We just wanted to use the opportunity to ask him to commission some of our projects. And as he rightly stated, he postponed the first visit due to his unscheduled trip to Gambia and has also given reason why he could not come the second time due to poor weather condition and haze as a result of hamattan which made flight impossible.
