***Says Ambition Is Behind Friction With Federal LawmakersThe Bauchi State governor, Mohammed Abubakar, has revealed how he met a concrete wall in his attempt to clean out ghost workers who drain the state of about N1bn monthly.He noted that the entrenched interests joined forces with detractors of Bauchi State to the administration in the state.He also noted the 2019 political ambition was at the heart of the attacks he gets from members of the All Progressive Congress (APC) from his state who are in the National Assembly.Speaking with newsmen over the state of affairs in the Abubakar, said People alleged that we are not doing anything in Bauchi state. Everybody knows the situation, what Nigerians do not know is that Kano is the most populous state in Nigeria and it has 44LGAs but it has a total man power of 92,000. Small Bauchi State on the other hand with 20LGAs has 105,000 that is the number of people on my pay roll.This outstanding salary that I said we used Paris club to pay arose from my attempt to verify these civil servants to know the true civil servants in Bauchi state. I met with a very strong concrete wall, the entrenched interest that takes away about a billion naira from the earnings of Bauchi state every month in the name of ghost of workers, joined together with detractors of Bauchi state that had been denigrating the state and made it virtually impossible for us to get to the bottom of the problem of this manpower.In addition to this, Bauchi is one of the states that pay above the national minimum wage. Our minimum wage is N18,500. So on which every month is 5.1billion naira and if you go back and take a look at the release, you will discover that from the time I have taken over till date there wouldnt have been more than 3months in which I collected over 5billion naira, on the other months I was collecting less than 5billion. Today I am proud to say that Bauch state does not owe a single kobo of salary.He said ambition to become governor of Bauchi state, is behind the attacks he gets from federal lawmakers from Bauchi State.He said My argument is that now is not the time for that, now is the time to work for the people of the state. By the time we are ready to begin politics everybody is free to come and aspire for any office.When I was not governor, I contested along with seven other people for the ticket of APC, I was the underdog.When I went I visited the head quarter of my party for the first time, I went to see the general secretary of the party, he told me clearly that we dont know you, we only know of two aspirants in Bauchi state and he mentioned their names and I said it is because those people have access to you and they are always on the pages of newspapers showing themselves as the leading candidates of Bauchi state while we were going to the actual people who will do the election.So I am not afraid of anybody who wishes to contest for any office but now is not the time. Now is the time for us to put our heads together and work for this state and when the time of politics starts everybody can aspire.I told people at one time, the people think they are denigrating me, they are doing this against me but they are not in reality because if my wish is to be the governor of Bauchi state, God Almighty has already answered that, it has gone down in history.So it is not me that is concerned, it is the image of our state, our state has never been like this, we have never had it so bad and we are not the only state that has those crop of people, every state in Nigeria has; members of House of Reps, Senators but none of them is misbehaving the way our own are misbehaving; so it is essentially ambition but they are free to aspire.He expressed confidence in the moves by the APC at the national level to address the issue.
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