Alhaji Abdulaziz Yari, the immediate past governor of Zamfara, has said that he left no debt or liability to the new administration of Alhaji Bello Matawalle.
Yari made this known at a news conference organized at the All Progressives Congress (APC) state Secretariat in Gusau on Wednesday.
He spoke through his media aide, Alhaji Ibrahim Dosara.
“l want to make it categorically clear that the immediate past governor, His Excellency, Hon. Abdulaziz Yari Abubakar left no debt on the state when he handed over the leadership of the state to the government of Alhaji Bello Matawalle.
“The press briefing by the immediate past deputy-governor, Alhaji Ibrahim Wakkala, saying that Yari administration left a debt of over N251 billion, was misleading, misrepresentation and a calculated attempt to smear the good image of the former governor.
“We wonder why the committee failed to inform the world that Yari left them N7 billion as takeoff or that the former governor had constructed hundreds of kilometer roads cutting across all the 14 local government areas of the state as well as provision of other dividends of democracy,” he queried.
He noted that “even on the issue of award of contracts, the former deputy-governor is also supposed to have informed the press that he was the Chairman of the Finance and General Purpose Committee charged with the responsibility of contract awards”.
He further said: “On the stoppage in the payment of gratuity from the approved sum of N2 billion, it was the deputy-governor that truncated it because the money was being drawn from the payment of fertilizer by farmers and currently many of our farmers have been denied the commodity because of Alhaji Ibrahim Wakkala’s action.”
He also explained the provision of semi-urban water scheme where the Wakkala-led committee alleged that a borehole was constructed at the cost of N325 million.
Dosara said, “this is a system comprising so many components including 16, boreholes, solar panels, reticulation and a 500,000-gallon capacity overhead tanks”.
The media aide, who was supported at the briefing by the APC Chairman of the state, Alhaji Lawali Liman, former commissioners, APC officials and supporters, urged the PDP-led government in the state not to witch-hunt the past administration, but work towards the progress of the state.
