₦airaland Forum

Fashola’s Probe: True Face Exonerates Lagos Lawmakers
By Femi Durojaiye, 02.17.2010

The financial misappropriation allegation against the Lagos State Governor, Mr. Babatunde Fashola (SAN) and the State House of Assembly yesterday took a new twist as the architect of the controversy, 'The True Face of Lagos' stormed the Assembly and exonerated the lawmakers from the allegation of bribery.
Claiming that it was not in possession of any evidence to back the allegation against the Assembly, the group presented a letter of retraction to Speaker Adeyemi Ikuforiji.

According to Adebayo Adesina, who presented the letter on behalf of the group, the allegation against the House was becoming a snag and an inhibition to the investigation of the case, adding that since the group lacked evidence to prove the allegation, it therefore decided to retract the allegation, while standing by the ones made against Fashola.
"If out of say 30 allegations you see that one can cause a K-Leg, why don’t you remove that. That is one allegation we cannot prove; that is that this honourable House collected any money. Since we cannot prove it, we don’t want to overburden the House,” he said.

However, according to the letter dated February 15, 2010 and signed by Kasali Martins, Tunde George and Adesina, the group stated: “We want to state unequivocally that, in the affairs of men, there are bound to be errors of judgement or mistakes, and when people admit their mistakes, it is a sign of maturity and sincerity.

"Because we are men of honour who have the grace of God to admit when there is a need to change conclusion, in the face of lack of evidence, we shall not hesitate to do so. Presently, we hereby communicate to the House of Assembly that we have since discovered that those who collected money under the pretext of bribing the Assembly in order to cover up the governor’s glaring misdeeds and abuse of office, as exemplified in wanton graft and fraud of monumental proportions only scammed the governor. We have confirmed that they did not deliver the money to honourable members.

“For the avoidance of doubt, we would like to state categorically that we are dropping against Mr. Speaker and the Assembly that they collected money. We would like to place it on record that we regret all the inconvenience and discomfort this must have caused individual members, but it is important to stress that the Assembly must now use her position of high moral authority to hold the executive arm of government accountable.

“However, we are watching and monitoring the activities of members to see if there would be any black sheep that would sell its birthright for a mess of porridge. We can ill-afford to ‘siddon look’ and see Lagos the Centre of Excellence go down to the abyss.
“We are of the view that we are all stakeholders in the project called LAGOS, hence, all hands must be on deck to salvage it from the hands ravenous predators who are bent on milking the state dry. Lagos State is greater than any individual or group of individuals,” the letter read.

Adesina also stated that the group, without any fear of contradiction, firmly stood by the publication that came out as an advertorial in The Punch and PM News of Thursday, January 28, 2010, adding that “we have our facts, we are not trying to make mountain out of no hill.

“Lagos has under Governor Fashola become a cesspool of fraud, corruption, financial recklessness and economic mismanagement and we are ready to prove this,” he alleged.
Members, while reacting on the floor after the letter was read by the Clerk of the House, Taiwo Olatunji, insisted that the group must go back and retract their allegation against the House through publication as they did initially
Source: Thisday Newspapers (17-Feb-2010)


*****I have taken some restraints to comment on the allegations made by the True face of Lagos people because I felt in situations like this it is better to tread with caution. Seeing this has invalidated everything that has been said earlier. Frankly I am a Fashola fan but at the same time I beleive in probity but with this now, I can see that these people (True face of Lagos) are not really serious people afterall

May God bless this country immensely. Amin

Well!! As much as I will not like to join issues with people over what a man thinketh in his heart, I think I owe it a duty to put records straight so that we do not spread falsehood. It even irks me that journalism is getting irresponsible these days that a newspaper house like Vanguard could be part of this campaign of calumny
Sorry for the digression anyway
I have been born into the religion of Islam close to 40years now and I have never heard any Islamic cleric preach what your Rick Mathes said he was confronted it. I think the issue here is a personal thing. How you view life and your instincts too.

I went to xtian schools, had xtian indoctrination, worked in the midst of xtians. Never have we had cause to quarrell or fight over religion. I have brothers and sisters who are Xtians too and that does not stop us from being relations anymore. I attend church weddings and all that.

I think a Taliban is not just a guy from the middle east who ties a robe around his neck. A taliban is also a guy who is a Muslim, Xtian or whatever who thinks he can fight for God and can lampoon, distort facts and also spread falsehood about the other man's religion. In this category are Rick Mathes, Niger_d, CitizenY and co. Please in this age and generation, let us put our education to do things that add value and not senseless things like this. Religion is a way of life and Islam preaches TOLERANCE, BROTHERLINESS, FAITH, TRUTHFULNESS and the enjoins all human beings to be upright and I think Xtianity does same too

Please let's desist from spreading things like this on public forums where people of other climes read us. This could be part of the reason why US included us in the Terror Watch List because religious uprising starts from people spreading things like this all over the place.

May God forgive all of us. Amin

Tudor!!! Wetin??

You too beef person abeg. This guy has written a nice piece. Please let's give it to him. As a younger generation, let us revel in things like this that add value to our nationhood. This is a public forum where everyone reads. The whitemen are marvelled at the display of intelligence by an African on this site.

Please let's keep it up. The developed world keeps being what is because human beings there have always recognised the little progress made by its people. Let's try to follow in their footsteps. My Yoruba people used to say person wey wan born pikin must rejoice with person wey just born


Jarus, you're doing a great job. Keet it up bros

What we proposed with good intention is that one of the two vice presidents should be from the geo-political zone where the president comes from so that in the event of incapacitation, resignation or death, the vice president from the incumbent president’s zone would serve out the remaining years for the zone. But unfortunately, those who believed that they know better than the rest of the people came with their blackmail and what resulted was the throwing away of the baby with the bath water

I was expecting this. When Mantu came on air giving support to Yar'Adua some days ago, I knew he was going to put an agenda. How can we be talking of this kind of option in the 21st century? To add sore to injury, one of the VPs will have to come from the President's region. I think it is high time we tell all these PDP people that enough is enough with this zoning arrangement. We need a human being who is nationalistic enough rather than an ethnic leaders. The zoning arrangement is alien to our constitution. A PDP contraption is bound to fail. Every Nigerian is qualified to aspire to the highest office in the land. Enough is enough

Jakumo,

I have always had lots of respect for your views but this time, you missed it. When issues of religion come up, let's try as much as possible to avoid making sensational comments. Knowledge is supposed to be used to create harmony and not something used to conjure up short-sighted views. Let's be careful with what we say as educated people so that the uneducated would not feel like missing nothing not to have gone to school because the viewsof educated people are not different from theirs

If you are a christian so be it. If you cannot be a muslim, respect other people's mode of worship. Afterall you are a xtian by reason of your birth. We seaprate women because we beleive that a mosque is not a place to be distracted. That is our views. If xtianity differs, then it is their ways.

As younger generation of Nigeria, we should learn to live in harmony and not cause mayhem by the things we say about other people. A single view about life is worse than being uneducated. Get educated my brother

WilyWily,

That statement of yours is unbecoming. I think we should be careful with those things we say in a forum like this. As educated people we should not say things that will make people who never saw the four walls of a classroom not to feel sorry for not having the opportunity because those who have are not in anyway better in their reasoning

This is a public form and we should apply decorum and not allow emotions rule our reasoning. That statement of yours is very unfortunate. Good christians don't talk the way you do. People like us grew in the midst of christians, went to christian schools, read christian bible and all that and have mostly christian friends and they don't talk the way you do.

Learn to be toerant and treat each human conduct on the merits of it and not generalise. Maybe you need to read Half of the yellow sun by Chmamanda Adichie. It would help your sense of judgement

Kobokunkie

I as much as I do not think it is right to rejoice over the death of a human being. I think the person that opened the thread did have a point. If these guys had raised our healthcare programme, there will av been no need junketting all over the world to get medical care. How many SA or Ghanaian leaders have gone abroad for treatment the way we do. The fact remains that if a man has left what he ought to do today undone, then if anything bad comes out of it then the person is liable for anything untoward that comes from it. Yar Adua is costing us a whole lot of tax-payers money being in Saudi Arabia or wherever he is and someone is telling me that our leaders are not responsible for avoidable deaths going on here. Nigeria has one of the highest rate of avoidable deaths in the whole earth plane

Everyone has a right to hold an opinion but I think we should also allow other people to air their views. If you do not want to read, please move on to another thread. Nairaland has got a whole lot of threads to read from. Let's call a spade a spade, these our leaders are causing us a whole lot of hardship

Kudos to the opener of the thread for whetting our appetite with such a nice piece.

God Bless Nigeria

There is a universal phenomenon called Freedom of Speech and Expression.

As a human being I do not have any problem with that but the way it is being used by our so-called politicians baffle me. I do not support extreme measures in dealing with a bad situation but I think it is high time as citizens of this country we take our destiny in our own hands. I watched on TV the constitution review committee visit to geo-political zones of the country and was surprised that in 2009 (21st century at that) we are still clamouring for more state creation.

Is it that our politicians cannot do critical thinking? or is it that they are so self-centred that they cannot debate on what will be beneficial for us all? Things like electoral reforms is no more an issue? Things like how long a president can stay away from office before the seat is declared vacant (so that the aondoakaas of this world will not insulting our sensibilities. Things like what we should do to anyone who steals government money. Things like reducing the number of chop-make-I-chop political parties that we have. Things like reducing the power at the centre, revenue allocation between the federating units (federal, state and local governments) and a whole lot of other things that affect us all.

I was full of shame that I belong to this kind of country where people's shame got burnt with the bushfire. Anyway, we have to go on.

Do we actually need more states? Is this state creation not part of our problems. What income will a state like Yobe , Imo or Osun generate to pay the growing population of workers or states like Imo that does not generate anything. What are the so-called governors that we have now doing? Is it not a shame that Alao-Akala is a governor of a state like OYO? or an Isa Yuguda that the only thing he knows about is his responsibility to the President or an Uduaghan who cannot even recognise why he was 'selected' to be the governor of a state

When are we going to grow please? when will this madness stop for God's sake.

Suggestions are welcome from well-meaning Nigerians on the way forward.

I guess we should be careful with the way we respond to what we read inside newspapers. Compass Newspapers has never been known to report the truth. This is a calculated attempt at misinforming as well as distabilising the polity. I think as well-meaning Nigerians we should take the news with a pinch of salt. I just checked BRF site now and still saw him and BAT at the Eid praying ground. BAT is a man of history and he knows what it means to engage in squabbles with an incumbent especially a performing one.

If Nigeria does not have a performing President (to people's expectation) at least we in Lagos are blessed with BRF who is giving leadership meaning we should be thankful that against all odds there is something to cheer about. More grease to the elbow of the governor

I have always been an apostle of optimism that there is indeed hope for the future. When I stand among people praising the level of debate that goes on here, I get condemnation because some people never see anything good coming out of nairaland. I scoff at such comments based on the way I see tomorrow and not now.
I am yoruba and cannot deny that fact. Our elders used to say that the morning shows the day.

I am not much of a contributor to debates on nairaland but I think I have to chip in one or two things here judging from the way this topic of Bode George is degenerating.

I think it is high time the moderator starts screening posts that emanate from contributors. Our younger generation should not be throwing brick-bats on ethnic sentiments. If there is an issue, let us access it objectively and not conjure things up that is intended at hurting people.

Frankly, this post by mekus should be condemned by all well meaning Nigerians. This is the web where people all over the world read us and when people who will be leaders of tomorrow think and talk the way some people do here, people of other climes have no choice than to laugh at us as people who don't have hope for the future. Our action of today, will dictate how our tomorrow will be.

There is no way a Yoruba man will do without an Ibo man and no way an Ibo man will do without the Hausa man. We should look at ways of building rather than disintegrating ourselves further.

Please mekus, swallow the humble pie and apologise to the whole house for error of judgement. May God bless all of us

I doff my hat for this guy. He seems to me a realist. This guy represents the ideas section of the tomorrow we crave for in our politics. Politics is based on ideas and should be played as such.

Forget the party he belongs to, his ideas are very much objective. This has convinced me that something good can still come out of this country and even the bastardised PDP

God bless us all

I don't think there should be any apprehension on the setup of an Islamic bank. We should be tolerant of ourselves as people of the same country. There is a world phenomenon called freedom of association. let's all imbibe it. It is insinuations like this that are being raised here that contributes more to our backwardness.

Right now banks operate products that are interest free ran by muslims and no one sees anything wrong with that. Banks being ran by xtians operate these products. So what's the fuss about muslims putting their money in banks that fully support their beliefs. I won't be surprised if a Pastor of a church sits on the board of the so-called Islamic bank. Please let's be objective and not be guardian of religion. It is only God that can judge. Let's all focus on our personal interaction with God and learn to respect other people's beliefs.

God bless us all

Ajara Ewuro must be a retrogressive person. We should learn to appreciate small gestures. Every great revolution the world over started by miniature moves by certain individuals. One is free to his own opinion but please let's keep saner ones and not digress from the real issues.

People like you do not belong to the new Nigeria we all are craving for

Presido1.

Please let's look at things properly before raising alarm. The clock in reference was some quarter to 1pm. As you can see, the arm on 9 is the longer arm (stretching to cover 9).

The fact remains that Ribadu did visit Gani's home