Bail-Out Fund: Dogara, Others Move against Bauchi Governor

Onyebuchi Ezigbo in Abuja

The Speaker of the House of Representatives, Hon. Yakubu Dogara and other leaders of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Bauchi State chapter have kicked against Governor Muhammed Abubakar over alleged misappropriation of the bail-out fund for salaries of workers.

Dogara led other key stakeholders of the party in Bauchi on Friday to the national secretariat of the party in Abuja to present their complaints to the National chairman of APC, Chief John Oyegun.

Addressing journalists shortly after the closed-door meeting with the leadership of the APC, Senator Ali Wakil representing Bauchi Central said the stakeholders of the party in the state were very miffed with the manner the governor had been running the government in the state.

He specifically made reference to the governors handling of the recently allocated bail-out fund to the state.

Bauchi State has so far received over N8.6 billion as Federal Government’s bail-out meant to assist states with poor finances to pay up arrears of workers’ salaries.

When asked to speak on his mission to the party office, Dogara declined comment but referred journalists to a member of the delegation, Senator Wakil.

Senator Wakil who was flanked during the briefing by Speaker Dogara, and Minister of Education, Adamu Adamu said the leaders deemed it wise to seek the intervention of the APC leadership in order to arrest the pending doom in the state.

“That is part of the problem. You know that it is an agrarian and civil services state and we must do everything to see that workers are paid as, at and when due

“We did not come to speak about the governor; we came to speak about Bauchi State. The governor is not Bauchi State; the people are the determinants of history, not individuals. Individuals come and go. How many governors were there before? He might be part of the problem but it is collective problem we are trying to solve. He is our governor. If you look at section 176, 177 and others of the Constitution, he has the constitutional role of governing the state.

“We are not comparing ourselves with Osun or Edo or other states that have backlogs of nine months, it is not our business, our people must be paid as at and when due and the remaining balances of the stipends must be paid and all the unending verifications must end,” he said.

Earlier another Senator from the state, Senator Suleiman Nazif representing Bauchi North, told journalists that the delegation had come to ask the leadership of the party to rescue the Bauchi chapter for the crisis that had befallen it due to the governor’s handling of the affairs of the state.

“Everything is not okay with the APC in Bauchi State; therefore we needed the attention of the APC at the National level to come to the rescue of the APC in Bauchi because there is fire on the mountain in the Bauchi APC.

When asked to disclose some of the issues that were discussed during the meeting with Oyegun, Nazif said that the party had agreed to wade into the matter.

“There are so many issues, but these are party issues and we felt that there was a need for us to come and discuss with our leaders and those issues are being handled.

The national chairman has assured us that he will take a drastic measure immediately and address the APC Bauchi pending problems.

“No no no, it is not about padding, it is about APC Bauchi politics. It is not about 2019, it is about solving the APC problem in Bauchi and ensuring that APC remains united in Bauchi and as you are aware, APCs strongest hold in the North is Bauchi as far as northern politics is concerned.

“So there is a dire need for us to come to the National Secretariat and we can assure you that the national chairman is on top of the matter and would go back to Bauchi to our key supporters and tell them exactly what transpired. Nobody is against the Governor, the Governor is against himself,” he said.