A civil society group, Coalition Against Corrupt
Leaders, has urged President Muhammadu Buhari not to consider the immediate
past Governor of Lagos State, Mr. Babatunde Fashola (SAN), for appointment.
The Executive Chairman of the group, Mr. Debo
Adeniran, told our correspondent during an interview on Thursday that Fashola’s
administration was engulfed in several controversies which could not be
overlooked.
Adeniran said his organisation was troubled by
many dilapidated schools in the state. He noted that when the Socio-Economic
Right Accountability Project invoked the Freedom of Information Act to know how
the Fashola government spent a $200m World Bank education funds, the state
government refused to disclose it.
He said instead, the state government continued
to run its affairs in secrecy by claiming that the FOI Act did not apply to
state governments.
Adeniran said independent investigations by his
organisation showed that the 1.36km Lekki-Ikoyi Link Bridge which was
reportedly built for N25bn, cost only N6bn.
He said he had written a series of petitions to
the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission to probe the various projects of
the Fashola government in the face of the over N500bn debt left behind by the
government.
He said he was shocked to find out that the
commission had continued to ignore all the petitions despite the fact that
Fashsola no longer enjoyed immunity, having left office over 60 days ago.
In a letter addressed to the President titled,
‘Don’t elevate Fashola,’ the group said if Buhari wanted to actualise his
mission of ‘change’ he would need to distance himself from controversy.
The letter read, “Mr. President, we are
constrained at this point in time to bring to your attention our critical
reaction to the unbridled speculation making the rounds for some time now, from
the members of the public as well as the media, as to the fact that the
immediate past governor of Lagos State, Mr. Babatunde Fashola, is being
considered by the presidency for higher national responsibility. Feelers have
it that his name is prominent on the list of the president’s nominees for key
offices in your administration.
“It is gratifying that you have promised at
various fora that your appointments would be purely based on merit and that
tested technocrats, with impeccable records, would be given their rightful
places in your administration, as a way of ensuring good governance to the
people of Nigeria. It is against this background that our organisation is
appealing to you to please take the pains to dig deep into Mr. Babatunde
Fashola’s record of performance as well as that of financial propriety on the
part of his government while in office.”
Fashola’s spokesperson, Mr. Hakeem Bello, did not
respond to telephone calls as well as a text message sent to his phone.
No comments:
Post a Comment