Bauchi Crisis: Gov Abubakar Reports Dogara, Others To PMB

By Jonathan Nda-Isaiah

— Aug 31, 2016 6:32 pm | Leave a comment

…says Speaker, lawmakers playing Abuja Politics

Governor of Bauchi State, Mohammad Abubakar yesterday met with President Muhammadu Buhari over allegations made against him by lawmakers in his state.

LEADERSHIP recalls that the Speaker House of Representatives, Yakubu Dogara led other lawmakers to the APC secretariat and Presidential Villa and  accused the governor of misappropriating bailout funds in the state amongst other matters.

Speaking to State House Correspondents yesterday after a closed door meeting with President Buhari, the governor described the allegations as spurious and accused the speaker and lawmakers of playing Abuja politics.

He said, It’s the usual traditional consultation with the president, 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 is that I misapplied the bailout funds and I thought that was a matter of common knowledge in Nigeria.”

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.

The governor said “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 VC of my University came to me that he has a back log 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 .

He contended that the Speaker is against him because he opposed Dogara’s emergence as speaker as he  aligned with the party’s position regarding the elections of principal officers.

“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 has a candidate but I said irrespective of that we should tow the line of the party.

” At that 9 out of 11 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.

On reconciliation with Dogara, he said 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.”