By Muhammed Saheed
A chieftain of the Social Democratic Party (SDP) in Kwara State, Comrade Abdul-Rahoof Bello-Labelabe, has called the attention of the state governor, AbdulRahman AbdulRazaq, to malicious information disseminated in a pamphlet titled “Action Speaks Louder than Voice: Achievements of Governor AbdulRahman AbdulRasaq in 3 years (May 2019 – May 2022).”
Comrade Bello-Labelabe made this known in an open letter written to the state government.
He said the claim of providing 100 units of students’ furniture to the LGEA schools in the town had been fact-checked to be a barefaced lie.
Read the letter in full below:
Your Excellency,
Top of the day to you, Sir.
May I draw the attention of Your Excellency to the lies, barefaced lies, and provocative information that was disseminated against Omupo about the purported delivery of “100 units of Students’ Furniture to LGEA Schools” in the town.
Sir, it is flabbergasting to note that this contentious and malicious information about the Omupo community is contained in Pg.9, S/N 35, of a pamphlet titled, “Action Speaks Louder than Voice: Achievements of Governor AbdulRahman AbdulRasaq in 3 years (May 2019 – May 2022)”, with a beautiful photo of Your Excellency embossed on it and which has gone viral both printed and e-copies on Social media platforms.
As a concerned senior citizen and a Chieftain of the Social Democratic Party (SDP), I, in collaboration with a few patriotic others, have taken the pains of oversight responsibility to confirm the veracity of Your Excellency’s claim with a view to evaluating Your Excellency’s campaign promises and actual delivery on the mandate to the community that gratuitously voted Your Excellency in 2019.
Alas! The search for the “100 units of students furniture” in the two LGEA Schools in Omupo has been fruitless. It has been like looking for a proverbial black goat at night! I can confirm that no furniture has been delivered to any of the LGEA Schools in Omupo as of Friday, November 25, 2022. Isn’t this shocking and embarrassing to Your Excellency?
In furtherance to our efforts in searching for the truth, our team of investigators interrogated the duo, Hon. AGF Salahudeen, representing Omupo Constituency at the State Assembly, and also the TIC Vice-chair of Ifelodun LGA. Unfortunately, no meaningful explanation could be extracted from either of them as each claimed ignorance of such delivery to any school in Omupo.
Political/Financial Implications
With a sense of responsibility, may I put it to Your Excellency that this act of commission or omission might have been presented as innocuous by some in-house political vultures, taking undue advantage of Your Excellency’s inaccessibility, such perversity has far-reaching consequences for your administration and personality profiles in the anal of our political history.
First and foremost, enlightened minds may query whether the project was duly appropriated. If yes, what happens to the budgetary allocation for the “missing 100-unit furniture” meant for Omupo?
In this circumstance, we have legitimate fears and suspicion of sharp practices by some bureaucrats to use the fictitious supply of “100-unit Students furniture” to Omupo as a cover-up to make the “unbalanced” financial records “balances!”
What Next?
Your Excellency, Sir, as the elected Governor of Kwara State, exercising your mandate under the provisions of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, 1999 (as amended), you have a duty to urgently look into this matter with view to righting the wrongs in this ugly situation.
Otherwise, the following options are open as last resort:
a). We may approach a Court of competent jurisdiction with a writ of Mandamus to compel your administration to do the needful.
b). A formal complaint may be sent to the appropriate anti-graft Agency to wash the dirty linen in public.
However, it is our opinion that the administrative option is the most plausible and dignified.
It is our hope that Your Excellency would not hesitate to hearken to this voice of reason for the sake of posterity.
Thanks for reading.
Yours faithfully,
Signed:
Comrade Abdul-Rahoof Bello-Làbẹ́làbẹ́
Omupo Ward,
Ifelodun LGA,
Kwara State.
