ABEOKUTA: The Ogun State Chapter of the Coalition of United Political Parties (CUPP) has lamented what it termed acute malgovernance, maladministration, cluelessness and insensitivity of Governor Dapo Abiodun, submitting that these have plunged the residents into darkness and crushing poverty
The CUPP specifically claimed that the Abiodun-led administration in the Gateway State has successfully moved 68.1 percent of people living in the state, apparently from their relatively comfort zone into excruciating poverty by jettisoning quality and responsive governance.
The Coalition accused him of “acute malgovernance, maladministration, insensitivity and deliberate institutionalized economic rascality and slavery of the good people of Ogun State by the APC controlled administration under Governor Dapo Abiodun in the last 24 months.”
The chairman of CUPP in the state, Dr. Femi Sholuade, who passed the damning verdict on Wednesday at a press conference in Abeokuta, said the body had also observed that following massive neglect of infrastructural development by the Governor, major roads in the state capital have left in a very deplorable state.
Soluade expressed worry over what he alleged as the Governor’s manifest penchant for disregarding due diligence in the awards of contracts, declaring that “he now engages quacks and unqualified people outside Ogun State to do all manners of shoddy jobs.”
According to him, the governor has been awarding civil and building construction jobs without bidding processes, while quacks with no Certificate of Registration or known registered office addresses have been the beneficiaries.
“All our roads are in a calamitous and dangerous state as a lot of the contractors who are the beneficiaries of awards only erected their sign boards as a decoy but they have no equipment to work.
“Governor Dapo Abiodun’s cluelessness has also plunged Ogun State in total darkness whereas so many states in the federation are evolving into solar or going into independent Power Projects in order to improve their economy fortune with stable supplies of electricity.
“Governor Dapo Abiodun administration has successfully made 68.1 per cent of people living in Ogun State poor via the multidimensional poverty level across states in Nigeria,” Sholuade stated.
He said that the CUPP in Ogun State has engaged the service of legal practitioners and consultants to demand under the Freedom of Information Acts 2011 from the Ministry of Finance under Dapo Okubadejo and Ministry of Housing under Jagunmolu Akande Omoniyi, to make available all required documents and information on the proof of payment and names of persons allotted houses in various housing schemes across the state, not later than seven days.
“The CUPP under my leadership has taken steps to report to the EFCC and the ICPC all road contractors who for reasons best known to them took government money but criminally abandoned such roads. And we shall also report all the various unethical financial under-dealings going on under the Governor Dapo Abiodun-led and APC controlled administration in Ogun State, and the Governor should be prepared to meet us in Court
“The people of Ogun State deserve the best in 2027 as APC under this administration has fallen and failed woefully in all ramifications”, Sholuade submitted.
You’re Political Jobbers Playing To the Gallery – Ogun Govt
However, the government has described the comment as the ranting of political jobbers and fraudsters dazed by the governor’s rising political profile.
The government, which described the Femi Sholuade-led CUPP as a gang of political obscurantists desperately seeking for relevance by concocting voodoo figures, challenged the coalition to release the statistical evidence backing its submission, or remain silent forever in the gutter of irrelevance to which it belongs.
In a statement issued by Hon Kayode Akinmade, Special Adviser on Media and Strategy to the Governor, the government said it was not surprised by the antics of corrupt and perfidious individuals who can only thrive in mushroom parties which they used as meal tickets. The statement said:
“Were it not for the need to disabuse the minds of innocent people who may be taken in by CUPP and its tales by the moonlight, it would have been entirely unnecessary to dignify the utter gibberish by CUPP and its sponsors with a reply, but we owe the nation a record to curtail the spread of fake news released with intent to create chaos in Ogun State.
“CUPP and its sponsors are just playing to the gallery because some politicians gave them money to rubbish the achievements of the governor in various sectors. Most of these so-called CUPP members lack integrity; they should be disregarded. Only the blind will fail to see achievements.
“Their hearts being full of mischief and evil, we understand why CUPP and its sponsors are willfully and deliberately blind, and cannot see the numerous achievements of Governor Dapo Abiodun, for which the good people of Ogun State remain deeply appreciative.
“CUPP’s statement is nothing but a vainglorious, irredeemably illiterate and utterly mischievous concoction that can only excite ignoramuses. Just how can anyone who claims sanity say that a Governor who has been radically transforming Ogun State and made it an investment destination has plunged the populace into poverty by so doing?,” the government said.