OSOGBO – Governor Rauf Aregbesola of Osun state has been warned against
selling the property belonging to the good people of the State to his Lagos friends and associates under the guise of Public Private Partnership (PPP) and Concession arrangement, saying that such arrangement was not in the best interest of the state.
A group of civil group in the State, the Civil Societies Coalition fo the Emancipation of Osun State (CSCEOS) gave the warning on Sunday, insisting that it was a deliberate attempt to expand the business and investment frontiers of Aregbesola and his cronies after leaving office in 2018.
The group said this while reacting to the recent announcement of the State government plan to concede the M.K.O. Abiola Airport to a private Company, AWOL International Investment to the tune of N69 billion, which the Company
would return it back to the State after 30years of sealing and signing
the self-centred agreement.
The group which has been in the vanguard of being the voice of the
voiceless against the mis-governance of the present administration in
the State, however, rejected the concession arrangement on the Airport
by the State government and warned the AWOL International
Investment against accepting such a Greek offer at the tail end of
Aregbesola’s administration, adding that the the next administration
would revoke such an illegal and anti-peoples agreement.
It said that the call became imperative because Aregbesola has been in
the habit of prodigal leader of giving out the State property to his
Lagos friends and associates which he could not give money, out of the
State meager resources due to the present financial quagmire putting
the state into by the present administration, noting that Aregbesola
has dashed out landed property of the State like old Ministry of
Agriculture and Natural resources, Ilobu road, Osogbo, demolished
Fakunle Comprehensive High School, Gbongan road, Osogbo and host of
others to his Lagos associates at a cheaper rate.
This was contained in a statement issued by the group’s Directorate of
Media and Strategy, which was signed by its Chairman, Comrade Adeniyi,
Alimi Sulaiman and made available to newsmen on Sunday.
He called on Aregbesola to account for the N3.6billion earlier spent on
the Airport project, alleging that Aregbesola has turned the different
white elephant projects of his administration like Airport, Market
and so on, into conduit pipe where the meager resources of the State
were flight to Lagos State.
The group further alleged that the State government came up with the
idea of concessioning the Airport project into the hand of private
investment to cover up the mismanagement of N3.6 billion earlier
claimed to be spent on the “nothing-to- show project”, calling on the
rubber stamp State House of Assembly under the headship of Mr. Najeem
salaam to investigate the said N3.6 billion wasted on the phantom
project before the concession idea.
It then called on the anti-graft agency, the Economic and Financial
Crimes Commission (EFCC) to beam searchlight on how the State
government mismanaged the huge amount of public funds on a project and
later came up with the idea of concession after failure to account for
earlier spending on the same project.
According to the group: “As a formidable group and stakeholder in Osun
State projects, we would not fold our arms and watch a prodigal
government like Rauf Aregbesola’s administration to be selling our
property to its friends, associates and cronies.
“We have concluded arrangement to approach the Court of competent jurisdiction to stop this illegal concession arrangement of M.K.O. Abiola International Airport to AWOL Investment Company because we have discovered a lot of impropriety in the arrangement”.
