The Bauchi State Governor, Bala Mohammed, has claimed that his predecessor, Mohammed Abubakar, spent N50m each time he travelled to Abuja from the state.
He revealed this on Saturday during a media chat to mark his first year in office in reaction to allegations by the All Progressives Congress.
Mohammed said the former administrations greedily wasted the state’s resources.
“Just to go to Abuja, they spent N50m. It is there on record. My protocol takes take N3m to N5m to go with me. If you take N50m times four, that is N200m. You can’t do any project,” he said.
Mohammed also said though the Coronavirus pandemic has slowed down governance, but “with or without Coronavirus,” he must transform the state. He explained that many policies, projects and programmes were ongoing, and that the pandemic would not stop him from full execution of the projects.
“Our administration must perform, but must be prudent. Our prudence and humility is a necessity because expectations are very high and these are genuine,” he said.
An aide to the former Bauchi State governor, Ali M. Ali, reacted to these allegations and described them as “diversionary”.
He said, “They should stop giving out misguided and misleading information to the public.
“They said we should refund N1tn, it’s just to divert attention because they’ve seen heat from the people that helped them into power.
“Now, they are bringing the issue of taking N50 million to travel to Abuja every trip, how can that N50 million be spent because anytime he went to Abuja, he usually stays in his house. How is that possible? On who and who would N50 million be spent on? This is unthinkable.”
