…as committee accuses outgoing Gov of sabotage
Gubernatorial Transition Committee of the Kano State Governor-elect, Abba Kabir Yusuf, on Friday, accused the outgoing government of Governor Abdullahi Umar Ganduje of undermining and sabotaging the transition process.
But the state government dismissed the allegation as unfounded, claiming that the GTC had refused to submit the names of its three nominees to the government’s transition committee.
The government said despite this, all ministries, parastatals and agencies of the government have been carrying on with the handing over process.
Chairman of the Governor-elect’s GTC, Abdullahi Baffa said the government’s insistence that it must nominate three members to join the 17-member government transition committee was “tantamount to insisting that we must have a joint transition committee even though we belong to separate political parties.”
Baffa said because of the GTC’s “insistence that the right thing must be done, Governor Ganduje is doing everything possible to undermine and sabotage the transition process: He is yet to inaugurate the government team even after announcing its formation almost four weeks ago (sadly, the government team say they cannot hold any meeting with us until they are inaugurated by the governor)”.
He also alleged that the Kano governor has “mischievously transferred all permanent secretaries and most of the directors within the service to undermine the preparation of the hand-over.”
He added that Ganduje “has surreptitiously embarked on massive recruitment of workers (in his final few days) on a scale that he has not done in the last seven years and 10 months with the sole intention of over-bloating the service, undermining the incoming administration, and creating confusion.”
He said all these were manifestation of bad faith and total lack of statesmanship in the conduct of the governor.
Baffa said to ensure the transition process is smoothly concluded before the May 29 handover, the GTC would be having interaction with all permanent secretaries, heads of agencies and Director of Personnel Management of all local government areas from May 2.
State Commissioner of Information and Internal Affairs, Muhammad Garba, who is also a member of the government’s transition committee, in his reaction to the allegations by the GTC, said there was no truth in the committee’s claims.
Garba said it was rather the GTC that had refused to nominate the three persons to join the 17-member committee, adding that the GTC was given three slots because the bulk of the work of the transition period would be carried out by the outgoing government.
He also denied GTC’s claims that the committee had not been working because the governor had yet to formally inaugurate the committee.
He said at least two meetings had been held and the chairman of the committee had given directives for all the ministries, parastatals and agencies to conclude their handing over process.
The commissioner said some of the MDAs had already concluded their process and as soon as the GTC nominates its representatives to the committee, they would be carried along.