By: Mohammed Kawu, Bauchi.
Senator Ali Wakili, representing Bauchi South Senatorial Zone has debunked insinuations that he received N200 million as constituency allowance, urging any person with such facts to publicly prove it.
“Nobody gave me N200 million as constituency allowance as speculated in certain quarters and I don’t have any special grant for my office. Even the much-talked about constituency projects for NASS members are being executed by agencies of government”, he said.
The Senator, while distributing money and vehicles worth millions of naira to his campaign directors and coordinators in the 2015 elections and APC henchmen in Bauchi Monday, said that he is doing everything humanly possible to reciprocate the gesture extended to him by the beneficiaries of the distribution.
“It is a tradition for all politicians and our people in season like this, especially Ramadan that we find something that will help alleviate the conditions of our people and today we are doing it to our seven APC chapters within the seven local governments and my campaign directors and coordinators”.
Senator Wakili, who described the gesture as token, disclosed that all the APC seven chapters will receive money ranging from N200, 000 to N250, 000 each; campaign organizations within the six local governments will each receive N100, 000 while Bauchi local government gets N250, 000.
“We are also going to seize the opportunity to share some motor vehicles to some of our directors and coordinators to facilitate their movements in terms of community service, especially in visitations rather than hiring such facility”, he stated.
“Similarly, the Nigeria Union of Journalists, most especially the correspondents’ chapel in Bauchi has been very helpful to me since 2009 when I declared my intention to join politics, they have weathered the storm with me in both good and bad times and given me the best of publicity any politician within the Nigerian state would require”.
To this end, Wakili disclosed, he is providing a small bus to the chapel to convey some of them that may not be mobile in case they are going for official duty, and thanked all for the continued support to him, assuring that he will do his best to ensure that electorates are not short-changed.
He charged the teeming unemployed graduates of northern extraction not to be too ambitious but to apply for the 500, 000 teaching jobs that would soon be provided by the federal government so that they would not be outsmarted by their southern counterparts.
He said although the teachers would be paid token amount of N23, 000 each monthly, the job would go a long way in mitigating graduates unemployment, redundancy and acquaint the youths with civil service experience such that they could be productive in their future careers.
Apart from that, the Senator explained that the federal government has also earmarked the sum of N500 billion for poverty alleviation program that targets the youths and market women calling on the citizens in the state to form cooperative societies and open banks’ accounts in order to benefit from the gesture.
He explained that the items donated by him include 40 cartons of herbicides and 20 sprayers to Bauchi Muslim and Christian cemeteries while the association of rice farmers and that of maize farmers in each local government collected 10 cartons of herbicides and 10 sprayers respectively.
The seven Local Government Areas that comprised the Bauchi South senatorial district of Wakili constituency are Bauchi, Dass, Tafawa Balewa, Bogoro, Toro, Alkaleri and Kirfi.
