By Tunde Ashaolu
Yesterday at the 56th Annual National Conference of Ilorin Emirate Descendants Progressive Union (IEDPU), the ‘one chance’ Governor struck yet again, in his usual style of making spurious and unquantifiable claims and assertion of how great governance has been.
The speech given by Governor Abdulrahman left many questions rather than answers, the most important of which is, ‘Where is the said economic growth in the state?’ because economic growth that is mainly seen on papers and phantom stories that can hardly be called economic growth if it isn’t felt in our people’s daily lives.
The Governor in his usual countenance laced with bravado with little to no result to back it up, boasted of how much of a safe haven the state has been, the abduction of the Magaji Erubu, Dr Zubair Erubu, is still fresh in memory. Erubu was lucky to have lived to tell the story but the late Onijala wasn’t so lucky.
Speaking on the Ilorin Master Plan 2022-2042, it is easy for one to know that all the Governor is saying is mere fallacy. It’s always scary when the Governor talks about a long term plan, you all remember intrigues behind the recent bond issue?
The fact that the 35B bond wasn’t included in the budget can be overlooked, but how outrageous the repayment plan is will make one question if this man even cares about the future of this state, or is he that oblivious to the reality of things?
Signed to be paid in two installments of N25 billion and later N10 billion over seven years from money due to Kwara state from the federal allocation. The governor has signed an Irrevocable Standing Payment Order (ISPO) for N630, 203,900 to be deducted monthly from the federal revenue allocation due to the state, a debt the state will continue to pay years after he is gone!.
With an interest rate of 16% it is known that N7.58 billion is what will be paid by coupon rate annually and multiply that by 7 years, you should know how outrageous that is.
The theatrics of Tanke bridge is too unwholesome to ignore, yet another white elephant project which tells the tale of a Governor who lacks vision coupled with little sense planning, but continues to squander the state’s scarce resources.
If for once his advisers want to justify their bumper pay, they should advise him to cut the loses and make the contractor to refund the advance payment given to him since all cursors pointed to the fact that the contract has been terminated.
The Governor must have really rated Kwarans Inteligent Quotient ( IQ) very low, to have thought he could use fancy architectural designs to hoodwink them from realizing what a fruitless and badly researched job was done on the project.
The rationale behind the Tanke bridge is still yet to be seen anyways, as Governor struggled to convince Kwarans that this is not one of his desperation at creating a phony legacy for himself.
The time is now for every Kwaran to realize that the Governor and his cronies in government do not have a plan for the state and we all should know that our destinies lie in our hands come 2023.
Signed
Tunde Ashaolu,
State Publicity Secretary,
Kwara PDP.
26th December, 2021
