By Rauf Oyewole, Bauchi
Bauchi State governor, Senator Bala Mohammed has said “past occupants of the Government House” spent as much as N50m on a single trip to Abuja from the state.
Mohammed, in a media chat, to mark his one year in office, yesterday, said the former administrations wantonly wasted the state’s resources. “Just to go to Abuja, they spent N50m. It is there on record. My protocol takes take N3m to N5m to go with me. If you take N50m times four, that is N200m. You can’t do any project,” he said.
Mohammed also said though the Coronavirus pandemic has slowed down governance, but “with or without Coronavirus,” he must transform the state. He explained that many policies, projects and programmes were ongoing, and that the pandemic would not stop him from full execution of the projects.
“Our administration must perform, but must be prudent. Our prudence and humility is a necessity because expectations are very high and these are genuine,” he said.
While promising to prevent anyone from shortchanging the people, he said all stolen funds must be returned to the state through the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC). He also assured that he wouldn’t let down the electorate across parties, who dislodged former Governor Mohammad Abubakar for him to emerge winner.