James Sowole
16 December 2008
Akure — The Ondo State Chapter of the Labour Party (LP) yesterday raised alarm over the rate at which contracts were being awarded by the Governor of the State, Dr Olusegun Agagu, since the July 25 judgment of the Election Petitions Tribunal which sacked him as governor.
Specifically, LP, which put the amount of the contracts awarded in the last four months at a whopping N65billion, described the development as not only an attempt to cripple the regime of Dr Olusegun Mimiko, the LP's flag bearer who has been declared as the duly elected governor of the state but part of the orchestrated looting of the people's commonwealth which has become the hallmark of the Agagu's regime.
According to a release issued by its Director of Press, Mr. Kolawole Olabisi, LP disclosed that Agagu has embarked on the systematic plundering of the state resources through phoney contract awards and outright sales of government properties to his fronts at rock bottom prices all in his scorched-earth policy of ensuring that Mimiko's administration is bogged down in financial quagmire when he takes over next year after the court of appeal judgment.
The LP alleged that Agagu, had last week sold a Bielomatic automatic exercise books making machine worth N2billion to his front for a paltry N4.8million and awarded plethora of road contracts which were either long completed or have not been worked upon despite billions of naira said to have been expended on them since 2003.
"In Akure, the State capital, Agagu awarded a road which is less than two kilometres and with not a single culvert bridge and on high ground for a whopping N1.5bn!
"Almost on a daily basis now, Agagu now award one funny contract or the other for billions of naira and against every grain of financial prudence, he gives as much as 70 % of the contract sums to the contractors", the statement said.
He said only last week, Agagu, who claimed to have spent over N15bn on the provision of non-existent water, awarded another whopping N14.5bn contract for the Owena Multipurpose dam which is a federal government project.
Olabisi said this is aside from over N7bn Agagu claimed to have expended on the same dam by his government since 2003
"Also last week after his weekly Executive Council ( EXCO ) meeting, he approved the sum of N57.1m for the supply of laboratory science equipment to 55 secondary schools in the State, yet Agagu did not tell the world that on page 21 of his 5 Years of Action 2003-2008 anniversary book, he had claimed to have supplied 'standard science laboratory equipment in physics, chemistry, biology and mathematics to all the 300 secondary schools in the state" it said.
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