Former minister of the Federal Capital Territory, FCT, Bala Mohammed is the governorship candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, in Bauchi State. In this interview with journalists, including our correspondent, Omo Egurhie, he explained how he won a court case against the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, and his missions for the state if elected into office.
Can you expatiate on the case you instituted and won against EFCC
Yes. I reported voluntarily to the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, because I believed in accountability. I was in Europe, on my way for a programme in Oxford when I was told that the EFCC wanted me. When I came back, I saw the invitation, I thought it was a routine issue, I reported and I was arrested. I tried as much as possible (and) they gave me bail conditions; I met them. Even after I satisfied the bail conditions, I was kept for 45 days.
So I took them to court because I expected them to take me to court which they didn’t. And of course the court issued an order for me to be released, (but) I was not released. And the court was not happy that its order was not carried out and N5m was awarded against the agency. I was very happy because it has shown that there is hope in this country; no matter the level of persecution, the level of vilification, we still have hope as Nigerians because the last resort is the judiciary, which has remained firm and impartial to a large extent.
This has emboldened me to remain in the country and to play my politics because I know I have not done anything wrong. And of course the other case in court, although, I don’t want to pre-empt it, but you have had the confirmation from the EFCC; there was no report from the ministry of the Federal Capital Territory, FCT, by any individual, group, civil society group that any amount of money was stolen or there is something somewhere fishy about me.
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But what precipitated the investigation and whatever about me was supposedly an intelligence report and we don’t know what that intelligence report says. I am a law abiding person. I believe in accountability and I am ready to account for whatever they are charging me with. Most of the charges are there; we are taking them one after another. And of course at the end of the day, I’m hopeful and trust in God, and having known that I’ve not done anything other than adding to the values, services and infrastructure in the FCT, I will be vindicated
You were among the candidates that signed a peace pact at the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, and you spoke there, please can you expatiate on that?
I support the initiative, but I want the whole world, especially security agencies to know that, here in Bauchi, there is so much partiality in favour of the candidate of the All Progressives Congress, APC, that is the governor. They (security agencies) have formed a militia under one Superintendent Muhammad Yola and he was busy persecuting and denigrating not only supporters of PDP, but those of other political parties.
Our posters are being removed, but the governor’s posters are all over the place. The police are involved in removing posters of opposition parties, to the extent that they even beat people. And of course, that is wrong because I believe that they should know that the peace that they are looking for will be accomplished only with justice and equity. Once there is injustice, there won’t peace. Once there is terror, there won’t be peace because people are bound to react.
Again, I told INEC, you cannot call us to sign peace accord and you are doing it serially and you single out the governor to sign alone as if he is better than any one of us. What I expected in global practice is to go serially from AA party to APC to PDP up to Z party. People will come out and sign, but they single him out.
Yes in protocol he can seat in front, they can give him his recognition but not when it comes to giving recognition to him as a party candidate. I know he is the chief security officer as the governor; he is the chief executive officer of the state. The onus of maintaining peace rest on him up from this moment up to the end of the election; he is the one who is supposed to ensure justice, equity and of course if he doesn’t do it, there can’t be peace in the entire process before, after and during the election.
Again I told INEC that wherever we have comparative advantage, there appears to be deliberate act whereby our votes are cancelled as we experienced during the last by-elections for the Senatorial and House of Representatives seats. We are not going to take it.
People were beaten up in Toro, people were arrested, intimidated and so on and so forth and of course that is an opportunity for us to say we are law abiding, we respect constituted authorities but certainly we are not going to condone act of terrorism, act of injustice because Nigerians know their rights. We relish our rights.
Apathy is one of the serious problems that analysts say will characterise the 2019 elections because it seems that most people are angry with the alleged non-performance of the present administration. Do you agree?
Apathy is usually created by unwholesome attitude of INEC and some of its officials when people come out in the sun and in the rain and whatsoever with hunger, thirst to cast their votes and at the end of the day, the votes are cancelled, card readers are manipulated and so on and so forth.
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They are so frustrated and that is why you see there is apathy on the part of voters. People are not confident that their votes will count. And of course, with the spate of vote buying by the APC administration, which we are seeing for the first time in polling units; people being intimidated, harassed and money being given to women and children to lure them, to buy votes and to cast votes in favour of APC, that is making people of integrity to withdraw because in the first instance, while you want to exercise your universal suffrage, you will not expose yourself to dangers, to the vicissitudes of unwholesome attitude that is being unleashed with arrogance by the ruling party.
Some members of the PDP alleged that the party was robbed of its mandates in Ekiti and Osun states during the recent elections. What measures are you putting in place to ensure that this doesn’t happen in Bauchi?
We were also robbed in Bauchi during the by-elections for the Senate and House of Representatives. We have made adequate representation but these are all isolated cases that also transpired in Ekiti and Osun and in other places. The general election is a general election.
What they normally used, I mean the APC government, is the security agencies and I understand that the government in Bauchi wants to make sure they create violence the day of the elections so that the elections will be postponed by another week in which case they will get the array of the security agencies to be in Bauchi the way it happened during the last administration. But we are taking measures; we will make sure our own supporters are not intimidated.
We will make sure our supporters do not play to the gallery as to give them the opportunity to stagger the election. At the same time, we have taken adequate measures to make sure we cast our vote, protect it through the agencies we are going to create, different levels of oversight we are creating with the civil society groups, NGOs and our supporters that will not compromise the integrity of free and fair election but at the same time will ensure that our votes count and nobody short changes the system, whether the security agencies or INEC.
What troubles you about Bauchi State?
What troubles me too much that make me to go through all the persecutions and still keep on moving and insists on coming to run for the governorship is that Bauchi used to be the best in the savanna in terms of administration, in terms of services, in terms of infrastructure.
We used to have the best of education in terms of the system itself, producing the best in terms of labour; we even export labour to the international community, to the Federal Government where we even had about three Secretaries to the Federal Government, SGF. That is the quality of human capital that we were producing.
Look at what is happening now. Our schools are in a shambles; our primary schools you cannot buy them; you cannot go there and of course such system will not produce quality education because there is no quality teacher, there is no encouragement. Even their own entitlements are not given to them, we have not increase or reduce the ratio of teacher- students, classroom-teacher and of course all the indices for good educational system, to the extent that UNESCO has said Bauchi has the highest number of out of school children amounting to 1.3 million and that means we are the poorest or the worst in terms of educational system.
And as somebody who went to government school, I felt so concerned that I must come and change it the way I changed it in Abuja. I built 10,000 classrooms in four years, reducing the confusion in our classes. I made sure that all our teachers are graduates, I made sure our government schools are competing with private schools and we were doing better and in fact we won international competitions and this is what I will bring back in Bauchi.
When you go to the health sector, there is nothing like health services. Even the revolving funds for drugs where people get drugs at affordable prices are no longer there. Our pharmacies have turned to stores and our hospitals into deaths traps because surgeries are conducted with touch lights. No doctors, no sanitation, nothing. In fact, you will end up more sick than when you reported in the hospital. And it is only in Bauchi that we have this kind of system.
How many roads have been built by this administration since its inception? Contiguous states like Gombe and Jigawa have gone 50 or 100 years ahead of us. They have connected all their villages with good roads. They have connected all the local governments’ headquarters. But here, you cannot go to one place unless you go through the colonial routes that were built before independence.
For example, you want to go to Dass from Jos; you cannot go through Falama Kufai. You have to come to Bauchi first. If you want go to the central mosque from Warji, you cannot go through Gwaran, you have to come back to Miya. Itas/Gadau is one local government you cannot go to unless you come back to Jama’are. You go back to Katagun local government. You to go Zaki before you go to Gadau.
So, what kind of development is that? Even in our villages, from Duguri, to go to Futuk you have to come back to Dindima. From Buruga, you cannot go to Dull and go to Bogoro. You have to come back. I know the towns and what is paining us. All the towns around Bauchi are not connected, even here, Turun is not connected with road; Gwaskwaran is not connected. These are towns surrounding the city, so we have been locked up. We have to be unlocked. Travel times have not been enhanced.
You have seen what I did in Abuja. I reduced the travel time, the chaos on our roads, the traffic jam. When you are coming from Kubwa, I made sure that instead of three hours, you come in thirty minutes; the same thing with airport road. These are based on plans and we have to look for alternatives of financing through multi-lateral and donor agencies.
But if we sit down here collecting money from the federation account, we will not get there. Look at our personnel emoluments; it has risen from N2bn to N5.6bn. We have not seen correspondent increase in our personnel emoluments in terms of promotion, employment of graduates since the inception of this administration and yet our salaries rose from N2.5bn to N5.6bn. So something is happening.
They are using personnel to loot the treasury of the state. We have all these information and we have to arrest it. With this kind of excessive looting, there is no way a state that is dependent on the federation account can grow. And we have not grown our private sector.
We have not incentify the private sector to mobilise alternative financing. We are just here being ruled on the basis of mediocrity. We are being ruled by hooligans and charlatans who deceive our people. Even the traditional institutions are suffering. They have just sacked some traditional rulers who were appointed not long ago on the excuse that they are saving money. And how much is it; about N60 million.
N60 million that they will spend in Government House in one week; yet they exposed our traditional institution to a lot of humiliation. Our teachers, our workers don’t have personal career development. So I have been forced to come and offer myself as somebody who has seen it all. I want to contribute my quota to the growth and development of the state.
Most importantly, I want to unify our elites who are thoroughly divided. You can see the National Assembly members are no longer with the governor. All the National Assembly members are on one side, the governor is on one side. Even the state assembly which is the symbol of democracy remained closed because of the attitudes of the governor, which is so arbitrary and subjective, it’s so dictatorial. We have to change it.
This is causing apathy, division and rancor. And of course if the elites are not together, if the major stakeholders are not together and they are set up against each other, there is no way we can come and put our heads in one basket and move the state forward.
