Gov. Mohammed tasks Bauchi State’s LG chairmen on service
Gov. Bala Mohammed of Bauchi State has tasked all the 20 elected local government chairmen in the state to serve the people and not themselves while discharging their statutory responsibilities.
Mohammed made the call in Bauchi on Thursday during a meeting with local government chairmen and heads of Ministries, Departments and Agencies in the state.
“Leadership is emerging from the people who are being led; and that is what you are. You should know that you are there just as servants to serve the people and not to serve yourselves.
“We have high expectations from you and we are looking forward to working with you and granting you your autonomy as much as possible so that you will be able to perform and lessen the burden on the state government.
“I want you to make sure that you have some synergy with our security agencies because they have been doing very well and that’s what makes us one of the most secured states in the federation, especially, in the northeast where we have a lot of security challenges.
“We have one form of insecurity or the other at the local government level. Some of them can even be traced to people well known at the LGs. You are there to make sure that you do whatever you can to secure your local government area,’’ he said.
The governor, who promised to work with all the chairmen to ensure a greater Bauchi State, charged them to work with all the security agencies to promote effective security of lives and property in their LGAs.
He said as elected people who had come on board after many years of Constitutional infractions when governors were appointing caretaker chairmen, they should know that the people expected a lot from them.
Gov. Mohammed observed that a lot of security problems were being created at the local government level and charged the chairmen to do everything in their power to tackle the problems.
The governor reiterated that the state government would provide the chairmen with the autonomy as provided in the law so that any allocation from the federation account would be going directly to them.
“On local government administration, we will try to free resources, work together and grant you some autonomy as provided in the law, so that whatever allocation you have from the federation would be going to you directly.
“You must establish a very sound accountable means of executing projects and programmes,’’ he said.
Reports said that Bauchi State conducted local government elections on Oct. 17, 2020. The last time such elections were held in the state was 12 years ago.
