IFEMOSU MICHAEL ADEWALE
The cankerworm, plaque, and evil which has since bedeviled our polity and system was said to be fought headlong by this administration.
However, the present action from the Senate with respect to the request of the Ogun State Government headed by Governor Ibikunle Amosun $350million loan from World Bank and the approval by the Senate is a National Conspiracy against the good people of Ogun State.
Amosun who before now has come out to say Ogun State is indebted to over 107billion Naira, which will be duly paid in the next Thirty Years, was responsible for sending a letter of request on the approval for another backlog loan on the good people of Ogun State.
One would want to ask, as every reasonable and objective citizen will: Why is Ogun State needing a loan again? Why are we borrowing again? Why is Senator Ibikunle Amosun mortgaging the lives of unborn generations in a disguise of meaning well for the people? What has Amosun done to the three-time release of the Paris Loan, which is of utmost importance to the State? The implication of this is that Amosun is digging a graveyard for the unborn generations and the self-move to borrow yet another whooping sum of $350million is baseless and a compromise of the President Buhari’ s fight against corruption.
Secondly, as a citizen of Ogun State, I am not unaware of the fact that it is in the best discretion and obligation of Ogun State citizens that Amosun is asking for a loan from World Bank.
Amosun has successfully finished and mortgage Ogun State, Poverty has been the normal under his administration, baseless construction has been his utmost priority, governance of bitterness and calumny has been his watchword, lies, and deceit has been his daily recitation, hatred and self-centeredness has been his daily attire, however with this Loan approval Amosun has again displayed his attitude on eating all he has to eat while he lives and leaving generations to come to suffer woefully.
The request for the $350million loan should have first been investigated thoroughly by the National Assembly, an independent body under the tiers of government to perform oversight functions, but No they didn’t; Pathetic!!
No wonder we also saw that even the Senators representing the three senatorial constituencies of Ogun State was equally absent as at when the loan was granted, this shows and tells us how lackadaisical and useless they are.
It is imperative and very well sacrosanct that the National Assembly, most especially the Senate recognises the fact that the war against corruption cannot be won or fought without public followership and public followership is derived not by such actions as presently taken by the Senators, but by a properly and well thought out decision backed with compelling evidence sourced after a thorough investigation.
One would have thought that the proper and most acceptable thing that should have been done was the clarification of why the loan is needed and important to a single living being in Ogun State and not just beneficial to some Thieves and Rogues in power claiming they mean well for the people, how does the loan affects the totality of the Ogun state?
Is the current development a justification that there is no corruption in the Senate, Ministry of Finance and the Ogun State Government headed by Governor Ibikunle Amosun? Tranquility, Transparency, and Equity as stated in a plethora of authorities is not a one-way street, it rather is Tranquility, Transparency, and Equity to the state, society and the victim.
I, therefore, call in the interest of Transparency to all that the approval for the Loan be reversed and the future moves of this administration to borrow and request for another loan be banned.
A careful examination of the Loan itself will reveal a liquidated attempt by the Federal government through the office of the Minister of Finance to render abstract the real issues in controversy and sweep the significant sufferings of Ogun State people under the carpet. However, it is pertinent to put the matter into some public perspective.
What we are seeing in Ogun State today is simply a decorated and beautified but useless, worthless constructions, which will not make Amosun’s tenure a success because, at the end, the truth is like oil; no matter the amount of water you pour on it, it will still flow.
Ifemosu Michael Adewale is the founder Youth In Good Governance Initiative YIGGI, Acting Coordinator Federalist Movement of Nigeria (Ogun Central).