A former governor of Kano State, Senator Ibrahim Shekarau has said that he didn’t tamper with local government allocations during his eight years as Governor.
TheHintsNews reports that the Supreme Court recently freed the third tier of government from the shackles of the state governors after affirming the financial autonomy of Nigeria’s 774 local governments.
The apex court ruled that it was illegal and unconstitutional for governors to receive and withhold funds allocated to local government areas (LGAs) in their states.
Shekarau stated this while addressing a press conference on Wednesday in Abuja ahead of the Muslim Students’ Society of Nigeria (MSSN) 70th anniversary.
The 70th anniversary of the religious body is scheduled to commence on October 12, 2024, Shekarau, said the organisation had shaped his life spiritually and otherwise.
His words: “No local government chairman, during my eight years as Governor, has ever given me one naira. I have never tampered with their allocations.”
Shekarau added that all they did then, through the National Assembly, was to create guidelines, rules, and regulations governing their operations, and they allowed them to do their jobs with their councillors.
He said: “You would find a chairman executing projects of N100 or N200 million, guided by the state government.
“For example, if a local government wanted to construct a N100 million road project and they didn’t have all the engineering resources to do it, we would bring them to the state, ask our engineers to handle the details, work everything out, and then give it back to them, telling them to go to their council and award the contract wherever is fitting.
Shekarau added that he never collected kickbacks from contractors as a two-term governor.
Recall that in 2018, an online newspaper, Daily Nigeria, published a video of the former Governor of the state, and the National Chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Dr. Abdulahi Ganduje, allegedly receiving bundles of dollars from contractors, which he stuffed into his “babanriga”, a traditional outfit.
Against this background, the Kano government filed an eight-count charge against Ganduje for allegedly collecting $200,000 from a contractor.
Shekarau, therefore, challenged any contractor who had worked with him in the last 44 years to say openly if he ever demanded any percentage.
He stated: “I have never taken any negotiating percentages with any contractor. I always challenge them—if any contractor who has worked with me in the last 44 years knows that I have asked him for a percentage or brought any money, let him come out and say so.
“Secondly, none of my commissioners has ever brought one naira to me in the name of feedback from a contractor.
“Up until the end of my second term in 2007, I had no house of my own. I remember an elder statesman, who was my former teacher, coming to me two months before the election, saying, Governor, I want to delve into your personal affairs. I said, you are free to do so.”