Gov. Bala Mohammad of Bauchi State has vowed to prosecute and arrest his predecessor, Mohammed Abubakar and his associates, for various alleged financial misappropriation during his tenure.
He, therefore, directed the Attorney General of the state to immediately prosecute people found to have illegally acquired the state’s assets and funds including his predecessor.
He gave this directive when the Assets and Funds Recovery panel presented its comprehensive report and findings to the Governor held at the Government House Bauchi on Tuesday.
The PUNCH had reported that the panel, which was constituted by Governor Mohammed on 12 July 2019 with the mandate to investigate assets and fund found to have been looted between 2007 and 2019, last Saturday declared that former governors Isa Yuguda and Mohammed Abubakar and their associates must return N1 trillion to the state.
Yuguda was Bauchi state Governor between May 29th, 2007 and May 29th, 2015 while his predecessor, Abubakar, was in office from May 29th 2015 to May 29th 2019.
The allegations, the Spokesman of former governor Mohammed Abubakar, Ali M. Ali denied and described as “diversionary and laughable.”
Gov. Mohammed while responding to a question on the reaction of the former governor to the panel’s allegations said: “We will invite the Attorney General of the state to take those people that have been found to have taken anything belonging to the state to that has been taken away, before the court.
“We will not join issues with anyone, we have given the directive, we will bring out documents very soon with which we will arrest him (ex-governor Abubakar) by God’s grace, we will take him to court and prosecute him because he doesn’t have immunity anymore that he will be that arrogant after he has stolen a lot from us in this state. And we are not afraid of him, we are using the knowledge we acquired in school, we are using all these with the fear of God so that we will not be guilty of witch-hunting anyone.”
Speaking shortly after receiving the report, Mohammed who thanked the panel for the job added: “I thank you most sincerely for some of the issues you have raised and discoveries you have made, especially, issues of movable and immovable assets that some people have taken and which can be used as evidence against them.
“And of course, issues of procurement of N1 trillion naira which you said about 30 per cent of those amounts were spent in a suspicious manner.”
The governor alleged that the money for some of the contracts awarded in the last administration was over bloated adding that some were not completed but the money was paid in full.
According to him, the panel discovered that “30 per cent out of 70 per cent of the projects executed or awarded, seems to have been looted.”
Mohammed disclosed that: “As for the rest, the statutory bodies responsible for managing financial mismanagement like EFCC and ICPC would immediately be contacted.
“The state government will set up forensic and implementation team so that this document will constitute a working document for us to be able to do justice and equity,” Mohammad said
He noted that some of the physical developments in the state were also suspicious, especially giving the amount the state got from the federation account, budget support and Paris Club by the past administrations
He said he was a bit disappointed that the financing had not been well investigated by the Committee.
“I’m a bit disappointed that the financing has not been well investigated; when we can easily know the sources of this monies, especially, the budget support and the Paris Club which we are excruciatingly paid.
“We should be able to get where they have come from and how they were deployed,” he queried.
The money that came from the federal government and the loans that were taken which amounted to over N96 billion and the ones collected from the Bank of Agriculture and the CBN. Consultancy of N1.2 billion was paid and some other people were paid over N1 billion which ranges from N70 to N120 million.
Earlier speaking before presenting the report to the governor, the chairman of the panel, Brigadier General Markus Yake, disclosed that the Committee had so far recovered 23 ‘assorted’ vehicles, four tractors and a bus.
He said some of those found to have siphoned the state’s funds have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Committee to refund the money in instalments
He, however, urged the state governor to give them more time so as to make more discoveries.
