On the 29th of next month, the governor of Bauchi State, Mallam Isa Yuguda will be concluding his second term in office as he hands over to the governor-elect, Barrister Mohammed Abubakar. For the first time since 2000, Yuguda will find himself in an unfamiliar place – being out of government.
Apparently dreadful of this situation, Yuguda who has built himself as a deft political strategist had first tried to position himself as the successor to former governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) and current Emir of Kano, Muhammadu Sanusi II towards the end of 2013, drawing on his previous experience in running two banks.
When it became apparent that he was not the favorite to get the job, he then settled to run for the Bauchi South senatorial district and ‘retire’ to the Senate like many of his past and present colleagues. Getting the ticket was a walk in the park – all he had to do was to ask the incumbent senator, Adamu Gumba to ‘step aside’ for him.
The bigger challenge for the governor was who will succeed him, knowing very well he could not leave that to chance, especially drawing from his experience on how he had attempted to make a living hell of his predecessor, Ahmadu Mu’azu after he had humiliated him at the 2007 polls.
Mu’azu who ironically is today the National Chairman of the PDP that Yuguda is a member of, was indicted in 2009 by a panel Yuguda had set up, headed by Hon. Justice Bitrus Sanga and asked to refund N20billion and barred him from holding public office for 10 years. Mu’azu’s reprieve came through a judgment by the then Chief Judge of the state, Justice Mohammed Ibrahim Zango in April 2013 who cleared the indictment.
But why should Yuguda be scared the same fate could befall him when he leaves office? For starters, a lot of financial misappropriation has taken place in his administration – ranging from over-the-counter withdrawals from accounts held by the state government at Diamond Bank which was as high as N1bn a day at some point to the use of fronts to collect lucrative contract awards.
Yuguda and his cabinet members are rumored to have milked the state treasury dry, splurging as much as N15bn on luxurious homes in Abuja. In the process, they have pushed the state into indebtedness, with N17bn owed internally and N11bn owed to foreigners. Yet despite this, the state government went ahead to make a bond application for N15billion in the twilight of this administration. Essentially, what this means is that the Yuguda administration is going to saddle the incoming administration with massive debts.
It is a wonder why the governor is so intent on this bond application that even when a group of concerned citizens filed a suit seeking a court injunction to stop the state from obtaining the bond until the state government clarified what it was going to be used for, the case was assigned by the new acting chief judge of the state, Justice Rabi Umar who is said to be very close to the governor to Justice A.H. Suleiman.
Justice Suleiman, who is presently serving as the vacation judge to handle cases during judicial recess has so far refused to assign a date for the hearing of the suit, thus dragging it out and increasing speculations that he has been compromised by the governor not to so that it will not hamper the bond issuance.
It is in this desperation to have someone to cover up his misdeeds that Yuguda not only imposed the candidate in his PDP but also sponsored the APC candidate who eventually won the election. Despite all his denials, this was quite evident in the decision of the governor and the governor-elect to have their transition committees after they had a closed-door meeting. This is a departure from the norm where the outgoing government sets up its own transition committee which only briefs the incoming governor of the activities of all the ministries and parastatals of the government.
It does seem that Yuguda has a lot to be afraid of, but it remains to be seen how long he can afford to hide.

trying to cover up all his corrupt practices, but he should know that karma is real it must catch up with him,he should just prepare himself for whats coming to hit him

lol, no immunity for him when he leaves power its just so unfortunate that his sins are too big to cover or protect.. the EFCC would surely catch up with him