Abubakar: Governors Have no Security Vote
Bauchi governor, Mohammed Abubakar has been having a running battle with some prominent politicians from the state, including the Speaker of the House of Reps, Yakubu Dogara. The governor recently took some journalists on a project tour, after which he sp
You were alleged to have borrowed money immediately you were sworn-in as governor and that you misapplied FG’s bailout funds? When we took over, even before I was sworn in, I was confronted with strike. Workers were owed four months salaries. I called labour and we sat down, I asked my deputy governor to sit with me. We convinced the workers to return to work because the strike would have affected even the handing over process, the transition process. So I told them to please return back to work and that the moment I am swore in, we would sit down and look for the best way we can to savage the situation. They agreed and they went back to work and we took over government.So it was incumbent on me to find ways and means of settling these outstanding salaries and for that reason I had to take a loan because there was no single kobo in the treasury. For three months, they were collecting money from the federation account and carting it away in the name of security vote.
I needed to pay salaries, we took over in May, by then the raining season had started already and no single bag of fertilizer was procured. I needed to procure fertilizers. The annual pilgrimage to Saudi Arabia was in the offing and time was. You must make certain payments within a certain period of time otherwise you lose out. So these three things had to be done within a short space of time.
For that reason, I called on the State House of Assembly. What most people did not know at that time was that I had not inaugurated the new house of assembly because constitutionally the last House of Assembly had until the 15th of June before its tenure would end. I worked for two weeks with the former House of Assembly members. I called the speaker to my house. At that time, there wasn’t a single appointee of government except the Head of Service whom I inherited from the former government. So we sat, myself, the speaker and the head of service, I told him that you are a son of this state, forget the fact that whatever ills we are crying about were perpetrated by the government in which you are a speaker, it is not time for apportioning blames. You know the situation in which we are; the state was like sitting on a keg of gun powder ready to explode, so please I would request for a resolution from you to enable me borrow N4 billion to pay salaries, procure fertilizers and finance hajj operations.
The speaker promised me that he would have invited all his members for dinner that evening that he was going to throw the matter to them. I instructed the Head of Service to write formally to the house requesting for a resolution and he did. Three or four days later the clerk of the house wrote to us convening the resolution enabling us to borrow the N4 billion that we requested for.
Anybody who understands the constitution of Nigeria will appreciate the fact that, I do not have a hand as to the procedure in the house of assembly. If the house of assembly had sat in plenary to give me that resolution so be it, if they had sat in an executive session to produce that resolution, it is not for me to question how that resolution was procured.
The second issue is that I obtained a loan without an exco resolution. The provision of the constitution is that executive power resides with the governor. Another section of the constitution says the governor shall appoint commissioners and sit with them the fiscal responsibility law which we have domesticated in Bauchi state. So there was nowhere where I am prevented from exercising my powers as governor. One month salary was paid, we procured 10,000 metric tons of fertilizers which we distributed to every ward in Bauchi, for the first time fertilizers were taken to the common man, and then we were able to finance the Hajj operations. The federal government of Nigeria gave what is known today as bailout fund for payment of outstanding salaries. Bauchi state government got N8.6 billion to pay these outstanding salaries. Before we did that, the Federal Ministry of Finance requested from us the level of our outstanding liabilities. We wrote and they asked the SSS to confirm to them what the outstanding liabilities of the state was, the SSS confirmed N8.6billion and we were given. Out rightly we used that N8.6b less N88million at the initial stage and we offset the outstanding salaries completely. For this labour both in Bauchi and at the national level wrote us letters of commendation. So when we did this, we had N88 million remaining. The Vice Chancellor of the state university came to me to say that he too has outstanding and I asked him what he needed, he said N70million and I ordered for N70million to be given to him which left N18million. After a few months, the same VC came back to me and claimed that his visiting lecturers needed to be paid more and I ordered for the outstanding amount to be paid to him. I had a dedicated account for bail out, it is with Zenith bank. Then came the issue of Paris Club refund for which we received N12.7 billion. I was in a bus travelling from the Port Harcourt airport to the stadium for a campaign before the last elections in Rivers when the Accountant General of my state confirmed to me that we have gotten that from Paris Club refund. My immediate instruction was that, at that time the state was owing one month salary while two months at local government level. I immediately told him to pay outstanding salaries. Before the federal ministry of finance released the money to us, we were given the tape containing the percentage that each tier of government should have, our own in Bauchi state is 42 for the local government, 58 for the state. We gave the local government their share plus N600 million. As am talking to you today the local government areas in the state are owing the state government N600 million we gave them to offset two months salaries.
They said we are not doing anything. Well, what Nigerians do not know is that Kano is the most populous state in Nigeria and it has 44 LGAs but it has a total man power of 92,000. Small Bauchi state on the other hand with 20 LGAs has 105,000. That is the number of people on my pay roll.
This outstanding salary that I said we used Paris club fund to pay arose from my attempt to verify these civil servants to know the true civil servants in Bauchi state. I met a very strong concrete wall. Those who usually took away about a billion naira from the earnings of Bauchi state every month in the name of ghost of workers, joined together with detractors of Bauchi state that had been denigrating the state and made it virtually impossible for us to get to the bottom of the problem. In addition to this, Bauchi is one of the states that pay above the national minimum wage. Our minimum wage is N18,500. So our wage bill every month is N5.1 billion and if you go back and take a look at the release, you will discover that from the time I have taken over till date, there wouldn’t have been more than three months in which I collected over N5 billion. On the other months, I was collecting less than N5 billion. Today I am proud to say that Bauch state does not owe a single kobo in salary.
How much does Bauchi generate internally? Despite the crunching economic problems in Nigeria, you have seen some of the things we are doing that we have been able to achieve because essentially our internally generated revenue is pay as you earn nothing more nothing less which hovers N250 - 300 million tops, most months less than N300 million.
There are two roads that we have completed in Fadama Maga in a section of this state metropolis. There are roads we are doing, one from the secretariat roundabout to federal low cost ending at railway. Then we are dualizing most of the entrances into Bauchi state. When you come in from Jos you will see dualisation going on, it will go from 5 km outside town to the Zarada hotel and from there we are rehabilitating it because that portion going to the roundabout, we call Gidamai , we are doing both lanes of that road, and from that roundabout to Awala hotel work is going on. And then from Awala hotel to a place called Giwa academy that is on the road to Kano we are dualizing. Then we are rehabilitating from Awala roundabout to central market roundabout. We are rehabilitating from Gombe gate to the junction of house of assembly.
I am not afraid of anybody who wishes to contest for any office but now is not the time. Now is the time for us to put our heads together and work for this state and when the time of politics starts everybody can aspire