A Desert Tale

Governor Isa Yuguda of Bauchi State

Governor Isa Yuguda of Bauchi State is enmeshed in N40 billion scandal, following an alleged hazy transactions with Finbank
By Chidiebere Onyemaizu, Lagos and Lateef Bamgbose, Abuja
This seems not to be the best of times for Governor Isa Yuguda of Bauchi State. His troubles appear to have deepened since his cross- over to the People’s Democratic Party, (PDP), from the All Nigeria People’s Party (ANPP), and his wedding to President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua’s daughter.
Yuguda’s problems, which have been on a steady rise since he turned the heat on Adamu Muazu, his predecessor-in-office, and then quit the ANPP on which crest he rode to power, does appear to have peaked with a N40 billion alleged bank scam now hanging on his neck. He has also been accused of abysmal performance and arbitrary withdrawal of funds from the treasury without the approval of the State House of Assembly.
In a petition sent to the heads of the Independent Corrupt Practices and other Related Offences Commission (I C PC), and the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), as well as the Speaker of the Bauchi State House of Assembly by concerned citizens of the state, Governor Yuguda was accused of sordid transactions with Finbank.
The petition entitled “How Finbank and Isa Yuguda Are Looting Bauchi State: Who Will Save Bauchi State?” chronicled the alleged financial transactions between the state government and Finbank Plc in six months, covering September 2008 to February 2009.
Part of the allegations contained in the petition is an alleged N40  billion which the Yuguda administration is said to have borrowed from Finbank Plc., Bauchi branch, without clear terms of payment, or the approval of the Bauchi State House of Assembly.
Finbank, according to the petitioners, had between November 2008 and January 2009 disbursed seven credits totalling N39.1 billion into the state's main account.
Details of the transactions show that N272 million and N9.047 billion were disbursed into the state’s account on November 1 and 14, 2008, respectively. Others include N9.529 billion, N9. 629billion N9.902 billion and N795 million disbursed between January 14, and 30, 2009, respectively. According to the petitioners, the State House of Assembly was never in the know of the transactions, while the bank was directly putting the deposit and shares of thousands of its depositors at risk.
The petitioners argued that “the claim that the loans have been budgeted for in the 2008 fiscal year is not true from many perspectives. Budgetary provisions, they argue, do not automatically accord a governor the right to commit the state financially as it pleases him. Banks, they painted out, do not accept budgetary provisions as instrument for granting loans.”
Indeed, the Bauchi State Government, the petitioners allege, had earlier taken a long-term loan of N10 billion in February 2008 and spent it before the State House of Assembly’s approval only in March 2008. The petitioners further allege that within a space of three months, the Yuguda administration has incurred a debt of N39.18 billion.
This, according to them, did not include similar loans collected during the preceding 18 months.
The governor, The Source was told, is at the verge of sourcing another N40 billion loan from the capital market through Finbank. It is not clear, however, whether this money is to cover the N39.18 billion he allegedly borrowed from Finbank.
It is alleged that despite the Finbank credit disbursements totaling N39.18 billion, the state’s main account was overdrawn with N1,122,284,135.49 as at February 27, 2009.
The petitioners allege that the withdrawals was done in the same month the governor reduced the salaries of political office holders in the state by one-third.
The petitioners are also wondering why Finbank allowed the withdrawal of N10 million, N50 million, N100 million, N200 million and N800 million from the government's bank account across the counter.
The Source gathered that the Bauchi State Government operates three accounts: The state’s sub treasury, main government account and the SSG’s account – though less than N1 million from the SSG’s account and N5 million from the sub treasury are excluded from the analysis. According to the petitioners, within six months under review, N5.242 billion was withdrawn from the sub treasury, N3.53 billion and N329 million from the SSG’s office and Government House account respectively.
“In February alone, N9.1 billion was withdrawn for seemingly clandestine purposes and another N1.11 billion while the total revenue of the state stood at N1.11 billion” the petitioners alleged.
Curiously, the withdrawals were allegedly done in one day. “For instance on February 12, 2009 82,833,100.00 was withdrawn in cash, N828,333.000 and N10,000.000 were also withdrawn in cash,” the petitioners further allege.
Apart from the curious withdrawals, the petitioners are also alleging fraud in debt services. According to them, fraud in payment of debts is on the increase since the coming of Yuguda.
Finbank, the petitioners insist have claimed the following sums in this regard: N70 million and N2.8 billion in September 2008; N568 million in October 2008; N538 million in November 2008; N280 million in December 2008; N206 million in January 2009; and N538 million in February 2009.
Governor Yuguda had on May 28, 2007– a day after he was  sworn in as governor – ordered the transfer of the state’s main account from Guaranty Trust Bank to Finbank, having being Managing Director of Inland Bank, before the merger which consolidated into Finbank.
The Bauchi State Governor is remarkably not alien to highwire controversies since his emergence as the state’s Chief Executive. For one, the current alleged N40 billion scam involving him – for which his accusers have petitioned both the EFCC and ICPC – is the second time in one year that the governor would be dragged before an anti-graft agency.
Last year, he was accused of emblezzling six billion naira belonging to the state, prompting the ICPC operatives to storm the state to investigate the alleged heist. At the height of the alleged six billion naira loot, Governor Yuguda had stoutly defended himself, describing those behind the allegation as “evil people.”
In an interview he granted a news magazine, the governor had reacted to the allegation thus: “You can’t stop people who are evil from doing evil and you can’t force people who don’t want to see any progress to see anything good in what Isa Yuguda is doing...If that amount is stolen, then you would ask, ‘how much is the total revenue of the state for the period?’ How much is the total wage bill of the state.”
The Bauchi State helsmsman reminded his critics that having held sensitive positions in the public sector in the past, he could not be swayed by money: “They have forgotten that I served in the banking industry for 20 years and as a minister for five years with a very clean record... I don’t believe that after I have rendered these years of service and have seen a lot of money, that I will now assume that there is money in Bauchi state that Isa Yuguda would want to steal.”
Beside the governor’s N40 billion alleged scam, another albatross on his neck is the controversial Kafin-Zaki dam project which the governor said the Dangote group was prepared to invest N60 billion into. Governor Yuguda is pained that his critics whom he described as “a lot of misinformed people” have politicised the project. The major argument against the project is that it will deal a severe blow to the economic and water needs of millions of people living around the vicinity of the dam.
But the governor has since brushed aside this reasoning. As far as he is concerned, the Kafin-Zaki dam, in his words, “is a project that will bring life into Nigeria, not only Bauchi State because this is a dam that is designed to be the biggest in Africa... it is almost eight kilometres in length. It will provide water for over 15,000 hectares for cultivation”.
But Governor Yuguda’s explanations on the dam do not strike the right chord in the ears of the likes of Senator Ahmad Lawan who was the senate ad-hoc committee chairman that investigated the recent food crisis in the country.
Senator Lawan does not buy the governor’s argument on the necessity of the dam. Instead, he rues that the dam would end up pauperising about five million people. The Senator made his views known in a recent interview with a national daily thus: “I have argued, and will always argue, that if the construction of Kafin-Zaki dam would create and sustain up to one million jobs, it would have deprived, improverished and marginalised about five million downstream users in Jigawa, Yobe, even in some parts of Bauchi and Borno states; it does not, therefore, require any serious teaching for someone to understand one million is one-fifth of five million.”
Governor Yuguda, apart from describing his critics as “evil”, also believes that they are indeed waging an unnecessary war against him. He alleges that his opponents are hired to bring down his government.
Yuguda: “One challenge we are battling is the press war against us. There are some disgruntled people who feel that things are being done the wrong way and (so) they go to the press to try to pull down the government, pull down the leaders in government. Some people have been hired to run down the government, but fortunately for us, they can’t succeed... critics can not succeed in painting us black in Bauchi, they can only paint us black outside Bauchi.”
Elected on the platform of the ANPP in 2007, Yuguda recently defected to the PDP, a party in which he was a founding member. He was, however, to quit the PDP for the ANPP in the run-up to the 2007 guber polls when it became evident that the then outgoing Governor of the state, Adamu Muazu, was primmed at stopping at nothing to ensure Yuguda did not pick the party’s ticket.
His surprise emergence as governor on the ANPP ticket, severely reconfigured the political firmament of the state, as the hitherto overwhelming presence of the PDP in the state suddenly gave way to ANPP’s pre-eminence. However, Yuguda’s recent detour back to his former party has left the state in grosteque political picture, the forebeding image of a divided government.
This is because, his deputy, Garba Mohammed Gadi, a staunch and founding ANPP chieftain, refused to defect with his boss, the governor. Thus, the scenario in Government House, Bauchi now is that while the PDP flag adorns the governor’s office, that of the ANPP flutters proudly in his deputy’s.
Governor Yuguda cited lack of internal democracy and dictatorial tendercies in the ANPP as reasons why he left the party on which platform he rode to power. Ironically, however, one of his ardent critics and indigene of the state, Senator Nazif Suleiman, has quite often accused the governor of the same trait: dictatorial tendencies.
Beyond the reasons he advanced for ditching the PDP, the cardinal reason why he crossed back to the PDP, a dependable source told The Source, is primarily because of 2011. The Source was told that the governor is on the checklist of young northern politicians top political eggheads being considered as possible replacement for President Yar’Adua in the event that the president's health challenges becomes an albatross for his second term bid. Thus, Yuguda was reportedly impressed upon to, as a matter of political expediency, cross over to the PDP so as to be in a better stead, politically, for the expected stiff contest for the president’s replacement.
Governor Yuguda, in a deft political move, did not only defect to the PDP as requested, he has since integrated himself into the president’s family by taking as wife the former’s daughter, Nafisah.
But typical of politicians, the Bauchi State governor has dismissed insinuations that his marriage to the president's daughter resolved around politics.
“I do not see anything wrong with falling in love with the daughter of the President and going ahead to marry her. If it is a crime to fall in love with the daughter of the President, then maybe I have committed an offence and I should go to jail. The daughter of the president too said she has fallen in love with me and we met and agreed to get married to each other,” he said.
The Source’s effort to get the state government’s reaction to the alleged N40 billion scam proved abortive as several calls to the governor’s Press Secretary, Mallam Maigara was not successful. And the State Commissioner for Information, Mohammed Abdullahi who had in the past stridently defended Governor Yuguda over charges of maladministration was among hundreds of political appointees recently sacked by the governor.