Why are you at APC national secretariat?
Routine consultation! This is the national headquarters of my party.
I am a very strong party adherent and I believe that I should respect the platform that has brought me into prominence and that platform is the APC.
I come here regularly for routine consultation with the top echelon of the party.
Before the election, you were here and you told us many things you were going to do if you emerge as Bauchi State governor. You are in power now, how has it been after nine months?
Well, I will say so far so good. I believe everybody is aware of the poor state of the economy of Nigeria with the dwindling price of oil in the international market.
This permeates all over the society – the Federal Government and all the state governments – with the possible exceptions of a few state governments, like Lagos State which generates quite a sizable proportion of Internally Generated Revenue (IGR).
The situation we found when we took over was a very sorry situation. For example, civil servants were owed four months’ salaries and my state is essentially a civil service state. Everybody depends on the civil service.
So, the very first action we took was to pay one month salary to assuage the situation because when we came in, it was like a keg of gunpowder, you know, ready to explode at the slightest opportunity but we were able to curtail it and after that the Federal Government of Nigeria intervened via the bailout and when we got the bailout, we paid the entire salary backlog to the extent that today except for the delay in the payment of January salary in respect of teachers of local government and the delay in the payment of February salary of the entire workforce of the state because of an exercise I have embarked upon to determine the credibility of the payroll of the state, I am not owing anybody any salary.
We heard that the exercise you embarked upon was able to expose about 20, 000 ghost workers existing in the payroll of the state before you came in. How true is it?
In the entire payroll made up of the state and the local governments, slightly above 19, 000 ghost workers have been discovered and the exercise is still ongoing because what the Accountant- General has reported was the result of the physical verification.
I added another aspect to the verification, which is the use of the Bank Verification Number (BVN). I gave an order that starting from February, no person who is either an employee of the local government or the state in Bauchi would be paid cash, everybody would be paid through the bank and that person must supply us his BVN number.
We have done that and it is yielding fruit and people are not even aware that I have not stopped at that. Right now, there is further verification of the BVNs supplied because you know Nigerians are very smart.
When we said BVN, somebody sat down, calculated that BVN is an 11 digit code and said so let me go and concoct my own BVN and send it to Bauchi State government.
He thought he had scaled through, but what I have done with the entire BVN that have been supplied is to give it to a bank and the bank is using the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) platform to crosscheck on these BVNs.
So I am expecting additional revelation to come.
The Federal Government’s antigraft war has been ongoing. How much of this fight is Bauchi State government engaged in and what is delaying you in probing the last administration?
Well, we are probing the last administration and a lot of revelation has so far been made, but what I want people to understand is that we are not an investigative outfit; we are not elected to investigate.
Right now, I have a high – powered committee that is investigating all contracts from 2007 to 2015.
This is after I have set up a public property recovery committee under a retired Air Commodore of the Nigeria Air Force and it has succeeded in recovering lots of properties that were carted away earlier on.
So, we are investigating, but our attitude towards investigation is that any revelation we discovered, we will now bring it under the investigative authority, which is the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) for them to carry on and do a thorough investigation and then proceed against the culprits with a view to retrieving the illgotten wealth.
So, this is what we are doing in Bauchi State.
You were at the villa recently, where you talked about refund concerning the work the state has done, especially at the airport?
Well, an airport has been built by Bauchi State government.
The previous government that built the airport through their ways and means was able to obtain all the necessary approvals of the Federal Government for refund of the money expended.
All I did was to write a reminder to Mr. President to see if he can be able to revalidate the approval of the former president and call for the refund to be given to Bauchi State, I don’t know where you got that; I didn’t say that.
It was reported that your convoy was recently attacked on your way back from Gombe. What actually happened?
One, anything you read about Bauchi State in a particular online medium, don’t believe it. They started by saying I gave my son a N950 million contract but everybody knows in Bauchi State i 5 such a contract does not exist.
They now said I was going to appoint my wife as the Commissioner for Finance; and I was going to appoint my sister as the head of SUBEB. I have made appointments in all these positions and their reports did not come to pass.
They said I am making plans to move to the Poeples Democratic Party (PDP) and people should wait and see my commissioners, that my commissioners are going to come mainly from the PDP of the last regime. I have appointed my commissioners and their reports did not come to pass.
So, there are some people who have not accepted the will of God in Bauchi State.
The people who contested election with me are the ones sponsoring these kinds of publications.
I am a Muslim and I am fasting. Nobody pelted me with anything on my way back from Gombe. It is a blatant lie written by faceless people.
It is unfortunate that the way things are in this country I cannot go after the online platform because they are faceless. If I could, you would have heard l am in court with them by now, but because they are a faceless medium, there is nothing I can do.
Now, what would be the fate of those found guilty for paying ghost workers in Bauchi State?
Don’t jump the gun. You will hear from us. I assured you that every culprit that is found to have a hand in the sponsorship of ghost workers in the payroll of Bauchi State government would face the wrath of the law.
This one is a promise.
As Nigerians continue to look at the ticking of the clock for the APC government in terms of performance, what is your advice to the masses?
Well, let me say that it is unfair for the APC government to be judged this way.
People have forgotten that the party that held sway before, was there for 16 years and if there was any rot it took 16 years to build such rot. Therefore, people should not expect magic from APC.
We are committed. You can see from the time we took over, power has improved and even oil, which its price is dwindling has started to pick up from the efforts of Mr. President.
So, people should not be impatient. People should give us at least 16 years and see if we cannot be able to turn around all the rot that the PDP has done, but not to judge us in eight or nine months.
It is not fair. I am assuring Nigerians that the APC government at the centre is on course and we will deliver.
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