The Commissioner of Home Affairs, Information and Culture in Borno State, Hon Inuwa Bwala has describe the ongoing Federal Government Good Governance Tour as a drain pipe and waste of the nations funds.
Bwala who disclose this in Maiduguri, also lambasted President Goodluck Jonathan for not visiting Borno following the Boko Haram crises and failure of siting any Federal project in the state sine 2011.
The Commissioner advised the Minister of Information, Labaran Maku, who leading the tour to request the federal government to either commence a federal Project in Borno state or complete abandoned projects embaked upon by previous administration.
According to him,” this tour is nothing but a cover up for Federal government’s inadequacies, and a means of squandering the nations funds.
The team has no business visiting Borno state as there is no single project – ongoing or completed – that was executed by the Jonathan led Federal government in the state”.
Bwala said the Good Governance Tour to Borno state would rather remain “a jamboree as it does not in any way represent the yearning and aspiration of the people of Borno who had been abandoned by the Federal government in most of the times they needed their presence”.
The Commissioner said if the Federal government wants to be welcome in the state, “it should stop paying lip service to the issue of development and be fair to all states irrespective of their Political party affiliation “.
“All we have here in Borno are projects executed by the state government and I don’t think a Federal government team will come to a state and inspect projects that it had not committed a Kobo in their execution”. Bwala stressed that
“For many years now, Borno state has been battling with insecurity, flood and so on, but neither the Presidency or its top aides had deemed it fit to visit us as a people, so what makes them think we need them now?’, Bwala queried.
He noted that the only federal government project existing in Borno, like the Biu Dam, the Maiduguri-Kano highway, the Chad Basin Development authority (CBDA) and most of the dilapidated federal roads quoted in several budgets have long been abandoned in the state, wandering what else they are coming to inspect in Borno state that is of federal government’s.
“They should stop using this good governance tour to cover up their inadequacies; we would rather advise that the money spent on this could be channelled in executing basic developmental projects in federal-government neglected states like Borno”. Bwala advised.
“Since the inauguration of the present government in Borno state and the commencement of the ongoing security challenges in the state, Borno state government had never received a Kobo from Abuja in the name of assistance to the state. If they truly want to work in partnership with us, they just have to make up for the many years of neglect, by especially coming to resume all the abandoned projects”. Bwala said.
The commissioner therefore revealed that ” even the flood assistance funds given to other Peoples Democratic Party(PDP) led states has not been given to us , the only thing the federal government did was to announce that certain amount has been given to Borno state on paper, no kobo has reached the state in the name of flood assistance as we speak.” Bwala submitted.