Bauchi State Governor, Bala Mohammed
By ARMSTRONG ALLAHMAGANI, Bauchi –
Bauchi State Governor, Bala Mohammed, has said that he has no apologies over his recent comment that the policies of President Bola Tinububa were causing untold hardship for Nigerians.
He said that his comment generated some controversies, but however said that it was not intended to insult or cause pain to anyone.
The Governor said this in his opening address while presiding over the weekly State Executive Council meeting which held at the Exco Chamber on Wednesday.
“I want to really thank my colleagues, members of Council, for the support and sense of comradeship that they have exhibited over the period where we have had to say things based on our responsibility as leaders at the sub-national level which generated a little bit of controversy. Our comments were not meant to do that. It was not also meant to insult or cause any pain to anybody but only to put the situation in context,” he said.
According to him, the recent #EndBadGovernance protests held across the country is a wakeup call to all leaders not only to the presidency but to the sub-nationals.
“And all of us here, as leaders, members of council and commissioners representing local governments, you know what is going on there, you represent them here and of course, we know we have to listen when the cry is very loud on bad governance, on areas of limitations and inadequacies where the expectations of our people have not been met for whatever reason.
“We have scarce resources to manage and that is why we must use the little resources that we have to do so much. Nobody cares, nobody will listen to you if you begin to pass the bug and complain and say this and that. In our style, we don’t blame our predecessors that is what brought protest here to manage the situation and and make it better,” he added.
The Governor said that although his administration is not in charge of national policies and programmes, but it must be able to implement national programmes as loyal federalists while at the same time, looking at the challenges and making sure that they are connected to the people.
He said: “Certainly, when a thing is so spontaneous like a protest, you cannot be spared, no matter how good you are. And so, we are not just blaming the federal government for everything, we have to look at ourselves, do a SWOT analysis on ourselves and make sure we do things that will put food on the table and make things easier.
“We might have seen the spiral inflation, the macroeconomic situation globally is not favourable and the national policies brought under this administration are not favourable for us because we have to play. We are not on our own and that was why I spoke. I spoke as opposition constructively, as somebody who means we’ll to the President and to the government and people of Nigeria.
“Having said that, whoever said any glaring or bad comment on me, that is the cost of leadership, I have no apologies. I didn’t mean to cause any disaffection or to insult anybody. Expectedly, we are not also spared of what I said, it is not about partisan politics, it is about responsibility.
“So we will continue, going forward, to make sure we connect to the people. We come here with policies and programmes that will better the lot of the people irrespective of the scarce resources that we have, irrespective of all the problems and challenges, some of which I don’t want to mention here.”
