₦airaland Forum

Several months after Sen. Bala A. Mohammed left office successfully as a former
FCT Minister, a few critics or do I call them dissidents still haul
insults at him. Though Bala is not a saint but many people
will certainly not agree with the desperate attempt by his
opponents and perceived enemies to disparage him.
Some of my senior colleagues have told me that there is a widespread
believe that politics could taint noble people. This reporter believe
that the same thing is happening to Bala after serving for many years
as the longest serving FCT Minister (from 2/10/2010 to 29/5/15)
his impeccable record speaks volume about his efforts and
contributions to the development of not only Abuja but the whole
nation. He has really done his best towards delivering services to
the people as required of him. He has also supported worthy causes
during the period under review.
This writer is of the view that at a somewhat tender age when his
peers were still
seeking relevance Bala, had surprised even his critics by
the far – reaching reforms he had successfully introduced at
the FCTA through his dodged determination and commitment to what
he believed was needed to uplift the FCT and put it on a very strong
foundation for development as envisaged by those who conceived Abuja
many years ago. When projects like the land swap and the FCT revenue
board eventually takes off FCTA will get billions of Naira to take
care of its problems annually.

Despite several constraints and challenges Bala as one of my senior
colleagues recently told me, bestrides the FCT, like an elephant
dishing out services and good will to the people. The achievements
made by Bala are verifiable and could be seen on the ground. Bala is a
complete gentleman of repute. He is humble, calm in his approaches,
very receptive, level headed and above all a de-tribalized
Nigerian. He is also loyal to a fault.

Before his memorable stint at the FCTA, Bala had an unblemished record
in the federal civil service where he rose to the envying
position of a substantive director and later went through the
drudgery of grassroot politics to etch his name as a senator
apart from his appointment to the enviable position of
Secretary of the Northern senators forum for many years. Bala had
during his stay at the FCT introduced and implemented far
reaching programmes like the land – reforms, land - swap initiative,
provision of critical infrastructure, restructuring of the FCT civil
servants for optimum performance and protecting the Abuja master
plan from the on – slaught of illegal developers, among many other
achievements recorded by his team.

So far as this writer is concerned nobody can deny that Bala’s role in
thedevelopment of the FCT within the last five years has not become
the reference point for others. This was simply because Bala had guts
to do what many FCT ministers before him were unable to do. Balas
intellect and huge contributions to the development of Abuja is
recognizable especially to the actualization of the Jonathan
transformation agenda. He did this quietly without making too much
noise like his predecessors. He was only concerned with making Abuja,
a great city where things actually work.



It is because of these facts above that this writer is of the view
that Sen. Bala is right leader to be given the post of the PDP
chairman. Apart from what Bala had succeeded in achieving at the
FCT, he has become a bridge builder of sort, because he has
followers and he is respected almost all over the country. Bala is
also a leader who is trusted and accepted by many politicians
including even his peers and people who have occupied ministerial
positions like him.

Moreover Senator Bala deserve to be given the PDP
chairmanship position because it has been zoned to his area i.e.
North – eastern part of the country and his colleagues including those
who even wanted to be the chairman of the PDP have now indicated that
Bala should be given that position. I therefore feel that allowing
Bala to be the chairman of the PDP will be of advantage to the party
as he will be able to properly reposition it and succeed in bringing
those who have earlier decamped.

This is because senator Bala is a strategist and will surely use his
huge experience and contacts to woe those who have left the PDP. In
other words he will be able to make the party a much more vibrant one
and ready for the 2019 elections when probably another popular
politician from the northern part of the country will seek for the
presidency after President Buhari’s tenure of office.
Biu sent in this from Abuja.

ABUJA ARE YOU READY FOR THE MICHAEL JACKSON EXPERIENCE,,THE KING OF POP LIVES ON IN OUR HEART. YOU THINK YOU CAN DANCE/SING THEN YOU ARE INVITED TO THE OPEN AUDITION ON THE 8TH OF AUGUST AT EL-AMIN INTERNATIONAL SCHOOL MAITAMA ABUJA. OPEN TO ALL AGES BOTH KIDS AND ADULT. THE FINALIST STANDS A CHANCE TO WIN LOTS OF PRIZES AND PERFORM AT THE EVENT ON THE 30TH FEATURING P-SQUARE AND JEFFERY DANIEL

While the Fourth Republic has thrown quite a lot of deft political players who have managed to remain relevant since 1999, there has hardly been a more skillful politician than the Bauchi State governor, Isa Yuguda.
Yuguda who was one of the founding members of the PDP in Bauchi State backed the present National Chairman of the party, Ahmadu Mu’azu for governorship and struck an agreement with the governor that he will succeed him at the end of eight years. In the meantime, Yuguda became a minister in the Olusegun Obasanjo-led administration for six years.
However, when it became time for Mu’azu to honour his own end of the agreement, he reneged on it and frustrated Yuguda’s ambitions, and instead making his Secretary to the State Government, Nadada Umar the candidate. Yuguda moved to ANPP and the combined force of the popularity of the ANPP presidential candidate then and now president-elect, General Muhammadu Buhari and the sympathy Bauchi people had for him over his treatment by Mu’azu, he coasted to victory.
But before you could say ‘Jack Robinson’, Yuguda had gone back into the PDP, even ingratiating himself with the family of late President Umaru Yar’adua to the point that he married the president’s daughter in what was clearly a political alliance being forged. At a point, he was named as one of those that the then First Lady, Turai Yar’adua wanted to succeed her husband when it seemed inevitable that he was going to pass away, the other person being another presidential son-in-law, the outgoing governor of Katsina State, Ibrahim Shema.
One would have thought that this alone would have put him in the bad books of then Vice-President Goodluck Jonathan when he became president, having been relegated by Turai Yar’adua and the cabal that held the late president hostage. But again, Yuguda showed his adroitness in the manner he became close to President Jonathan, first delivering the state to him during the PDP primaries and backing his decisions such as supporting the ‘election’ of Plateau State governor, Jonah Jang as the Chairman of the Nigeria Governors’ Forum.
Even though the PDP lost at the federal level and in Bauchi State with Yuguda missing in his attempt to ‘retire’ to the Senate, it will be foolhardy for anyone to write him off politically. It will not be surprising if he weaves his way into the good graces of the APC at the federal level; after all, rumours are rife that the governor-elect of Bauchi State, Mohammed Abubakar was propped up by him, despite the fact that he is in APC.
But why should the president-elect be wary of Yuguda?
For starters, despite the fact that he has been in government as minister and governor for a combined 14 years, one is hard-pressed to point to any tangible achievement of his. His eight years as the Bauchi State governor was a failure as he was unable to build on the foundations laid by his predecessor, especially in terms of infrastructural development. Instead, the citizens of the state were left poorer than when he came into office. simply put, Yuguda has nothing to offer and has been selling Nigerians a dummy for far too long, and Nigeria cannot afford this anymore.
Even worse, his tenure has been filled with allegations of financial impropriety – from inflated contracts such as the construction of the Bauchi International Airport to excessive withdrawals from state government accounts of up to N1billion daily at a time, so much that the state has been unable to pay salaries for a few months now.
Persons like Yuguda ought to be on the list of politically exposed persons to be investigated and tried for corruption, and knowing how serious the president-elect is about corruption, associating with Yuguda will tarnish his pristine image.
Lastly, as a man who values loyalty highly, president-elect Buhari should be very wary of Yuguda who has no idea what the word ‘loyalty’ means. There is no greater evidence of that more than how he shifts his allegiances from party to party, and from person to person – as long as it served his interests. A man with such shifting loyalty cannot be trusted.
We do hope that the President-elect is listening.

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.

By Rogers Edor Ochela
As the lifespan of the PRESENT Jonathan presidency gradually inches closer to its end, chroniclers of history will be anxious to START the interrogation (or is it inquisition?) of the administration in terms of whether it has impacted positively or otherwise on both the fortunes of nation and those of the citizenry.
*Bala Mohammed, FCT Minister
*Bala Mohammed, FCT Minister
It is on this note that I have decided to remove the arrow from their quiver in this piece, in a manner of speaking, by way of unveiling the epochal achievements of the FCT Minister, Sen. Bala Mohammed, lest some analysts fail to do a thorough justice to the issue. Paucity of funds notwithstanding, Bala achieved a lot within the permissible limits of resources available to him. In chronicling these achievements, I intend to be as dispassionate as possible to avoid critics misconstruing my intention as a backhanded attempt to curry favour from the minister.
To those conversant with the antecedents of Bala, his journey to the top was not totally rosy. But through deft combination of sagacity and moral discipline, he rose through a combustible mix of obstacles, navigating his way through the labyrinth of life to attain his present position.
In April 2010, when Bala took over the reins of the Federal Capital Territory Administration (FCTA) as the minister, he met a ministry that was virtually at crossroads, with the staff disillusioned by the devastating effect of maladministration, almost losing faith in the ability of any minister in making any positive change in the situation. Staff morale was at dangerously low ebb. It was under these cloudy circumstances that Bala courageously took over the driver’s seat, fastened his seat belt to withstand the bumps and shocks ahead.
Analysts agree that Bala indeed stepped into office armed with a ‘’correcting fluid” with a high preponderance of revolutionary zeal, adorning the garb of a reformer. With a strong passion for turning around the then ailing fortunes of the ministry, unchained it and with frenzy launched it on the path of workability.
With honesty and transparency as handmaidens, Bala has been able to impact positively on the morale of staff and the overall fortunes of the ministry, so much so that even his worst critics readily admit that he has BECOME the most legitimizing factor of the Jonathan administration. Not a man given to frivolities, Bala on assumption of office immediately fashioned out multi-dimensional strategies to confront the hydra-headed problems confronting the nation’s capital city and the result has been awe-inspiring. So, due to space and time constraints, I shall highlight some of the outstanding achievements of this humble man from Bauchi state, trying in the process, to capture as many of those achievements as possible.
The first thing he did was to break the vicious circle of land racketeering by setting a committee headed by Sen. Saidu Dansadau, a development that led to the upgrading and repositioning of land administration in the territory.
Others are development of Katampe District, which is being executed through PPP and estimated at over N61, 194, 747, 645.00, with Kagini 1 District COSTING N52, 609, 879, 284.47, while Maitama Extension District is gulping N137, 454, 626,929.00.
The minister has equally recorded tremendous achievements in the areas of agricultural development and railway modernization. In this regard, the first phase of the light rail and Abuja-Kaduna railway projects embarked upon by the administration is nearing completion and is expected to ferry 700,000 passengers daily. Another is the second phase of the Abuja Railway connecting the ever busy Nyanya—Mararaba axis valued at $750m, whose contract was recently signed by the minister under a PPP arrangement.
The list of the minister’s achievements is endless. It also includes: reconstruction and expansion of the country’s most modern 10-lane multiple carriage super highways: the Umaru Musa Yar’Adua (Airport Road) Expressway, and the Outer Northern (Murtala Muhammed) Expressway otherwise known as the Zuba/Kubwa/City Centre highway, as well as the dualization of the Nyanya-Abuja Expressway, all of which have attained 90% completion level.
Others are: Resurfacing/Reconstruction of aging Roads in Garki 1 and Wuse 1 Districts; expansion of Kuje-Gwagwalada; Gitata bypass; Karshi – Apo bypass; Sunrise – Guzape bypass; Gwagwalada-Dobi connection and the Bwari Township roads projects; the nearly 1000 percent completed Gurara-Lower Usman Dam road that connects the FCT with Kaduna State at Jere; completion of work on Tanks 1 and 6 with 40, 000 cubic centimeters storage capacity; attraction of foreign and local INVESTMENTS, totalling over $20 billion.
And that is not all. In a drive to make Abuja Africa’s preferred INVESTMENT destination, a 37-storey World Trade Centre estimated at $1.2bn (approximately N180 Billion) is being built at the former Bakassi Market, under a Public-Private-Partnership arrangement with the Churchgate Group; the Abuja Town Centre project valued at $2.7bn is also on card with the Chikason Group to bequeath to the nation’s capital a world-class 24-hour business district comparable to Manhattan in New York, Oxford Street in London, or the Champ D’Elysee in Paris; the Abuja Millennium City Project, the biggest single private investment in housing in Africa valued at $18bn is being handled by a consortium under the incorporated name, Nigeria Centenary City, Plc; a PPP initiative between FCTA and COHART Group worth $150million to develop Abuja Film Village International (AFVI); a PPP initiative for Katampe District infrastructure with capital inflow of over N61billion and the Land Swap Project ($4.5bn), which has the richest man and woman in Africa, Aliko Dangote and Folorunsho Alakija respectively participating.
The FCT will in the NEXT four to five years fully develop at least 10 new districts through the land swap system. The ground breaking for the pilot district of the programme was performed in February by Vice President Namadi Sambo at Waru District. Apart from infrastructure provision through land swap intervention, work is also ongoing in additional six districts through a combination of methodologies including regular contract award system and different forms of PPP arrangements. These include Jahi, Wuye, Guzape, Maitama Extension, Kagini and Katampe.
Determined to promote the culture of recreation, cleanliness and ascetic beauty of the FCT, the minister through Otunba Runsewe Committee revived parks and gardens in the territory and also introduced a robust and dynamic traffic control and regulation via doubling the staff strength of the Directorate of Road Traffic Services (VIO) and provision of better equipment.
The beauty of the complex network of roads in the FCT has been accentuated with the vast array of major interchanges otherwise known as ‘’overhead bridges.” These interchanges ease the flow of traffic. Completion and commissioning of major interchanges at AYA, Asokoro, Banex Junction, Jahi/Mabushi Link and Gwarimpa 11 Kado/Life Camp Junction were implemented by the Bala administration thereby significantly freeing traffic flow in the city and its environs.
Bala equally succeeded greatly in enforcing Abuja’s Master plan; substantially raised the Internally Generated Revenue (IGR) profile of the FCT; facilitated the passage of FCT Internal Revenue Bill by the National Assembly; attracted foreign INVESTORS in the expansion of the $700million Abuja Botanical Gardens and Parks; review of the concessionaire of the Eagle Sqaure and International Conference Centre to private facility managers thereby enhancing their status, preventing revenue leakages and easing mounting security concerns.
Whatever anybody might say, Bala has paid his dues. With the single-mindedness of purpose that he executed his assignment at the FCTA, he has earned a place in the hearts of Nigerians. This conclusion may go against the grain of expectations of some few individuals, but then, it requires a dispassionate heart and deep understanding of administration to appreciate all the transformation witnessed at the FCTA under Bala’s superintendence.
What really distinguishes this icon from his contemporaries is his great concern for public good and admirable husbandry of scarce resources. So, as the Kauran Bauchi quits office as Minister of the FCT, he is leaving behind an enduring legacy of honour and hard work. I JOIN millions of other Nigerians in wishing him a prosperous future endeavour.
* Ochela is a Media Consultant based in Abuja.
- See more at: http://www.vanguardngr.com/2015/04/bala-mohammed-fct-legacies/#sthash.mplih5XM.dpuf

form the start i never believed those articles on the ministers sons. especially the one about the split of cars he was possing with. those are people's cars they where showing off with. i personally know the owner of the red g wagon.. normal people pose with cars and nobody cares . they are humans too you know.

modath:
@OP,
How much did you get paid to come up with such a degree of falsehood,

None of the projects you highlighted were his brainchild, they are on going concerns that he couldn't put a stop to.. he didn't bring anything new, all the projects he continued with are the ones within the city centre.

Ask him about the access roads to the sun city, sunnyvale,kabusa gardens and other estates that the fct govt are supposed to provide amenities for.

Ask him about Pegi relocation scheme for people whose houses were demolished by the his predecessor.

Ask him about the monumental fraud that is called AGIS

I pray buhari's government leanrs from him. Continue and finish the good work others started before embaking on new projects that what moving forward is about. Atleast you can admit that he finished the project others started. Most people will dump and start something they wont finish. [color=#000099][/color]

Who said isa yuguda has no achivement check this out. He employed 940 Special advisers. Haha even the presidency dsnt have up to dat. But i think the picture bellow states why he needs that much

2800 employment in 12years and you have the right to boost, dangote employes more than that in a month..

isa yuguda has severed Nigeria for 12years and he still wants to be a senator, what an ambitious failure. he still own bauchi dou, he installed both the ApC and PDP candidate which ever way he wins. how can a man be so greedy and selfish

Mr/mrs morgist you should be ashamed of yourself for that stupid comment. do you even know where bauchi is in the map of Nigeria. isa yuguda is a failed man. he is incompetent and should be investigated and locked up in jail for all the states money he used in buying properties and getting married for his sons, 8years and nothing to show.

am not interested in all this local comments. the minister has done his best. and am proud of his administration

haha so el rufia is the good guy now. Nigerians are confuse people.first the insult el rufai that he is wicked and heartless.now he is the good guy.