NAJIB SANI writes on the findings of the committee set up by the Bauchi state Governor, Mohammed Abubakar, which indicted the former governor, Alhaji Isa Yuguda of misappropriating N212 billion state’s fund.
Since the inception of the present administration of the All Progressives Congress [APC] in Bauchi state led by Mohammed Abubakar about two years ago, the governor has been pleading with the citizens to be patient and give the new government ample time to bring the desired positive changes and developments to the state as he promised during electioneering.
Abubakar has during his inauguration ceremony held at the Abubakar Tafawa Balewa Stadium, Bauchi on 29th may 2015 alleged publicly that he inherited an empty treasury from his predecessor Malam Isa Yuguda where he emphasized that the development coupled with the fall in the price of crude oil at international market, the country’s major source of revenue might take the government some time before it could surmount that challenge and execute its meaningful projects.
He pledged that the new administration would be so prudent in its spendings and explore other means of generating internal revenues with a view to complementing federal grants and coping with the economic recession.
Our correspondent recalled that the governor has immediately after assumption of office announced the reduction of his salary and that of the deputy governor by 50 percent just as those of political appointees were slashed by 30 percents respectively.
Thiswas followed by the constitution of a committee led by a retired military chief Air commodore Tijjani Baba Gamawa to recover all government property allegedly carted away by the ex-government officials all in order to create wealth for the ‘bankrupt’ government.
In the course of its work, the committee seized 72 cars from former commissioners, advisers, Yuguda’s wives and an aircraft which it alleged were stolen and or mismanaged.
Aside from that, Governor Abubakar last year set up another committee headed by a politician Alhaji Salihu Lukman to probe all major contracts awarded by Yuguda and ministries during his regime that last from 2007 to 2015.
The report of the committee was presented to the incumbent governor on Friday 6th January 2017 in which the former governor and his government officials were indicted of mismanaging state resources and were asked to account for the whooping sum of N212 billion.
Briefing journalists on the matter, the state Commissioner of Justice and Attorney General Barrister Ibrahim Umar explained that all government officials who served during the previous administration including commissioners, advisers, permanent secretaries, heads of parastalatals, accountant generals and contractors were invited by the high powered committee to depend themselves on how they expended funds allocated to them adding that many have allegedly refused to show up while those who appeared before it were unable to justify their expenditures.
Those who could not account for the monies, he said should refund it to the coffers of the government and those who failed to appear before the committee should give account of how they spent the funds without further delay.
According to the him, the total recoverable funds from former Governor Yuguda, contractors, consultants, political office holders and banks involved is N66, 560, 830, 749.04 billion [over N66 billion] while funds to be accounted for by the affected persons is N212, 218, 070,196.67 [Over N212 billion].
‘’Similarly, we want N88.2 billion naira, being amount illegally remitted from the Ministry of Local Government Affairs from its Federation Account Allocations to various MDAS from June 2007 to May 2015 to be recovered from former Governor Isa Yuguda, all former Commissioners for Local Government Affairs, all Permanent Secretaries and all former Special Advisers in the Ministry, all former Accountants General or their representatives’’.He said.
Umar alleged that predecessive government was responsible for the current financial predicament faced in the state accusing it of awarding contracts without planning, violation of due process as well as high inflation of major contracts vowing that government would liaise with anti graft agencies to recover the funds allegedly siphoned by the past government officials who are still alive and confiscate the assets of the dead ones from their families.
Blueprint gathered that despite his complaints and lamentations on the financial status of the state, Governor Abubakar was in recent times criticized vehemently by the citizens in parts of the state for hisinability to pay workers’ salaries regularly, the development he often ascribed to lack of adequate resources at government disposal until November last year when he settled all outstanding three months salaries and pension arrears owed to workers and retirees after the state reportedly got its share of the N522 billion bail out given to states governments by President Muhammadu Buhari to pay civil servants.
But in a swift reaction to the N212 billion scam, the spokesman of the former Governor Isa Yuguda and ex- commissioner of information Alhaji Salisu Barau decried that their probe by Governor Abubakar was a witch-hunt adding that the committee was illegal because it was not constitutionally constituted.
He claimed that the actions of the committee are therefore null and void because a Bauchi state high court had recently ordered that any probe committee set up by Abubakar should stop raiding the houses of the ex-government officials or seizing their belongings as the matter is still pending before the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission [EFCC].
‘’ It is laughable that the Bauchi state government would release this report after they have already petitioned the EFCC. When has the committee which is illegal turned to a court of law or anti graft agency where people will be indicted? I think they just want to black-paint us and our principal with baseless allegations. Yuguda is ever ready to honour EFCC’s invitation because he has records of everything”. He said.
Barau further claimed that his boss was more careful and prudent in his expenditures than the incumbent governor because he was a banker and financial expert alleging that Governor Abubakar was merely trying to divert people’s attention from the series of public outcries on his poor performance since assumption of office for almost two years now.
Butressing his point, the ex-commissioner stated that Yuguda constructed an international airport at N13 billion, 100 kilometer Ningi-Burra road at the cost of only N7 billion while the present governor has allegedly awarded a just four kilometer road at the colossal amount of N4 billion which ‘he is yet to commission up to now’.
He alleged that since the emergence of the APC administration in the state, it has continued to persecute the ex-governor and his aides pointing out that the government in collaboration with the security agents have humiliated Yuguda when he recently returned home by banning him from holding public gatherings, rallies and barricading his residence thereby preventing his supporters from visiting him and forcing him to leave the state abruptly.
That, he decried was a violation of the former governor’s inalienable right as a bonafide citizen of the state and the nation.
As barrage of reactions continue to trail the report of the committee, the people of Bauchi state are ‘all ears’ and await whether the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission [EFCC] will prosecute the former state chief executive or exonerate him because it is yet to release the report of its investigation on how he built his multi-million naira house in Bauchi which was recently sealed by the commission.
