A former governor of Niger state, Dr Muazu Babangida Aliyu, on Tuesday said his successor, Abubakar Sani Bello, is in the best position to explain the where-about of the N1.4billion kept for the Minna international 5 star-hotel project. Speaking with newsmen in Minna, Aliyu said he left the money in the “Escrow account” of the state. Governor Bello had during the presentation of flags to the chairmanship candidates of the All Progressives Congress (APC) ahead of the forthcoming local government election in the state, challenged his predecessor to account for the hotel fund. However, Aliyu said the Ñ1.4 billion was left in the Escrow account for the payment of the contractor when the job had reached a certain stage. “To my surprise, the contractor was invited by this government and given the whole amount; after two months, he (contractor) disappeared from site and has not returned to finish the job. “Am I to be held responsible? The government that invited and paid the contractor should be asked to account for the money,” he said. The former governor also insisted that he negotiated and secured the approval for the $181billion Industrial Development Bank IDB loan “The facility is not only for the dualization of the Minna – Bida road; the other component of the loan was the construction of a Bilingual Language Centre in Minna. We presented five items before the IDB team, but only two were picked. “I went to Jeddah to negotiate for the loan with some of my officials then; some of them are still part and parcel of this APC government,” he explained, while asking the incumbent governor to cross-check from some of his aides who were part of the former administration. “The issue on the ground is not about EFCC or ICPC; let the government come out clean that it has not collected the money,” he said. He also faulted the plan by government to dualize only a certain section of the road and make the rest single lane, saying such move was not acceptable. “You cannot toll a single lane road it is morally wrong; our plan was to dualize the road from Kpakungu to Bida and toll it at both ends, the developer was to collect its money in 25 years. “They should set about doing the major project instead of playing politics with the issue,” he noted. He also distanced himself from the controversy surrounding the N6 billion for pension fund, describing his alleged involvement as frivolous. He said contrary to the allegation, he had to borrow over N1 billion to settle pension arrears when he assumed office.
