Gov Makinde and the dance around N63.4b govt House renovation 

..A caveat to skeptics

By, Shola Abebiji, Ibadan

In Nigeria, terrible leaders are often seen perpetuating evil under pretence. They are easily known through the way they tend to bring others down. There’s nothing good they see in others. All they see is needless competition fueled by complexes.

The story of Governor Seyi Makinde and his attempt to drag Senator David Umahi, the Minister for Works into his diminishing political fortune has once again attracted the attention and concerns of Nigerians.

In the video, he personally circulated online, thinking he was getting at Umahi, Makinde unapologetically accused the Minister for Works of “dancing around when asked cost per kilometre on the ongoing Lagos-Calabar Coastal Highway”.

Same Governor Seyi Makinde of Oyo State had spent a whopping N63.4 billion for the renovation of the Agodi Government House in Ibadan. When confronted over such a ridiculous amount of money for a mere renovation of an already existing government House, Makinde after dancing around, only said it was attributable to foreign exchange rate.

Maybe we can now compare Makinde who used N63.4b to renovate an already existing government House to Umahi who built a new world class government House and international airport with less amount that Makinde used in his so-called renovation.

Makinde’s project was reconstructing buildings, few roads within the government House, already constructed before and such amount of money was said to have been spent? Yet Makinde has not been able to come out and tell Oyo people how much per kilometre of the project he spent their fortune on.

When confronted again, Makinde attributed the high cost of the renovation to the volatility of the naira against the dollar, citing the impact of foreign exchange rates on the project’s financial framework. 

He even went ahead to explain that a $200 million loan secured for the Ibadan Urban Flood Management Project has seen its monthly servicing cost rise from N700 million to N3 billion due to currency fluctuations.

Why was Makinde dancing around the question begging for answers? Nobody asked him about the fluctuation of Naira to dollar and how the serving of  the 200USD he borrowed for a project rose from N700 to N3b, the question is how much per kilometre and cost per contract that gulped the entire N63.4b?

What Makinde did to Oyo people is the highest level of profligacy and dancing around the future of the people of his state.There is nothing that can be used to qualify the humongous project sum, other than high level of insensitivity and impunity at the time his people are living below poverty level.

Aside the Makinde’s alleged  total cost of renovating the government House, one may question the priority given to the renovation when compared to other pressing issues, such as infrastructure development and poverty alleviation in Oyo State. 

The real dancer on the tomb of the founders of the great Oyo and of course their offsprings who died out of hunger and preventable circumstances is Governor Seyi Makinde. He did not only dance on their tombs, he went ahead to mortgage the future of the living. 

Let somebody ask Makinde when he is visiting Arise TV Morning Show to answer the questions surrounding his senseless looting in Oyo and cost per kilometre in the N63.4b government House renovation and other matters thereto.

Until he clears himself of this mess, no one will take him seriously.

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Note: This write-up is solely an opinion of the writer.