Barely 10 days to the end of his two-term tenure, Kaduna Governor Nasir Ahmed El-Rufai has accused some of his predecessors of stealing State resources to build houses in Kaduna and Dubai.
El-Rufai, in his valedictory media chat on the Hausa service KSMC, a state-owned radio, said one of them built a mansion on Jabi road with public funds.
He challenged the past Governors to face the people of Kaduna State and swear with Holy Qur’an that they never stole from the government coffers.
On his part, he said: “I can swear I never stole a Kobo from the government coffers.”
The Governor’s attack in the Friday evening media chat was coming barely 24hours after former Governor Ahmed Makarfi raised the alarm the El-Rufai administration served nine of his companies with demolition notice.
El- Rufai, who was reacting to the opposition criticising his efforts, said: “I am happy with what we have seen. The work we have started and the quality of the works, we are going to spend years enjoying them. It is not the type of roads they did in the past that, after two rainy seasons, the roads will spoil. These works we are doing, we are doing them with quality.
“Am happy with what I have seen, but there is still more to be done, because to us, we want a people to enter Kaduna and see no untarred road anywhere. We want to see tarred road in every community of Kaduna with solar street lights, same for Kafanchan, Zaria and our local government areas. That was our wish, but the difficult circumstance our government met, we couldn’t do everything we planned to do, until we had to borrow before we could do what we did.
“But those that are day we took loans, they should look, look at their money on the ground. We didn’t collect this loan and run away to Dubai to buy houses or go to Jabi Road to build a mansion so that we can sleep well, that is not how we are.