Yakubu Dogara, Speaker of the House of Representatives, has accused Bauchi State Governor, Mohammed Abubakar, of diverting N400 billion since he assumed office in May 2015.
He made the allegation in a statement on Saturday by his Special Adviser on Media and Public Affairs, Turaki Hassan.
According to Hassan, Speaker Dogara spoke while addressing his supporters on Friday at a campaign rally in Dass Local Government area.
ChannelsTV reports that the lawmaker presented some documents which purportedly showed how thousands of non-existent people were said to have been employed in 2015 shortly after the governor came into office.
He also challenged Governor Abubakar to take him to court and promised that he would defend the allegations.
Dogara added that as a lawyer, he knows the law and would not level false allegations against anyone if he does not have evidence.
“A perusal of one of the documents indicates that no fewer than 1,200 people were said to have been employed and added into the state’s payroll beginning from July 2015,” a statement by Dogora’s media adviser, Turaki Hassan, alleged.
“However, one of the ghost employees by name, Bappale Adamu, was said to have been born in 1899, which is 120 years ago and started work with the Bauchi State government on July 24, 2015, and will retire from the service in 2023.”
The Speaker also alleged that the workers, though have different names and dates of birth, have the same Bank Verification Number (BVN).
He claimed that the salaries were being paid into one and same bank account under different names, varying from “N39,000 to N86,000 and above”.
Speaker Dogara questioned how the monthly salary of workers in the state rose from N2.6 billion in May 2015 to N7 billion “without recruitment of additional workers”.
He claimed that the governor had fired thousands of political appointees engaged by his predecessor, noting that this should have reduced the state’s wage bill drastically.
The lawmaker accused the governor of diverting billions of local government funds in the last three and a half years.
He alleged that the governor chased away contractors renovating Dass Central Mosque but failed to renovate it, saying he personally paid for the renovation of the mosque.
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