…From Dele Ogunyemi, Ibadan…
Oyo State government has said that former governor of the state, Senator Rashidi Ladoja and his surrogates masquerading as anti-corruption crusaders have no moral right to accuse anyone of corruption until the former governor has effectively dispensed with the N6 billion fraud allegation brought against him by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) which is currently in the Appeal Court.
It made this known in a reaction to an allegation by Mr. Lanre Ogundipe, one of the aides of the former governor, who is also an Accord Party chieftain, that there were shady deals in some road construction projects of the state government.
The reaction, signed by the governor’s Special Assistant on Media, Mr. Wale Sadeeq, asked the former governor, whom it said was on bail for corruption, to face his corruption charges squarely rather than engage in what it called a Pull Him Down campaign.
According to the government, the Accord Party and the so-called anti-corruption organization wilfully muddled up the facts of the dualization of Dugbe/Magazine/Eleyele road project to achieve the ulterior motive of setting the people against the government.
The government said that the N7 billion quoted by the party as cost of the 7.4 km road construction included cost of compensation for demolition, relocation and installation of new water pipes, consultancy, relocation of PHCN/NITEL cables, street lighting and many other facilities that go with the road construction.
“It is the usual serpentine practice of Senator Ladoja. He knows that his name was already soiled due to the N6 billion fraudulent sales of Oyo State government shares which the EFCC is alleging he pocketed and thus uses a surrogate to pose as an anti-corruption agent. Our government is too urbane to be involved in this imaginary act,” the government said.
On the allegation of engagement of consultants to collect the state government taxation, the government said this falls in line with Ladoja’s modes of operation of seeking to confuse the public with misinformation.
“Let Ladoja and his surrogate, Ogundipe, point at anywhere, including the federal government, where tax agents outside of government, are not being employed to collect tax. It is a known fact all over the world that no government can effectively collect taxation using civil servants. In the past where this was done, there were allegations of government agents pocketing proceeds of the taxation,” it said.
On the allegation that charges being paid by motorcyclists were paid into private accounts, the state government denounced this as laughable, stating that the government was in total control of the said accounts, which it said was non-chequeable and challenged Accord Party and its surrogate to provide any evidence that any individual/organization had access to the account.
The state government said that it was one of the most humane administrations in the history of the state, having built modern markets for displaced street traders and is constructing roads whose quality had never been known in the history of the state.