Bauchi Governor charges new executive council members to brace up for challenges of governance

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Bauchi State Governor, Senator Bala Mohammed

By Akanji Alowoludo, Bauchi

Bauchi State Governor, Senator Bala Mohammed Abdulkadir has charged new members of the State Executive Council to brace up for the challenges of governance which is ahead of them as team players in the development of the state. 

The Governor was speaking during the inaugural meeting of the State Executive Council (SEC) for his second tenure held on Wednesday at the EXCO Chambers of the Government House. 

He said that, “I want to seize the opportunity with a lot of humility and gratitude to Allah to welcome all of you, members of the SEC for our inaugural meeting. Our agenda is so rich alot of items that I have seen, which is a reflection of our huge appetite to make a difference.”

According to him, “All of you were selected carefully to represent your various LGAs and on your own rights by virtue of your contributions to our ascension. And of course, with a very high sense of responsibility and high expectations within our own human sense of judgement that you will be able to do right to be able to actualize the Bauchi Project.”

He further said that,”With all humility, we have done relatively well during our first tenure. I want to once again seize the opportunity to thank those that were here with us in the first term and congratulate them for contributing well in their own capacities. For the new ones that are here, I warmly welcome you to Council.”

The Governor said that,”today is an inaugural meeting, I didn’t expect so much but I am happy that I have seen the reflection of the so many memos to be considered. The plan was to introduce you to our etiquette as a Council, the tradition of Council and to familiarise yourself with the working of government.”

Bala Mohammed further said that, “Certainly, that will be done during our retreat later after this inaugural meeting. I wanted it to be held before today but there was no time and I think that the preparations have not been made. But certainly I want to thank the technical committee that did very well in terms of capturing all our vision on where we are and where we want to go and how we will go.”

He stressed that,”Governance has become very sophisticated and I believe we have some young, middle age, the ladies, women and the old, which is a mixture of what we are as a nation and state, and so we have what it takes for us to make a difference.” 

According to him, “We are a very large state and we have a lot of limitations and inadequacies here and there in terms of services and infrastructure, we have high expectations out there, we have a robust and sometimes inconsiderate, negative opposition which is always looking at things from a different perspective maybe deliberately to deceive and delude our people but we should remain focused for good governance.”

The Governor assured that,”We are not going to exclude anybody in the state because those who voted for us first and even those who didn’t vote for us, we are all citizens of the State, we have to take care of everything. We will not lead by exclusion and certainly we have to partner with other stakeholders in the party, PDP and even other parties in the state.”

“We have to know that we are a very religious and traditional state, we have to respect our traditional institutions, we have to respect our Ullamas, and clergymen and of course our elected members. We have to collaborate with them irrespective of their political parties so that we can have inclusion, so that we can move forward.