National Assembly Probe of Strange Awards Had Vindicated Our Earlier Alarm

We are vindicated by the probe of the recent curious and undeserved merit awards given to selected local council bosses by a group that claimed to be National Assembly Committee on Local Government.

We had raised the alarm that none among those selected in Ekiti State added any value to grassroot administration. They are visionless and invertebrate political hand tools who are mere vassal lords, through whom their State Executive entrepreneurs siphon public funds.

We knew the award was not genuine and could not be organized by patriotic and disciplined characters, with the inclusion of Ado-Ekiti Council boss as an awardee.

Mrs. Tosin Aluko, Ado-Ekiti Council boss confirmed our revelation that she was an anathema to a merit award when she was reported in the dailies to have manhandled the phony organizers when she was not accorded the overall winner, after parting with several wards of Ekiti people’s naira.

We knew that only absentee National Assembly members who had been holidaying in a God forsaken place would recognize these Ekiti non performers and interlopers who stood the nation’s constitution on its head to occupy their council seats.

It is regrettable and dishonorable for supposed honorable members of the National Assembly to hawk and sell merit awards to venal local locusts whose contribution to their Council Areas are anguish and pestilence.

We believe that something cannot grow out of nothing, so a National Assembly that had never enacted a progressive bill would reward illicit council bosses who are treasury rustlers.

Ado –Ekiti, the council area of one of these strange awardees had been turned into a glorified village square where intra- town link roads are pot hole infested with despair engraved on the faces of the residents, while billions of the councils money are daily helmed to the skirt and blouse of an uncaring self- acclaimed Mayoress of an illusory metropolitan.

The conduct of the Ado-Ekiti whimsical Council boss had shown where her prowess lies and it reinforced the public opinion that she is a Mayoress of Roughnecks. Her Ilejemeje counterpart is as despicable. He visibly snatched ballot boxes at the recently conducted Senatorial rerun election in Ekiti misdeeds. One of them once commissioned an uncompleted road at Ikoyi-Ikere Ekiti with a State State.

The mere publication of an award for these local usurpers had raised a public outcry in Ekiti, fueling their anger against their official.

One of them ferried away millions of naira through imaginary bursary awards for nonexistent students. Ado-Ekiti Local Government has the biggest debt profile among Nigeria and West Africa council areas. These council bosses are daily sacking council workers who are not only perceived to have links with their political opponents but those whose houses are near their enemies’.

We hail the resolve to probe this merchandised award and we expect those behind the scam to be brought to book.

The National Assembly is not a territory where anti-corruption tentacles could not attract culprits, so the EFCC should wade into this unparliamentary undertaking. Every Nigerian must submit to transparent conduct so that the nation’s image could be redeemed, if only for the sake of Federal Government’s rebrand initiative.

Yemi Adaramodu

Director of Communications

Kayode Fayemi Campaign Organisation

November 11, 2009