Ekiti, APC flay Olubolade over N20bn bond claim

[Mirror]

•Group warns against destroying projects in Oyo The Ekiti State Government and the ruling All Peoples Congress (APC) yesterday flayed the Minister of Police Affairs, Caleb Olubolade, over his comment that the N20 billion bond the government sourced from the capital market was being spent on frivolities.

The state Commissioner for Information, Mr. Tayo Ekundayo, described the minister's comment as "insincere and myopic." Interim APC Chairman, Chief Jide Awe, wondered why the minister "could display wanton ignorance of, and unbridled naivety about state affairs particularly in the area of finances."

It will be recalled that Olubolade, a Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) governorship aspirant, claimed in a statement signed by his media aide, Mr. Taiwo Olatunji, that Governor Kayode Fayemi's administration was spending the N20 billion bond on projects that did not boost the state's economy.

But Ekundayo, in a statement issued yesterday in Ado-Ekiti, explained that the bond was being spent on worthwhile projects. He said: "The state government had no option than go for it as Ekiti is number 35 on the list of the nation's revenue allocation and the administration needed money to fast-track many developmental projects so as to fulfill the promises made to the people."

The commissioner wondered how Olubolade would have got money to do what Governor Fayemi had done in the face of limited resources available to the state.

He, however, advised the minister to "focus on how to solve the issue of security threat in some parts of the country by virtue of his current position and stop criticising the laudable projects that had positively impacted the lives of the people for which the Fayemi's administration had been receiving commendations.

The APC chairman, Awe, who said taking loans to execute projects is universally accepted practice, explained that the bond became necessary for developmental purposes in view of the huge debt burden that the Fayemi's administration inherited from "the inept, visionless and patently corrupt" PDP government in 2010.

Awe said in a statement in Ado-Ekiti that "but for prudent management of resources and ingenious statecraft of Dr Fayemi, Ekiti could not have attained the current allround development which has made the state a cynosure of all visionary eyes today".

In a related development, a group under the newly formed APC in Oyo State, Team Oyo, has warned the opposition against destroying projects executed with the tax payers' money

The group's coordinator, Sikiru Akinola, in a statement issued yesterday in Ibadan, said the destruction of the barrier at one of the entrances of the newly commissioned Mokola overhead bridge was not only unpatriotic, but bad for a state which had passed through many turbulent years.

He said the destruction could be traceable to members of the Accord Party as they had, in the past, been apprehended for destroying infrastructural facilities at different sites in the state.

Akinola wondered why a party, whose leader was a former governor, would stoop so low to the extent of destroying legacies which the people ought to preserve for the next generation.

He said: "Why we believe that it is normal for people to be jealous of their opponent achievements, we also believe that the best way to go about it is to employ due process in laying our own legacy and not through destruction and propaganda."

National Mirror