Date Published: 01/13/10
Re: Lagos Open Parliament Richard Akinnola, Joe Igbokwe: Volunteer Propagandists for deceit
Our attention has been drawn to the orchestrated tirades and name-calling spree launched on us by the duo of Messrs Richard Akinnola and Joe Igbokwe in the media on behalf of the Lagos State Government defending the ineptitude of the government as performance. The Coalition Against Corrupt Leaders (CACOL) in collaboration with the People’s Action for Democracy (PAD) had presented in an open forum the true position of infrastructural and moral decay in Lagos state as accentuated by the average Lagosian who is at the receiving end of the jeopardy occasioned by the conjectures that are being presented in the media as dividends of democracy by the Lagos state government, its agents and collaborators over the last three and a half years. While the two jointly and variously accused us of mischief making, red herring, playing the bid of political opposition and deliberately discrediting good governance, they failed to present the Lagos public with the verifiable indices of good governance of their joint patron nor prove that the costs of the tokenistic performance are proportional to the quality and quantity of such projects and commensurate with the enormous resources available to the government to serve the best interest of the Lagos people.
Richard Akinnola in The Nation of December 31,2010, swore he did not obtain a judgment in a Lagos court to stop the Lagos House of Assembly from investigating various allegations of financial impropriety against the Lagos state government but he did not tell the world that it was not his court action that stopped the ad-hoc House committee from proceeding with the investigation of the allegations. Equally, Richard did not tell Lagosians the beneficiary(ies) of his litigation besides Lagos state government that has failed to defend the cost of its governance since inception nor state its position on the various allegation leveled against the government. This former civil society activist could only impute meanings into why CACOL’s action came close to elections but did not rationalize why his court action came at the period Lagosians asked their governor to justify the costs of the projects he executed with their money and other resources. Even if CACOL leader sought to join him as plaintiff in the suit, (as Akinnola claimed but is doubtful), did he find out if the man suspected a foul play before he backed out? Is he feigning ignorance of the fact that CACOL has a pending petition with the Lagos Assembly, the Governor and the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) on the issue of non-accountability of Lagos state government since between January and February 2010?
On his part, in the evening of the same day of Akinnola’s, Mr Joe Igbokwe, the Publicity Secretary of the Action Congress of Nigeria (CAN), the ruling party in Lagos state, is “pleading with well-to-do” Lagosians and Nigerians to help in identifying “Fashola’s monumental achievements in Lagos” in order “to box these people to a corner” and “daze them with facts and figures”… (PM News, December 31, 2010, page 6). If any facts and figures were available, would it not be available for all to see? Why would Mr Igbokwe require the services of “well-to-do” and not ordinary Lagosians to identify his so-called “Fashola’s legacies”? Could it be because it is this privileged class that colluded with the government to suppress people’s wills and benefitted from the class conflict? Could it be because the elitist governance meant it that all those who find Lagos too expensive and difficult to live should leave for elsewhere? Why is it difficult for this defender of nothing to itemize the achievements of Lagos government as a function of its annual budgets since it came to power, separate it from the ones financed by local and international business concerns, donors and funders and parallel it with the amount of public funds that go with it?
Meanwhile, we have done some home work and we see it that most law enforcement agencies are militarized and wicked in their operations; 90% of Lagos roads are riddled with potholes, bumps, craters and or floods; Lagos workers are badly motivated to the extent that its Labour movement, medical doctors in its hospitals and lecturers of its higher institutions had to go on incessant strikes to press home their demands for better conditions of service; several courses of study are under perpetual threats of losing accreditation for lack of basic requirements like libraries, laboratories and workshops which necessitates it that undergraduates have to do ‘alternative to practicals’ and lecturers attend to students under tree shades; pupils in its “Model” high schools sit three on 3ft bench and are average of eighty pupils per class; most public school buildings are dilapidated, leaky and without necessary equipment and materials for learning; social services like access roads, towing of faulty vehicles, public sanitation and traffic guide are heavily commercialized; and people still die in droves of preventable causes such as road accidents, fires and floods. While we have the ‘facts’ of under-maintained ornamental plants everywhere, reconstruction of Oshodi motor parks and marketing places, resurfacing and amended of some privatized commercialized roads and others under perpetual repairs and of course Igando-Iyana-Iba bridge that collapsed a few weeks after its commissioning, there are no ‘figures’ to back up their true costs. We are currently administering a questionnaire on the position and situation of Lagos State, its preliminary report speaks more on the state of the state’s degeneracy, the final report is most likely to accentuate this fact.
We therefore wish to advise Messrs Akinnola and Igbokwe to, rather than play to the gallery by their efforts to veil the manifest truth about the Decaying of Lagos by a deceitful and arrogant government; they should save their integrity by, at least, keep quiet!!
Debo Adeniran
Executive Chairman, CACOL
08037194969
dadnig@yahoo.com
www.debo-adeniran.blogspot.com |
