The opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in Kaduna State, has called on Governor Uba Sani to set up a Judicial Commission of Inquiry to investigate the huge debts and contractual liabilities left by the administration of Nasir El-Rufai.
Sani had at a Town Hall meeting with stakeholders in Kaduna on March 30, 2024, opened up on the huge debts left behind by his predecessor, saying that he will not be able to pay salaries without borrowing.
In a statement issued on Friday in Kaduna, Abraham Catoh, spokesperson of the party in the state, said the PDP was not surprised with Sani’s revelations at the Town Hall meeting.
The statement maintained that the governor’s revelation is a scratch on the surface on the real issues and urged him to go full fledged in his show of transparency.
“Though it did not come to us as a surprise, we believed that this revelation is just a scratch on the surface on the real issues, therein; we encourage him to go full fledged in this show of transparency.
“We, as opposition party, are in full support of any plan by the government that would bring development to our dear state, bearing in mind that we shall always kick against anything short of that,” the PDP said.
The statement recalled that in 2018 and 2022, the PDP “drew the attention of the Nasir El-Rufai-led government and the citizens of Kaduna State to the improper use of public funds.
Catoh accused the el-Rufai administration of alleged “criminal sale of landed properties belonging to the people of the state and the unconstitutional mass sacked of qualified teachers and replacement of same with unqualified ones that have even deserted most of their duty posts,” pointing out that the PDP has been vindicated.
“The PDP urges the governor to set up and mandate a Judicial Commission of Inquiry for full investigation into all the allegations to unravel the state of affairs of the $587 million foreign loans, N85 billion local loans and N115 billion contractual liabilities of unpaid abandoned contracts inherited from the Nasir El-Rufai government.
“The Judicial Commission of Inquiry should also look into the sale of the state’s landed properties in the last 8 years of the failed administration of Nasir el-Rufai in Kaduna State and those found guilty should be made to refund their stolen monies to the state coffers and also face the wrath of the law,” the statement said.
Catoh also urged the governor “to set up another high powered Civil Service Reforms Commission of Inquiry, to review and ascertain the modalities used in sacking the over 27,000 workers from the state civil service without payment of their entitlements and the bastardisation of the civil service, during the dark days of the administration of Nasir El-Rufai, with the view to doing justice to all and sundry.”
John Shiklam
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