AN overwhelming majority of Ogun State people now have buyers’ remorse and they want their money back. The wonder drug sold to them in 2011 as a one-stop remedy for all that ails them has turned out, in a matter of months, to be nothing more than a tepid concoction of water and lemon only capable of treating mild indigestion.
While many (understandably) may not want to admit publicly that they were smoothly deceived into voting for Ibikunle Amosun as Governor, the fact is that if elections were held today in Ogun state, Ibikunle Amosun would be roundly and soundly defeated. What accounts for this change?
It all began a month before the 2011 gubernatorial elections in Ogun state. It was a time when the propaganda machine of Amosun was running smoothly at the grassroots. The propaganda machine was very effective indeed. Amosun successfully portrayed himself as a man of the people, humane, sensitive, and kind. The gullible people of Ogun state saw him as one who was ready to fight for them and their interests against the “unresponsive and corrupt PDP government” in the state.
Amosun was widely but wrongly perceived by the people as a helpless victim of the vast PDP political machine and power. This perception spread rapidly among the people no thanks to the arrogant and myopic political leadership of former Governor Gbenga Daniel who, to be fair, was a first class administrator but a colossal failure as a political leader.
The people of Ogun state (and indeed Yoruba race), are known to be romantics at heart, very susceptible to sad sap stories, and will usually and blindly throw their support behind anyone who appears to be “oppressed”. True to form, they refused to listen to wise counsel and reason and jumped on the “Amosun for Governor” bandwagon. No amount of hard cold facts could convince them that Amosun is a fraud who is worse than the gladiators in the PDP.
However, as students of history are all too aware, it soon became clear that all Amosun wanted from the gullible but good people of Ogun state was their votes. Once he assumed office, it turns out that Governor SIA is a sadistic, malicious, corrupt, intolerant, and pathological lying wolf in sheep’s clothing.
AMOSUN THE SADIST
For someone who professes religious and ostensibly guided by the fear of God, Ibikunle Amosun has demonstrated a stunning lack of core and true Islamic values and benevolence in his almost 16 months in office as Ogun state Governor.
The first directive he gave as Governor on his first day in office was for the demolition of a building under construction within the premises of the Abeokuta Golf course complex owned by the late Chief Olumide the Apagun pote of Egbaland. Amosun’s excuse was that the building was too close to the Governor’s Office complex. This was of course a total fabrication. The late Olumide was shocked and tried to find out through certain channels why the new Governor made him the first person on his slaughter slab of vengeance. Olumide, who was a close friend of ACN chieftain, Chief Olusegun Osoba received assurances that the Governor was not out to destroy him but only concerned about the security of the Governor’s office complex given the “sensitive and highly classified” nature of activities there.
This was the same Governor’s complex that another administration had performed its functions within and without any fear of exposure or leaks for eight years.
Little did the late Chief Olumide know that Amosun was not done with him. Unknown to the late businessman and Architect the new Governor, with the assistance of a prominent Egba Chief, stripped of her highly coveted Chieftaincy title a few years ago, had actually mapped out a battle plan to crush Olumide’s business interests on the unfounded suspicion that Olumide was a close business associate of Amosun’s predecessor, Otunba Gbenga Daniel.
When Amosun proceeded to demolish another one of Chief Olumide’s building and revoked the Certificate of Occupancy (C of O) of the vast Golf Complex based on the specious recommendation of his kangaroo Judicial Panel of Inquiry, Chief Olumide realized that the Governor was indeed out to get him. However, Olumide made frantic efforts to reach out to the Governor to reach an understanding. He met a stonewall. Amosun was in power and using it absolutely.
One of Chief Olumide’s close associates and a serving traditional ruler in Ogun state did all he could to mend fences between the Governor and Chief Olumide. The traditional ruler called one of the Governors aides and asked to him to explain to Amosun that Chief Olumide was not an enemy of the Governor but a businessperson who was only interested in assisting any government in power to develop Ogun state in general and Abeokuta in particular.
The Kabiyesi explained that the Golf course was a pet project of Olumide and he had devoted almost his entire life and resources to making it become a reality and a golf course of international standard that will boost tourism and promote investment opportunities in the state.
The reply given by Amosun’s aide to the traditional ruler was shocking. According to our very reliable source, the aide, full of himself and his newfound status and power, arrogantly told the traditional ruler that it is the intention of the Amosun administration to prevent at all costs Chief Olumide from successfully making any headway in his business dealings in Ogun state. Two days later, Chief Olumide committed suicide.
AMOSUN THE CORRUPT
Amosun has comprehensively corroded governance in Ogun state to a scale of sleaze and greed that is unbelievable and unprecedented since the creation of the state in 1976. Civil servants, from top to bottom, are beside themselves about the rapacious nature of the ACN government in the state, but they are quite helpless to do anything about it now.
A Director in one of the ministries and on condition of anonymity, said most of his colleagues regret the almost total support they gave Amosun and ACN in the 2011 elections because he has repaid them with deep cuts to their budgets, statutory functions while constantly side-lining them especially when it comes to procurement of equipment and awards of contracts. Transparency has gone out of the window.
A good example is the case of the state’s Accountant General (AG) who has been virtually redundant since the beginning of Amosun’s tenure. As a standard rule in the civil service, payments for all government expenditures, from road construction to toilet paper, are prepared and processed through the office of the AG, to ensure accountability and probity.
However, this changed under Amosun’s one-man autocratic rule. In an unparalleled move, that is probable grounds for EFCC investigation and future indictment of the governor, Amosun assigned an accountant (a junior officer to the AG) to his office. The accountant is answerable only to Amosun and responsible for processing all vouchers, now paid directly from the Governor’s office, sometimes in cash.
The Accountant General’s job nowadays is to travel to Abuja at the end of the month to collect the state’s monthly allocation from the Federal government.
With the new arrangement, no one was surprised when Amosun began the direct procurement and payment of almost every item and services utilised by the state government. It is now the job of Governor Amosun to buy the Low Pour Fuel Oil (LPFO) used to power the Ogun state Independent Power Plant scheme (IPP), initiated by the Gbenga Daniel administration. Recently, Amosun summoned the state Commissioner for Agriculture to his office and handed the Invoice for a fleet of Tractors that he (the Governor), had purchased to him.
The Honourable Commissioner was speechless when told to go and “create a file” for the purchase, ostensibly to give the impression that the Commissioner actually ordered the Tractors and the Governor merely approved it through the state executive council.
In fact, Amosun was the only one in his government who knew how he acquired the tractors and at what cost. A source close to the Agriculture ministry said such “an arrangement” was strange to the ministry and further confirmation of the avaricious tendencies of this Governor”
But the transfer of the responsibilities of the AG to the office of the Governor is not only to ensure that Amosun can enrich himself faster, it is also designed to enable him cover his tracks and prevent aggrieved civil servants from making copies of payment vouchers and leaking them to the media. Said one top bureaucrat: “It seems Amosun has learnt a thing or two from his predecessor, who was a bit lax in handling sensitive documents that ended up in the hands of his political opponents, clearly, Amosun is not prepared to give his political opponents the opportunity to wash his dirty linen in public”
Newly elected 20 Local Government Chairmen and Councillors are also having a rough time under Amosun.
Initially they were ecstatic when he told the LG bosses that their monthly security vote has gone up from N1 million to 2.5 million naira, But to their great disappointment, they still receive one million naira even as the payment voucher shows 2.5 million
- This item was culled from persecondnews.com