Bauchi State Governor, Bala Mohammed, has refuted an allegation of corruption levelled against him by the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC) over the acquisition of a multi-million naira landed property located at Wuye District, Abuja.
The ICPC through its spokesperson had announced the seizure of the property last Tuesday, where she said ICPC’s investigation revealed that Mohammed, as FCT Minister, allocated the property to a school “that had himself and family members as directors and shareholders”.
In a rejoinder statement, the Senior Special Assistant and spokesman of the governor, Mukhtar Gidado, said that the ICPC was on a voyage of discovery aimed at discrediting Governor Bala Mohammed at all cost.
He said that the shareholders and directors of the school were Nigerians who, by their respective ages, were qualified to apply for and be allocated land if they met the conditions, while adding that all the names listed in the MEMAT of the School were eminently qualified to be allocated land.
“We refute the Commission’s story in its entirety and state that Senator Bala Mohammed did not flout any policy or break any law, known to the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria nor did he, in any way, breach his oath of office to warrant perniciously scandalizing his name or subjecting members of his family to mindless persecution as the ICPC is wilfully pushing.
“For the records, we wish to state as follows: 1. Zinaria International School was established and had been long operational, offering quality education, in a cost-effective manner, to all and sundry, long before Senator Bala Mohammed became Minister of the FCT. 2. Like any other corporate entity, due to planned expansion, the School applied for land, a legitimate right it would have exercised, irrespective of whomsoever was the Minister of the FCT, at the time. 3.
“The shareholders and directors of the school are Nigerians who, by their respective ages, were qualified to apply for and be allocated land if they met the conditions precedent. And we make bold to say that all the names listed in the MEMAT of the School are eminently qualified to be allocated land.
“It is patently preposterous and mischievous to make heavy weather of the fact that Senator Bala Mohammed has something to do with the school. As official records will clearly show, he had resigned from the school as soon as he was appointed a Minister. So, the issue of conflict of interest could not have arisen. It is crystal clear that the ICPC is on a voyage of discovery, aimed at discrediting Governor Bala Mohammed, at all cost,” the rejoinder reads in part.
The governor, through his spokesman also accused his traducers of being behind his recent travail by the ICPC, describing it as a campaign by politicians to discredit him.
“We can understand that the governor’s sterling accomplishments, under one year is causing sleepless nights to his traducers, people who, in spite of the oil windfall of the past, squandered the collective patrimony of the state on the altar of self-aggrandizement thereby placing the state on the lowest rung of the developmental ladder.
“But we are hard put to understand the ICPC’s paranoid obsession with demonizing Governor Bala Mohammed, in breach of the Constitutional protection from prosecution. Otherwise, how on earth would the ICPC approbate and reprobate at the same time.
“We state, with all the emphasis at our command, that the approach of the ICPC, in this matter, is totally wronged-headed, capricious and obnoxious. It does little or no credit to the anti-corruption campaign of the federal government. Whether the Commission likes it or not, it goes without saying that it cannot stamp out corruption by being a willing tool in the hands of Bala Mohammed’s denigrators. It cannot fight the legal battle of recovering public property when its anti-graft crusade is anchored on manifest illegality; the ICPC cannot enthrone a society hallmarked by honour and integrity when its strategy is premised on bare-faced double standards, favouritism, dishonourable tactics and impunity,” the governor added.
