• Some governors lobbied to deputise Osinbajo when Buhari was sick
Alhaji Mohammed Abubakar is a former member of the National Judicial Council (NJC) and immediate past governor of Bauchi State. In this interview with our reporter, he recounts the challenges he faced in the state, especially tackling insecurity, out-of-school children and fight against cronyism. Excerpts:
A lot of things have been happening in Bauchi State, some of which are politically orchestrated. But you seemed to have offended some elements. What did you do?
It is a very pertinent question. When I was elected governor, those of us in All Progressives Congress (APC) were elected on the basis of our promise to bring about change. And when I took over office, the first thing I did was to try and educate the members of my party that the kind of change I had the intention of bringing about was not the change where former Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) elements will be uprooted to be replaced by APC elements and then business will continue as usual. I declared that that was not the kind of change I came to bring.
So, it set me on a collision course with elements in my party first and foremost. Secondly, in 2015, I contested against seven other people. Some of these people were considered to be scions of some well-established families in the state. They felt they owned the state and that it was elements from their ilk that would rule the state, one way or the other. I went against those elements, and with God’s help, I was able to win the primaries; not only the primaries, I was able to win the election.
So for the first time, the so-called powers-that-be in Bauchi were not happy that a person, who is his own man, who will not listen to dictation from anybody, has become governor. I had all these forces working against me. Then there was the government that I took over from, which had behaved like Father Christmas. Money was being shared people were becoming rich overnight; no serious projects were being undertaken by that government. And so when I came in, I said I was not going to share any money with anybody that we would just work for the good people of Bauchi State. In a nutshell, these were the forces that confronted me as governor of the state and they are the same forces still at work
If you had followed the development in Bauchi you would have realised that it is the same people that are still orchestrating things. They came before the election and said they were forming a coalition to fight me and notwithstanding all they did, I made bold to state that they did not win the election against me. For example, anybody who followed developments in Bauchi State when the election results were being released, I won in 15 out of 20 local governments. It is a clear affair; I know the matter is being tested in court and I will not go any further on that.
But it was alleged that you were ambitious and plotting to succeed President Muhammadu Buhari…?
That is the farthest thing from the truth. You are a journalist. Please, investigate thoroughly and quietly. When Mr President was sick and in the U.K. in his first term, I think I was virtually the only northern Muslim governor that did not go anywhere to solicit for the position of vice president. I did not; I had no intention or ambition of doing it. I told people at that time that my ambition was to succeed as governor of Bauchi State, because when the Almighty God decided to make me governor in 2015, He did not confer with me what he was going to make of me in future; He would not confer with me. So, I did not have that ambition and I do not have that ambition to succeed the president. I know there are quarters in which people thought that was what I was about, including some of my colleague governors, who were surreptitiously fighting against me for that purpose. But I have never given anybody any indication that I harbour any such ambition.
The impression was created that there is a move to have the North East succeed Buhari and the governor of Kaduna State was leading seven governors from which you were to be thrown up. Wasn’t that so?
No; there is not. There is absolutely nothing like that. I do not think that was the game plan. My colleagues, the alleged seven governors, would have rallied around during our election, especially during the re-run election; they would have rallied round to ensure that we won the re-run election, but nothing like that happened. So, I do not know of any plan by any group to buffer my position as a possible successor to Mr President. I am a believer in the unity and diversity of this country. We must be able to make our diversity work for us; we should not use our diversity to divide ourselves. Rather, it should be a uniting element. And the only way diversity can unite is if justice is apparently done to every section of the country.
But you were also accused of stashing money away for your presidential ambition?
Definitely not! I do not know of any such plan; that is the truth. I am not stashing any money and I do not have any money to set aside. If you investigate you will find out that my state is one of those very poor states in Nigeria. What we were contending with virtually throughout my four-year tenure was the payment of salaries. And I can proudly say I did not leave a kobo unpaid by May 29, 2019, even though I inherited four months when I took over. In fact, I inherited a strike; labour was on strike when I was to take over. I was the one who begged them to go back to work and promised that within the first two weeks, I would pay one month out of the four, and I did.
A committee set by the current administration alleged that you embarked upon bogus projects, which they claim were to siphon money. How do you respond to this?
It is a blatant lie; there is no bogus project whatsoever. All those projects are ongoing. Well, of course, you know that in the middle of the rainy season, there is a stoppage, but all the contracts awarded by my government none has been abandoned. Yes, there are outstanding payments because of the cash-flow situation of the state. If you recall, there was this money I was able to get, N11.8 billion repayment of Federal Government infrastructure facility, which was blocked at the behest of the current government.
That money was supposed to be paid to contractors, mainly road contractors, for the ongoing road projects. If that money had been paid, nobody would have been in the position to allege that there is any abandoned project in Bauchi State. The projects are not bogus. I do not know how they came by their calculations, because if you look at the composition of the committee, they are not well-placed to be able to assess road construction contracts and to measure it with certainty.
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In any case, the measurement of road contracts is done by experts and payment is based on the certificate of evaluation duly prepared by engineers that are supervising the jobs. I make bold to say that all those contracts are real and ongoing.
What about the issues of unaccessed UBEC funds?
The last tranche of Paris club that was paid to the state, the Federal Government decided that whatever was outstanding against any state should be deducted from that money before it was paid to the state. In our own case, we had two years of UBEC funds that were not accessed. 2018 and 2019 were not accessed, but we had accessed all the others. So, a total of about ₦2.7 billion was deducted from the payment of Bauchi State and a matching amount of money was supposed to be given by UBEC for constructions, renovations, etc, of basic education facilities in the state. We were not able to access that money even though our own money was taken by the Federal Government up to the time. We were in the process of awarding the contract with the approval of UBEC, because every step of the way, UBEC was supervising as far as UBEC money was concerned, but we were not able to get those contracts done before we ended our term.
The Murtala Muhammad Way has been a recurring problem in road construction in Bauchi. Why is this so?
That road has become an albatross in Bauchi State. From the military governments, which were holding sway before the advent of democracy, that road was constructed and reconstructed. When it became my turn, I said I was going to break the jinx and that I was not going to do a wishy-washy job, but a job that would stand the test of time.
A big, 30-tonne tipper would drive into the excavation and you will not see it until when it comes out. That was how much work we had to do at portions of that road. One other thing that people misunderstand about that road is that when they measure the road, they measure one lane and call it 4.5km. but along with the rehabilitation of the existing part of the road, we were dualising it, which makes it a total of 9km and the initial contract sum was ₦2.7 billion.
I do not think there is any road that length in Nigeria that has been awarded with that amount of money. Of course, because of changing trends, by the time we awarded the contract the exchange rate of the dollar had not changed, but by the time the exchange rate skyrocketed to N350 per dollar, we had to review the contract, because the contractor would not work for us at a loss. So that was the problem. There is nothing people have not done, including the allegation of ‘juju’, but that did not prevent me from completing the road. So, they can use it for political purposes, but all I know is that we were set to do a good job on that road.
There is this claim that some governors used consultants to siphon Paris Club fund to states. In your case, what transpired with Moritz Walton?
That issue was thoroughly investigated by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC). Moritz was a consultant engaged by the administration of Isa Yuguda for the Paris Club refund at 20 percent commission. When I took over, Moritz looked around, seeking to meet me, but could not meet me. So he went and got a very close friend of mine to sign this Paris Club in our state before he finally pushed the man to talk to me about renewing the consultancy agreement.
When my friend came, I told him I was not going to review it. Unfortunately for me, shortly after, Mr. President agreed to pay us 50 percent pending reconciliation, the next thing Debt Management Office (DMO) did was to request for states to present documentary proof of their case. So, I called the Director-General of my Debt Management Agency (DMA) and told him to give me proof we can give DMO so that we can collect our money.
He said they did not have any proof. So, where did we get the figures that we were alleging the FG owed us? He said it was Moritz that got it and that all the documents were still with him. Now Moritz had gotten me where he wanted. So I said, ‘call Moritz and tell him that now I am willing to review, but not at the cost of 20 percent commission.’ Because Moritz knew he got us where he wanted, he refused at first to discuss any reduction of the commission, but we pressed on and he agreed to reduce by five percent.
So, I said let us not push our luck further, because others were already collecting. Somebody immediately wrote a petition to EFCC and it should be noted that during the investigation, some elements from my state, especially the former speaker, were pressurising Moritz to indict me. Moritz, at that time, had never set his eyes on me and he told them plainly that he was not going to, in good conscience, indict me because he had never seen me before except on TV, in pictures or in the newspapers.
Source: The Guardian
