By Adamu Shehu Bauchi
Bauchi State Governor Bala Abdulkadir Mohammed has challenged former Speaker, House of Representatives, Yakubu Dogara to prove his allegations on procurement and other contracts under present administration in Bauchi State.
The governor was speaking at a gathering in government house with people of Bogoro/ Dass/ Tafawa Balewa federal constituency, on recent development in the state.
The governor had earlier debunked all allegations levelled against his administration on misappropriation of public funds as one of the reasons, former speaker Dogara defects to All Progressives Congress (APC).
Governor Bala stated that the people of the state are behind him 100 percent as no amount of criticism and false accusation will change the mind-sets of people of Bauchi state, especially people of Bogoro/ Dass/Tafawa Balewa federal constituency where Dogara came from.
Bala says “the accusations on procurement and contracts by Dogara is baseless rather the state government brought procurement law to ensure strict adherence to due process in all contracts in the state,” he added.
He also affirmed that he did not disrespect any traditional rulers or their institutions hence he did what is right on issues bordering traditional title holders throughout the state.
“We bring that procurement law to make sure that there transparency in government activities in building roads schools and other projects, we met contract of N10b naira that is supposed to be awarded at the cost of N7b naira for instance the construction of road from (Awalah roundabout to Miri) we discussed with contractors and they agreed we revoked it and reduced the amount, all contract awarded by our administration followed best practices globally.”
Henceforth, “Speaker Dogara should not accuse anybody if he wants to leave us, he thought he helped me to become the present state governor, never, instead, we helped him to clinch his sit at the lower chamber during last general elections.
The governor continued that, defection of Dogara to APC is a great loss to us, but that notwithstanding he can’t draw us back, if he thinks he can contest with me let him relinquish his position now and come back, to see who has a clear mandate to govern the state.
Therefore, governor Bala added, I respect him because of his former position as number four citizen in the country, he can be a President of this country one day, but without accusing other people he did so just because of his selfish interest.
We are not going to lure him into our party PDP or recall him again, because without him we can win elections and we are winning, wish him safe landing in his future endeavors!
