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I read with keen interest , the above titled article authored by one Babatunde Opoola where he was trying to relay to kwarans ; the background to the constitution of Panel of Enquiry on government properties allegedly sold by past administrations even though he himself failed to pay cognizance attention to a natural law of “He who must come to equity needs comes with a clean hands” .
How the writer of this article expected Kwara people to take serious, an anti-corruption panel set up by Abdulrazaq’s led government which is widely believed to be notorious for diversion of LG fund, gross financial mismanagement , contract inflations, deliberate breach of procurement laws, insincerity , lack of transparency , lack of accountability etc is going to be very interesting to common sense .
In Mr Opoola fainted wisdom , he holds the belief that only Saraki sympathizers are those raising voices against actions of this government including that of setting up of Jankara panels aimed at keeping kwarans mind off the series of looting and fraudulent inflation of contracts that have become order of the day under this dispensation.
While I would not blame Mr Opoola who is only working for his pay , Its important we educate him against this bias notion that everybody in the state who raises eyebrows against ineptitudes or insincerity of Abdulrazaq government are Sarakites . infact , vast majority of those voicing out are neutral people of kwara including members of the ruling APC who are disappointed with the turn of events today .
Mr Opoola should therefore be lectured that it will be very difficult for government that is not showcasing transparency and accountability in it’s handling of kwara patrimony to be expecting the people to trust its actions .
The writer also talked about Abdulrazaqa readiness to clean an invisible rots in the system . This will take us back to the introductory part of this articles where I talked about natural law of “He who must come to equity must come with clean hands” , for discern minds , this government is only hallucinating because it is made up of corrupt individuals and thieves who think everybody who occupied government offices are thieves like them.
When they first came on board in 2019, they told kwarans Amusement parks , Shonga farm Harmony holdings and other state owned institutions had been sold to Saraki family and that Amusement park was sold to Mrs Toyin Saraki , wife of the former president of the Nigerian Senate .
Senator Ajadi led commttiee was tasked to dig into this and report back to government . Report had been laid not only on Shonga farm but even Kwara mall and nothing shady was uncovered despite the huge resources committed by government into the vendetta project targeted at the person of Saraki . Or let us ask Abdulrahaman Abdulrazaq how many officials of last administration had been arrested in connections with selling or buying of Amusement parks, Shonga farm, Shopprite, Harmony holdings, KWARA United etc ?
It is therefore morally unjustifiable for a Governor that is afraid of signing Freedom of Information act which would have accorded kwarans access to flow of information to be pretentiously claiming he is fighting corruption by setting up cosmetic Panel to investigate selling and buying of government assets especially when it is a known fact that the chairman of the panel has questions to answer on acquisition of his official residence and adjourning plots as stated in the Ajadi report .
Governor Abdulrahaman Abdulrazaq and his cabinet should therefore be asked to calm down , suspend concerned officials of his government mentioned in one fraud or the other , allow real anti corruption agencies to launch genuine probes into activities of his government since last one year and watch as rots would be uncovered
Kariola Semiu writes from Akanbi 2, Ilorin South LGA
Oluwatoyin Luqman Bolakale is a graduate of Telecommunications Science, A Certified and etch network security specialist from International cyber security institute and specialised in Network security, mobile and wireless communications, He is a community developer and An Online Media Practioner currently the CEO/Publisher of Satcom Media