By Saadu Umar
For starters, Dr Aliyu Tilde is a member of Qaura’s kitchen cabinet, a highly respected senior commissioner, if you will. He has been the commissioner for education since October 2019.
There are many things I like about Dr Tilde: he loves Bauchi State, he loathes graft and he can tell truth to power with gritty candour. And that’s why I think he is really pissed off right now.
I can feel Tilde’s fury and frustration with Qaura because of the damage the latter is doing to Bauchi State. He must be chocking roaring into the unlistenining ears of Qaura to stop the damage. What damage? Here it is:
Earlier today I stumbled on an audio wherein I heard Tilde, in a media chat I suppose, furiously pounding former governor Isa Yuguda for the ‘damage’ he did to Bauchi State. Caveat: he did not mention Yuguda by name and the damage part isn’t the chat’s heart..
What was the damage? Two examples, (a) corrupt security votes spending and (b) outrageous ‘sale’ of public property.
According to Tilde, Yuguda spent ₦102 billion from security votes in 8 years. This translated into ₦35 million daily on the average. That’s quite some money and a serious damage to Bauchi State. At least in monetary terms.
However, a more accurate amount of the money spent by Yuguda in the name of security votes was put at ₦91 billion or ₦31.1 million daily, averagely. This amount is certified by the then Accountant-General of Bauchi State, Abubakar Gabi, as reported by the Premium Times of 17 December 2015 and other national dailies.
One will pardon the padding by Tilde given that the crazy increase from the ₦5 billion spent by former governor Mu’azu over the same period of time can piss off the coolest head in Bauchi State.
Regardless, if the ₦31.1 million spent by Yuguda daily enraged Tilde, you can imagine his outrage over the humongous amount of money Qaura is now spending. Qaura is now spending security votes to the tune of ₦55.2 million everyday – an unjustifiable quotidian accretion of ₦24.1 million or 78%. Between January – June this year, Qaura has spent about ₦10 billion (in)security votes.
According to The ICIR, Qaura “spent over ₦5 billion security votes” in the first quarter of 2022 and ₦4.6 billion in the second quarter of 2022. On this course, Qaura is spending at least ₦20 billion ‘security votes’ this year! In just one year Qaura quadruples the ₦5 billion Mu’azu spent in 8 years. Damn it. Damage.
Last year, 2021, Qaura spent ₦12.1 billion security votes. And in the last 18 months, about ₦22 billion security votes has been spent by Qaura. (The ICIR). And the results of which are three: insecurity, insecurity and insecurity.
Surely, this must be upsetting, very upsetting to Dr Tilde as it’s to me.
I’m sure it’s not only Tilde that’s pissed off. I hear many members of the cabinet and indeed the administration are. Certainly, Nura Manu Soro was. He got so pissed off and resigned as the finance commissioner of Qaura over the security votes spending as reported by the Daily Nigerian on 16 October 2019.
To be honest, all the good people of Bauchi State are very angry with Qaura’s insecurity votes spendings. Because they know, given the insecurity bedevilling Bauchi, that kind of money isn’t going into the efforts to secure and protect the state but into building a billion dollar mansion and private pockets. Damage.
Besides, another reason why Tilde was very mad at Isa Yuguda at the media chat was that Yuguda ‘sold’ government properties to people connected to his government, including to strangers or aliens. I completely concur, this is another damage.
Dr Tilde said, of the lands, “Duk an kama an sayar”. “BSADP wannan, har jikin office block an je an sa beacon cewa an bayar as a plot to jama’a”. Tilde added that “Filin office wannan ba a barshi ba….” They sold everything, lamented Dr Tilde. And that’s a terrible damage, indeed.
But it was not terrible enough.
Qaura has done more damage now. He has sold BASEPA! If selling lands adjoining BSADP office is wrong and outrageous, how will Tilde feel now that Qaura has sold the entire BASEPA, not just the land surrounding the office?
Apart from BASEPA, Qaura has sold (or is planning to sell) the Ministry of Housing to Her Excellency, the sharer of pure water – allegedly.
While Yuguda, at least, sold BSADP lands to the ‘people’ in the words of Tilde, Qaura and his Bauchi butchers sold BASEPA, Ministry of Housing and others to themselves. This is kind of worse on another level. And it warrants the deep resentment the good people of Bauchi harbour against Qaura.
To sum it, I agree that selling Bauchi State’s property by those people especially in the way and manner they did and the ₦91 billion security votes they claimed to have spent were outrageous and did do damage to Bauchi State. If Dr Tilde was upset with that I think he’s justified. And he will be even more justified if the worse damage caused by Qaura enraged him the more.
Lastly, I must also agree with Tilde that, for long, Bauchi State has suffered a lot of damage and continues to suffer in the hands of people we elected to serve Bauchi State. Especially Qaura, under whose rule the damage has acutely accelerated. From Saint Mu’azu’s low ₦1.7 million daily spending we now have ₦54.2 million. From selling lands to selling the houses, offices, industries and everything.
To echo Dr Tilde: Enough is enough. We must come back to our senses to stop this damage and repair Bauchi before Qaura annihilate the only state we have.
We can do that by voting out Qaura on 11 March next year. We are worse off today than we were before Qaura became the governor. So, let’s fix Bauchi by electing Air Marshal Sadique of the APC. He will stop the damage and restore Bauchi to its rightful, glorious place. And Dr Tilde will smile again.
Saadu is the Deputy Chairman, APC Publicity Committee, Bauchi State. saadumaresq@yahoo.com
