Alas! Buhari To Governors: Leave My Roads Alone

Nigeria - The Minister for Works and Housing, Babatunde Fashola, has disclosed that state governors should leave federal roads alone. He made the disclosure on Tuesday while facing a House ad hoc committee investigating abandoned projects in the country from 1999 till date.

The former governor of Lagos State said that the President, Muhammadu Buhari gave the instruction in the face of high debt to states for federal roads constructed by State governors, noting that the President asked him to tell the governors to “leave his (Buhari’s) roads alone.”

He said, “The states submitted a bill of almost a trillion naira when President Buhari was elected. He asked us to work out what was their entitlement and all of that.

“Ultimately, the BPP (the Bureau of Public Procurement) certified about N44bn – I don’t remember the exact amount now – except for two states; I think Cross River and…there’s another state. They didn’t have the documents at the time, which we have sent back to the President. But the decision to pay those inherited debts, including the ones I contracted as Governor of Lagos, was with the caveat that I should tell the governors to leave his (Buhari’s) roads alone.

Those were the directives; I was not the one that took the decision. “Tell them not to fix my roads again if they’re going to claim compensation. If you want to fix it and not ask for compensation, send me what you want to do. But if you want compensation, go and mind your business while I mind my business because I have inherited enough debts!’