Bauchi state governor, Bala Mohammed has said that his recent criticism of President Bola Tinubu over the #Endbadgovernance protest should not be seen in bad faith, but a wake up call to the federal government and the states to hearken to the plights of the citizens.
Speaking on Wednesday in Bauchi at the State Executive Council (SEC) meeting, he said he spoke constructively as an opposition and somebody who meant well for the president, the government and the people of Nigeria.
“I had not done it to cause any disaffection or to insult anybody,” the governor said.
Mohammed had criticised the President Bola Tinubu’s policies and programmes, saying they were not favourable to Nigerians.
He had also said that the speech of the president on August 4, calling on the protesters to suspend the protest and come for dialogue, was “very empty”.
However, some political leaders in the state, including Yakubu Dogara, a former speaker of House of Representatives and Shehu Buba, a serving Senator, chided the governor for his comments.
Mohammed who had been engaged in a war of words with Dogara following his criticism of the President, said “We have to listen when there is very loud cry everywhere on bad governance and areas of limitations and inadequacies, where the expectations of our people have not been met.
“We have scarce resources to manage and that is why I said we must use the little resources that we have, to do so much.
“Nobody cares, nobody will listen to you, when you begin to complain and blame our predecessors for the inadequacies,” the governor said.
He noted that it was wrong to heap all the blames of bad governance on the federal fovernment, because the states were also culpable.
“We are not just blaming the Federal Government for everything.
“We also have to look at ourselves, do a swift analysis on ourselves and make sure we do things that would put food on the table and make things easier.
“We know we are not in charge of national policies and programmes, but we must be able to implement national policies as a loyal federalist.
“We should, at the same time, look at our own challenges and make sure that we connect with the people,” he said.
The governor stressed that governors were not left out from what he said, pointing out that it was not about partisan politics, but, about responsibility.
