Alhaji Bello Wakili Bachaka, the immediate past chairman of the Gudu Local Government Council in Sokoto State, said that he used the money he received from the sale of his government vehicle to pay robbers an N4 million ransom to free his wife and two children who had been kidnapped.
This was claimed by Bachaka, who presided over the Gudu Local Government Area as its chairman from April 2021 to April 2023, during his testimony before the judicial commission of inquiry that the governor of Sokoto State had established to look into the auctions and sales of public property.
Bachaka informed the committee that, as their term came to a close, his cherished wife and two of his children were abducted. In light of this, he was forced to sell his highly valued Toyota Hilux car and give the bandits the ransom in order to be released.
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“I sold the vehicle that I was paid N4.2 million for, and that amount was subtracted from my overall gratuity and severance benefits of over N5 million,” he stated.
“The only thing left to do is sell the profitable Toyota Hilux to cover the bandits’ ransom.
“After negotiating with the abductors, I brought the aforementioned sum to the bandits in one of the villages in the state’s Wurno Local Government Area, where I paid them the money, and they released and gave the abductees to me securely.”
Bachaka begged the Sokoto State Government to take into account their current situation, stating that they were not receiving gratuities or other allowances, therefore he was presently unable to purchase or return the vehicle.
“I was asked to share my knowledge of the Toyota car that the previous Sokoto State government paid for.
“The state government agreed to settle the payment for the vehicles from our benefits, emoluments, gratuities, and furniture allowances when the vehicles were auctioned off to us.”
Declaring, “Unfortunately, our remaining retirement allowances balance was not paid until this moment,” he bemoaned the fact that they had not received their remaining gratuities after the cars had been paid for as specified in the Memorandum of Understanding.
The government ought to take into account our current situation, since we haven’t received our balance.
We were not granted a single kobo in the name of our retirement pension although that we served for two years as local government chairs.
“The previous administration paid for the Hilux Toyota vehicles with large sums taken from our furniture and gratuity allowance, and they did not provide us with any documentation to support their payments.”
But in order for the previous chairmen to be able to support their families going forward, he made a plea to the state government currently in power.