Niger state governor, Abubakar Sani Bello on Wednesday said that those involved in the religious crisis that engulfed Pandogari in Rafi Local Government area of the state won’t go unpunished.
According to him, an investigative panel has been instituted to unravel the root causes of the crisis.
He spoke with State House correspondents after meeting with President Muhammadu Buhari at the Presidential Villa, Abuja.
The crisis, he said, has been brought under control.
He said: “The situation was unfortunate in Pandogari. I think someone posted some blasphemous stories about the Prophet and of course you know the sensitive nature when it comes to religion and one person was killed later on we heard that either police or the army shot a civilian and three or four people lost their lives.
“We have instituted an investigative panel to investigate what happened so that we can address the situation. The deputy governor and my team are there at the moment, the situation is calm now.
“We will await the outcome of the investigative panel so that we militate against this happening next time.
“This is unacceptable and whoever is involved will be severely punished,” he added.
On whether his administration will probe the previous administration in the state, he said that an ongoing investigation have already recovered some pension funds that were misappropriated.
Noting that the recovered fund is not much, he said that the investigation is still on.
“I believe the team has met with the former governor, I don’t want to interfere with their investigations.”
He said that things have been slow in the state in the last 12 months as the administration met a lot of problems and challenges when it came on board.
He said: “Things have been slow at the initial stage but with time things are beginning to pick up so by God’s grace I believe that President Muhammadu Buhari is driving Nigeria in the right direction.
“We just need to be patient a bit and I believe we will start seeing positive results.
On the media report that his government has resolved to be paying half salaries in the state, he said: “No no no! We have not resolved to pay half salaries but what we are saying is that from January this year we have been borrowing from bank to augment whatever we have been getting from FAAC.
“As at this month we are owing almost N3 billion, if we continue like this by December we will be owing N10 billion. So I think we should go back to the table, of course we can’t give what we don’t have but we are facing difficult times now let’s sit down and see what we can do.
“I really think it is unhealthy to keep on borrowing just to pay salaries, apart from that we are not just there to pay salaries, there are a lot of issues. I got call this morning that one Girls Secondary School that their roof is off in six out of seven dormitories. Where will they sleep? Now if I take the whole revenues and pay salaries, how am I going to fix schools, hospitals.
He added: “Niger State has a population of over four million, civil service strength of about 40,000, we get N1.5 billion from federation account and even with that we still have to borrow to pay 40,000 people against over 3 million people that we need to cater for.
“So I strongly believe and honestly we should look at it. It’s nobody’s fault that the price of oil has gone down, it’s nobody’s fault that the revenue has gone down, we are facing difficult times but hopefully things will improve.
“But we should all make sacrifices, I’m willing to make sacrifices, all my appointees are willing to make sacrifices. We have shown example by cutting down our expenditure, we have cut down the operation of the expenses of the government house from N150 million a week to N20, 25 million a week. So we have cut down government house expenditure by over 70 per cent and I mean these are all sacrifices.
He said that the state has saved some money, which it is spending on some projects including the federal road. The Suleja-Minna Road is motorable now and very soon we will start working on Bida. I was asked at a function yesterday where I got money from but the truth is we just have to improvise, we have to save to move in.
He said that the report that the state was going to reduce salaries is not true as the state is still engaging the labour.
“We have laid the cards on the table, we are not hiding anything we are very transparent as much as we can but the truth of the matter is that I cannot give what we don’t have. I wish I had, personally if I had I would have paid from my pocket but I can’t.” He stated
When asked to speak on the purpose of his visit to the Villa, he said: “I came to see what he is doing and to wishing him well one year in office.”
