By 
By : Tajudeen Folaranmi Aro
A child who breaks the family’s precious cup will certainly have his name mentioned as destructive, in every conversation within the household. That’s is the case of Senator Bukola Saraki in Kwara, having serially been alleged of looting the common patrimony of our state within and outside office for 16 years.
We read with amusement the attack against our exemplary Governor, AbdulRahaman AbdulRazaq, by the rejected Peoples Democratic Party through its spokesman, Tunde Ashaolu.
The PDP spokesman is agonising that his leader, Bukola Saraki, is constantly mentioned for the pillage of the state resources for 16 years. it is a common knowledge that Bukola was in charge of the state even after leaving office as the governor. Do we need to remind Mr Ashaolu that Bukola imposed his lackey ,his former commissioner of finance, as governor for eight years and he directed him as he willed? Was that a secret?
As the Senate President, didn’t Bukola block the appointment of a former Speaker of the State House of Assembly from becoming a Commissioner at the Nigeria Communication Commission?
Didn’t Bukola Saraki single handedly cancel the 2019 Governorship Primary election of PDP, having discovered that the outcome would not favour his annointed and there after imposed a candidate on the party?
Ashaolu also went on a hopeless journey of Societe Generale Bank and how it metamorphosed into Heritage Bank PLC.
Ashaolu should tell us why it was impossible for the SGBN to raise the capital base of the bank to 25 Billion Naira if the bank had a clean bill of health. He also failed to tell us that Bukola sold the SGBN for One Billion Naira after the court verdict, and deceptively failed to disclose the true state of the bank to the new owners who are now wreaking under a huge debt of public sector deposit which was not disclosed at the point of sale.
The PDP spokesman also failed to tell us the involvement of Bukola in the liquidation of Trade Bank by the Nigeria Deposit Insurance Corporation. It is a known fact that the two banks could not meet their obligations to depositors at one time or the other as a result of mismanagement and looting by the so called leader of PDP in Kwara state.
Everyone in Kwara knows that Bukola until May 29,2019 remained the un- seen hands in the mismanagement of Kwara treasury even as the Senate President; he cannot therefore be absolved in collapse of infrastructural facilities and lack of basic amenities in most parts of Kwara state.
Ashaolu and his PDP cannot deny the fact that many schools were left unrepaired, classrooms were eyesore and teachers unpaid as a result of brigandage by the PDP and its leader. It is an incontrovertible fact that the failure of the PDP Government to pay the Universal Basic Education Commission counterpart funding essentially led to the wreck of the education sector in the state. What about the looting of the UBEC funds originally accessed in 2013?
Ashaolu is quick to give credit to Saraki for the establishment of the Kwara State University but failed to tell the People of Kwara what happened to TETFUND and non – take off of two campuses in Osi and Ilesha. Despite the huge amount given for the project, the two other campuses of the university Osi and Ilesha, were left uncompleted after 16 years of PDP administration.
It is equally very important to remind Ashaolu and his his co-hypocrites that 95% of physical structures at the KWASU Malete were erected by the federal government through Tetfund.
The water reticulation program was equally a failure despite the false claim of looted billions claimed to have been spent on the same.
The Aviation College is another sad story. Organisations like Airforce and the Navy which had Memorandums of Understanding with the School left the school for lack of transparency and accountability by the PDP Government.
Kwarans will also recall that two training planes of the college were bought as scraps by the 2019 PDP Governorship candidate who was also a member of the board of the college.
The same plundering affected the Health Sector. The PDP Government failed to pay counterpart funding to National Primary Health Care Development Agency and other partners for the eradication of Polio in the state. The failure to pay counterpart funding and diversion of funds particularly in education led to blacklisting of the State by UBEC. Some other development partners left the State as a result of corruption in the previous government.
We need not remind Ashaolu that the failing by the previous government led to their being rejected in every Community they went to campaign in the 2019 General elections in in the State.
Today Governor AbdulRahaman AbdulRazaq has been embarking on programmes that touch lives across the 193 wards in the state.
Over 600 schools are being remodelled or renovated under the UBEC/ Kwara state counterpart funding programmes across the state. The schools are there for members of the PDP to see. This is seeing over #14bn being committed to reposition basic education alone in the State with resultant effects on the local economy.
Teachers and other Public Servants are now promptly paid their salaries unlike the opaque and haphazard ( geri-gedi) salary payments by the PDP administration.
Civil servants who were not promoted for several years have been promoted while those who retired without their Pension and gratuities are now being paid by the AbdulRazaq’s administration.
Dilapidated roads across the state left by former government are wearing new faces with asphalt following their reconstruction or rehabilitation and the people of the state are commending the governor for this. Failed roads that were done under the dynasty, resulting in potholes, are being managed while the state sources for improved funding to reconstruct them.
The Social investment Programme of the State Government has been commended within and outside the State Unlike the dehumanising method of giving handouts to the elderly at the Saraki’s residence.
Kwara is on record for being the first State in Nigeria to have captured not less than 30,000 beneficiaries ( majorly traders and elderly ) under the Social investment programme. Governor AbdulRahaman AbdulRazaq is no doubt giving voice to the voiceless with his administration’s youth and women inclusion in governance. The “children of nobody” now have hope of aspiring into leadership positions in the state.
We have no doubt that the administration of Governor AbdulRahaman AbdulRazaq is on a journey to redeem the state from 16 years of plunder by some political bandits who now try every trick in the book to regain access to the till. The Governor is focused on restoring the lost glory of the state after years of misrule by Bukola Saraki and his lackeys.
What the failed dynasty do not want a reference about is a flashback to the 16 years of decadence of their past administration in Kwara state, but it is impossible to ignore this sad chapter in the history of the state.
The people will not forget in a hurry such period of unmitigated disaster, when Kwara state laid prostate, holding thinly onto life on oxygen, having been sucked and sapped of all nourishment for growth and prosperity.
Signed:
Alhaji Tajudeen Folaranmi Aro,
State Publicity Secretary
Kwara APC
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