The Zamfara State Governor, Dauda Lawal, has sacked permanent secretaries and suspended district and village heads appointed by his predecessor, Bello Matawalle.
The state government said the decision was part of reforms it has embarked upon to correct the mismanagement of the state’s resources by Mr Matawalle.
The Secretary to the State Government, Abubakar Nakwada, in a press conference in Gusau on Tuesday, said the past administration wreaked havoc on the state’s economy.
Mr Nakwada said all districts created in December 2022 had been dissolved while permanent secretaries appointed after the 2023 general elections have been sacked as ”full rationalisation of civil service is on the way”.
“A well-articulated rationalisation and harmonisation of MDAs will be undertaken to reduce the cost of governance and improve efficiency, and details will be announced in due course,” the SSG said.
Speaking further, Mr Nakwada said the state was on the verge of collapse when the incumbent administration was inaugurated in May.
“That administration indulged in excessive and wasteful spending as well as the rampant looting of government property. It is truly disheartening that while our peers have made significant progress in their respective states, we are still grappling with a myriad of issues caused by insatiable greed and the lack of patriotism exhibited by the immediate past administration.
“For the first time in the history of our state, workers were unable to receive their salaries for two consecutive months, despite the availability of ample resources during the twilight of the immediate past administration,” he said.
Mr Nakwada said the Matawalle administration neglected critical sectors, especially education and the economy.
He faulted Mr Matawalle’s failure to ensure pupils in the state wrote external final year examinations, especially the West Africa Examination Council (WAEC) and National Examination Council (NECO), which he said the incumbent governor ‘settled’.
Mr Nakwada also accused Mr Matawalle of spending N50 billion on projects in the Government House with little developmental impact. He said the former governor spent N11.5 billion on Gusau Cargo Airport with no visible progress, ”allocating about N1 billion to construct governor’s lodges in 14 local governments with nothing to show”.
“To make matters worse, many projects remain incomplete or non-existent. Shockingly, there is a lack of concrete evidence to support the necessity of such expenditure, particularly when it comes to furnishing these lodges.
“Similarly, despite the previous administration’s expenditure of over N13 billion in the last four years for the procurement of utility vehicles, the present administration did not inherit any of these vehicles,” he said.
The SGS said the “theft” and “abuse of office” were executed due to lack of a proper record keeping by the past administration, which he said was evident in the manner Ministries, Departments and Agencies of government have not been keeping records.
He said in the coming days, Mr Lawal’s administration would take several actions to reverse the ”sorry condition the state is in presently”.
