Yusuf Tugga, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, has accused Bala Mohammed, the Bauchi State Governor, of allegedly seizing land from small-scale farmers and city dwellers under the pretext of commercial farming and redevelopment initiatives.
The Minister, who spoke in an interview with Liberty TV, was reacting to the governor’s verbal attacks on the President Bola Tinubu-led administration.
According to the Minister, “when it comes to money issues, the governor should not put his mouth there because the earnings and allocation he is getting has doubled but we have not seen any improvement, no change in what he is doing”.
He revealed that in October 2024, the governor received N8.8bn allocation from the Federal Government, “but he has not shown us what he did with it. In November, he received another N9bn.
“Instead of using the money for social services and infrastructure, such as education, health, and addressing out-of-school children, he is busy using such funds to buy properties and land from the poor citizens of Bauchi. This affects both the rich and the poor.”
The Minister further alleged that all the governor is currently doing is “buying houses from the GRA; he evicts people from their house that they are going to do projects. This is another way of syphoning funds from the state coffers”.
