Bauchi — The ill health of President Umaru Musa Yar'Adua, who is receiving treatment in far away Saudi Arabia, is taking a toll on the act of governance in Bauchi State as the governor, Isa Yuguda now shuttles between Abuja and Bauchi, a development that has slowed down activities at the government house over the last weeks.

The development was caused by the fact that Governor Yuguda, like his Kebbi State counterpart, is the son-in-law to the country's first family, a situation that is already creating anxiety in the state capital.

While that is going on, investigations have revealed that some of the major projects embarked upon by the administration as soon as it came to power in 2007 including the Ningi-Burra Road , Alkaleri-Futuk Road as well as the State Secretariat (Press Centre) of the Nigeria Union of Journalists have all been abandoned.

Other abandoned projects started by the administration are office of the deputy governor which was initially delayed owing to the political differences between the governor and his former deputy; Garba Mohammed Gadi as well as the office of political appointees all owing to lack of funds to the contractors to enable them complete the projects.

While speaking on the non-performance of the state government, chairman of the state chapter of Conference of Nigeria Political Parties (CNPP), Abdullahi Idris, lamented that there is general poverty in the land as the absence of the governor and his key holders has adversely affected the economic fortune of the state.

According to Idris, the ill health of the president has negatively impacted on Bauchi State saying, "Bauchi State is part of Nigeria and anything that happens will affect it. Besides, Governor Isa Yuguda is a son-in-law which he cannot abandon his father at this trying moment."

He further said that the confusion that manifest in the state has also affected the budget presentation because according to him, "while other states have submitted their appropriation bill to their state houses of assembly for consideration, Bauchi has not done so due to lack of concentration" and observed that even though the deputy governor is around, he has a limit of certain expenditure he can approve and until the governor comes back, there is nothing he can do.

But in his reaction to the development, the special assistant on media to the governor, Sanusi Mohammed, in a telephone interview, said that the ill health of the president is a natural phenomenon that nobody can do anything about but to wait for divine intervention, adding that it has negatively affected not only Bauchi State but the country at large.

According to him, Bauchi State is part and parcel of the country and so, once the president is sick, the entire country is sick, pointing out that as it is now, the entire facet of the country is almost at a standstill including the economy, hoping, however, that things will improve soon.

He also said that the situation has affected his boss, the governor, saying that, "as a human being, the governor is negatively affected just like every other Nigerian. We are praying that he gets better so that things will get back to normal, pointing out however that activities are moving gradually though not to the expectation of the public, and urged Nigerians to pray fervently for the president to recover from his ill health.