Niger PDP to Governor Bello: Account for N500b from FG

Governor Abubakar Sani Bello of Niger State (file photo)

By Shehu Umar,

Minna

The Umar Mohammed Nasko Gubernatorial Campaign Organisation has challenged the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) administration in Niger State to account for the over N500 billion it allegedly collected from the Federation Account in the last three years.

The campaign organisations said that it had become necessary to demand for how monies were spent because there was no viable project on the ground to match the huge sum the state got from federation account since inception.

The Umar Nasko group said that the APC-led government had between 2015 to date collected well over N500 billion in allocation and other grants from the federation account but can’t point to a particular project worth N5 billion in the last three and half years.

Besides, the group urged the Governor Abubakar Sani Bello-led government to account for another N50 billion as bailout fund and Paris Club fund refund collected, “Which went into wrong hands since the administration came in”.

Umar Nasko on his various social media handle expressed regrets that “Despite huge sums of money that had accrued to the state externally and internally, the APC government in Niger State has within the period under review incurred debt of, N100 billion”.

The PDP 2019 election standard bearer argued that while hospitals, schools and other social infrastructure in the state were begging for attention, the government expended N1. 990 billion to build fence round Government House.

Describing the attention to building walls around Government to alleviating the sufferings of Nigerlites as greatest injustice against Nigerlites, Nasko argued that the project had no direct bearing to alleviating the sufferings or the existence of the ordinary citizens.

He decried the deplorable condition of road networks across the state and wondered why a government that had received huge sums of money could not fix the 84 kilometer Minna-Bida road and the 94 kilometer Minna-Suleja road that has continued to claim lives.

Nasko said that he was not surprised that the government did not do anything in almost four years in power because the governor said they promised nothing and so the people should not expect anything against democratic and leadership requirements.

“I am promising and I will keep all my promises because leadership requires innovative ideas and not blame games”, Nasko said, adding that the choice before the Nigerlites in 2019 was between ‘moving forward and failed promises’.

While assuring that he would take full responsibilities for governance by leading an all-participatory administration if voted as next governor of Niger state, Nasko said that his presence would be felt by Nigerlites at all times.

“I will not become an absentee governor,” he said.

Meanwhile, state Commissioner for Information and Strategy, Alhaji Danjuma Salau, said that he was not in position to account for how much the state had collected from the Federation Account since 2015 when the administration came into being.

Salau, who however, directed our Correspondent to the Commissioner for Finance who was not available for comments.

Before then Salau said the state government had intervened in the Minna-Suleja federal road while contract for the reconstruction of the Minna-Bida road had been awarded.

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