Olusegun Agagu

Following the recent electoral petition tribunal ruling removing the de facto administration in Ondo State Nigeria, concerns have heightened that the de-legitimized leadership of Governor Olusegun Kokumo Agagu may have embarked on an extensive systematic looting and systemic grounding of the state.

Pointblanknews.com at the weekend received a tip off from an insider in the Agagu’s administration concerning an hurried executive order made by the embattled Governor last Thursday that an “urgent auctioning” of the multi Billion Naira equipment at the Government Printing Press, Alagbaka, Akure, should be implemented within the next one week.

The advanced technology, Beilomatic Printing Machine, with a market value of an estimated N3 Billion ($30 Million) seems to be the target of an alleged shady auction process and the receiver of which have been pre-determined by Governor Agagu.

Sources told Pointblanknews.com that the Beilomatic Printer which was acquired during the tenure of late Michael Adekunle Ajasin in the second republic had a mega capacity for producing 50,000 exercise books per day. For most of the time during Agagu’s administration, the machine was rendered redundant as it became the prime objective of the Governor to prop up proxies who will help him to personally take possession of the equipment something a cross-section of the state indigenes say they would need to subsidize cost of books for their children.

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Insiders claimed that the Governor recently renewed his interest in expropriating the machine after an expert assisted in putting it back into effective. The machine was said to have produced full high definition colors something that wet the greedy appetite of top functionaries of Agagu’s administration.

“The Governor is arguing that Government has no business getting involved in commercial activities and that the private sector is better equipped for such enterprise. But we know that it is only a decoy for his deep rooted appetite to bankrupt this state and the people who overwhelmingly rejected him with the ballot,” a source within the Agagu’s administration told pointblanknews.com

Governor Agagu is not new to coveting state properties. He is linked with the Olokola Gas Project alongside Governor Gbenga Daniel, Ogun State Governor. The gas project, to be situated at the waterside boundary between Ogun and Ondo states, was a joint project by the two states with the involvement of some multi-national oil companies which were said to have invested billions to ensure its take-off .

Meanwhile, the Ondo State chapter of the Labour Party (LP) raised an alarm on the massive looting of Government properties and assets especially the depletion of the fleet of brand news cars recently purchased by government by aides of the embattled governor, Dr. Olusegun Agagu.

Specifically, LP in a release issued on Sunday by its Director of Press, Mr. Kolawole Olabisi, while fingering Agagu as being the brain behind the sleaze, disclosed that already, billions of naira are being fleeced out of the State in form of hurriedly packaged deals with some commercial banks in the State which had already made available over N10bn available to the State Government in the last two weeks. It further alleged that several companies owned by the State are being hurriedly put up for sale by the administration while the entire Government has virtually been stripped bare of valuables in an orgy of looting that had trailed the sack of Agagu by the Justice Garba Nabaruma-led Election Petition Tribunal

Says Olabisi: “As we are writing this release now, the auction of government vehicles including several Sports Utilities Vehicles (SUVs Jeeps) and Toyota cars which were purchased and had hitherto been packed at the Government pool for over three months has commenced under the direct supervision of Mr. Femi Agagu, the Chief of Staff and younger brother to the Governor. This it stated was aside from over 100 of such vehicles already taken to the Agagu’s homes in Ibadan and Lagos (Ikoyi, Magoro GRA etc)for ‘safe keeping’.

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“And interestingly enough, smart aides of the governor, who felt left out in the on-going high-tech deals have devised an ingenious but devious means of cashing in on the confusion that had greeted the declaration of Dr Olusegun Mimiko of the LP as the Governor elect by the Election Tribunal penultimate Friday, by reporting the ‘theft’ of their brand new official Toyota cars by armed robbers.

“On the day Agagu was asked to vacate office for Dr Mimiko by the Tribunal on Friday, July 25, this year, Adedayo Omolafe, the Chairman of Akure South local government area, and one of Agagu’s acolytes, reported the supposed stealing of his official car. The very next day (Saturday), Yele Akinya, the Special Assistant to the Deputy Governor also announced the snatching of his own official car by robbers. Haba! This is nothing but deceit and a way of taking away government properties in their eventual second and final sacking by the Judiciary,”

While vowing to make available documentary evidence of the massive and systematic plundering of the State resources in the last few months by the Agagu government in the fullness of time, the LP however warned banks and civil servants not to be used by the out-going Agagu regime saying, any precipitate borrowing by the present administration particularly during the last six months and especially in this transition period will certainly be revisited at the appropriate time in the overall interest of the people of our dear State.

For the civil servants, the LP has this admonition: “We specifically want to remind such civil servants who are wittingly and unwittingly being used to loot the harried people of Ondo State resources to take into cognizance what recently happened during the Power and Steel probe panel at the House of Representatives when Agagu, during his testimonies as a former Power and Steel Minister, told the panel that it was the civil servants in his Ministry then that were responsible for Government paying $6.5bn to unregistered companies. This is very instructive and would definitely be their lot when Agagu is eventually thrown out of the office he currently occupies at the Appeal Court. The people of Ondo State are watching and God Himself is watching and in the fullness of time, everybody would be made to account for their deeds and misdeeds.”

 

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