Bauchi State Governor, Senator Bala Mohammed Abdulkadir, reiterated on Wednesday that he stands by his criticism of the Federal Government led by the APC and the President, Sen. Bola Ahmed Tinubu.
The governor has said he has no apology for criticising the policies that have inflicted untold hardships on Nigerians.
He was speaking at the commencement of the State Executive Council (SEC) meeting held at the EXCO Chambers of the Governor’s Office.
He said that, as one of the leaders at the national level, he had the responsibility to say things that later generated some controversies, adding that it was not meant to cause pain or insult anybody, but to put the situation in its right context.
Bala Mohammed also said that the recent protest was a wake-up call to every Nigerian, not only to the Presidency but to the sub-national.
According to him, “All of us here, as leaders, members of councils, and commissioners representing local governments, know what is going on there; you represent them here.
“Of course, we know we had to listen when the cries of Nigerians were raised loudly against bad governance in areas of limitations and inadequacies where the expectations of our people have not been met for whatever reasons.”
The governor added that “we have scarce resources to manage; that is why I said 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 buck, to complain, and to say this and that.”
He stressed that “In our style of leadership, we don’t blame our predecessors; that is why God brought us here to manage the situation, to make it better.
“We know we are not in charge of national policies and programmes, but we must be able to implement national programmes as loyal federalists while at the same time looking at our own challenges and making sure we are connecting with the people.”
The Governor stressed that “certainly, when something is so spontaneous as 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 also have to look at ourselves and make sure we do things that will put food on our table and make things easier.”
“We have seen the spatial inflation, the macro-economic indices even globally is not favourable and the national policies brought under this administration is not favourable for us because we have the blame,” he added.
Bala Mohammed added, “We are not on our own, and that is why I spoke; I spoke as an opposition constructively and as somebody who means well to the president, the government, and the people of Nigeria.”
He stressed that, “Having said that, whoever made any blaring and very bad comment on me, that is the cost of leadership and I have no apology for that. I am not doing it to cause any disaffection or to insult anybody.Precisely, we are not also spared in what I said; it is not about partisan politics; it is about responsibility.”
The Governor concluded, “So, we will continue going forward to connect with the people. We will come with policies and programmes that will better a lot of people, irrespective of the scarcity of resources and the challenges and problems we have.”
The Governor used the medium to charge members of the EXCO to ensure that government policies and programmes are implemented as approved in order to improve the social standard of the state.
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