By Abdulrahman Abdulraheem
Governor of Bauchi State, Mohammad Abubakar on Wednesday met with President Muhammadu Buhari over allegations of misappropriation made against him by lawmakers from the state
The Speaker House of the Representatives, Yakubu Dogara had led other lawmakers to the APC secretariat and Presidential Villa and accused the governor of misappropriating bailout funds meant for the state.
The governor, who spoke to State House correspondents after presenting his side of the story to President Muhammadu Buhari, denied the allegations and accused the lawmakers of playing Abuja politics.
“Recently if you will recall that when I was away a week ago, some members of the House of Reps and Senate led by the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Yakubu Dogara went to the headquarters of the party allegedly to report me.
“In the process they made some spurious allegations which I feel it’s appropriate to let the President know first hand evidence regarding all the allegations they made against me.
“Major among the allegations was that I misapplied the bailout funds and I thought that was a matter of common knowledge in Nigeria,” he said.
According to him, the ICPC investigated the bailout and gave a report in which they said Bauchi state utilised all the funds but N165 million.
He continued: “I wrote to them to check their facts again. I utilised all but N88 million out 8.6B and shortly before I left for China and Hong Kong the Vice Chancellor of my University came to me that he had a backlog of salaries which I gave an approval of 70 million out of 88 million. , all in all Bauchi state has utilised N8.6 billion remaining 18m which is in a dedicated account , I have documented evidence to prove and will give it to anybody who is interested.”
“My problem with Dogara started during the elections of the leadership of the National Assembly. I stood on the side of the party, I said every Bauchi lawmaker should tow the line of the party, you know that Bauchi had a candidate but I said irrespective of that we should tow the line of the party.
“At that nine out of eleven did that later the candidate of Bauchi won and it’s common knowledge and the Speaker is in a position to dispense favours and all the lawmaker went to his side. The fact is politics in Bauchi state is played in Abuja and not in Bauchi, the people of the state are intact with the party”. he added.
He said as far as he was concerned, the doors of reconciliation were still open.
“The night before I travelled to China, I had a meeting with them in Asokoro and we agreed before i travelled but in my absence they now decided to do what they did. I have not closed the door to reconciliation, some elders in Bauchi are trying to reconcile the warring factions,” he added.
