We’ve Launched Investigation Into 10,000 Abandoned Projects…Why We Nicknamed 10th Senate As ‘Corrective Senate’… Gov Adeleke Deserves ‘Our Support’–Senator Lere Oyewumi
An investigation into abandoned projects in the country ‘is underway’ and projects in this category are over 10,000, Deputy Minority Leader of the Senate, Senator Kamorudeen Lere Oyewumi, has said.
While submitting that cases of abandoned projects across the country has become a cause for concern, the senator has also promised that the investigation launched into this by the senate would produce desired results and correct the situation.
Senator Lere Oyewumi , who disclosed this while talking to journalists including Team@orientactualmags.com at his residence in Ikire ,Osun state on Friday, also asserted that the 10th comprises individuals, who are knowledgeable and highly experienced when it comes to ‘legislative duties and responsibilities’.
Oyewumi PhD, who was the Chairman of Irewole local government, Osun state for three terms, and a one-time Commissioner, National Population Commission, NPC, is an indigene of Ikire, and he currently represents Osun West in the senate.
The federal lawmaker , who disclosed that the 10th Senate has been nicknamed as ‘Corrective Senate’, added that having completed the ‘committee assignment’ process and already had senators assigned to committees ,they have gotten off to a good start by focusing on cases of abandoned projects while adding that the investigation ‘is underway’.
‘Members of the 10th Senate have been assigned to various committees. The senate is in recess, and we would be returning on September 25th to start legislative activities with a fresh vigour. I want to tell you something. we have nicknamed the 10th senate as a corrective senate.
Before we came up with this, it was as a result of so many observations and brainstorming. Most of the people that are in the 10th Senate have gotten elected for the 3rd term, 4th term. They were part of past administrations. So, we have seen things that are wrong and if we see that something is wrong, we have to change the way we do it. If not, we will keep on getting the same result. If we ourselves have christened the 10th senate as a corrective senate, it has been made known that what to expect from us will be different from what you have been seeing before. Let me just give you one hint, we discovered that across the country, there are more than 10,000 abandoned projects. These are projects that have gone through all the required processes and it is assumed in the reckoning of government that these have been delivered to the people of the communities in question.
But, alas, when you get there, nothing has been done. I was at the Osun State University, Ikire campus yesterday, I was later at the Federal College of Education, Iwo, yesterday, at the Ikire campus, there was a contract that was awarded in 2010, and it is uncompleted till now. Lecture theatre. So if you get to Tetfund, Osun State University, Ikire campus supposed to have about 5 lecture theatres. There’s only one functioning there. So we said we did this, four years ago. We don’t want to see such abandoned projects again. They have asked us to go home. What I’m doing is what they asked us to do.
They said ‘go home and find out all the abandoned projects in your districts. Collate them, let us come back and find out why they’re abandoned. Who is at fault? Is it the ministry? Is it the contractor? Is it that they have taken the money and not doing the job?’
You’ll hear from us very soon. Somebody will be responsible for it and that person will not go scot free. These are part of the corrections we want to make. That is why I said we are critical partners in this. So you too, you have to be tailoring your programmes towards this kind of thing so that all will be on the same page in this dispensation. If you’re going from Gbongan to Iwo, that road was awarded in 2011 from Gbongan through Olupona to Iwo, Iwo to Oyo. Two phases. From Gbongon to Iwo is the first phase, from Iwo to Oyo is the second phase. Even the 4th phase, with the one started in 2011, not completed up till today. So, how do you start another one? Ibadan to Ilesha has been awarded since 2018, what is the situation of things? But they started in 2 places. They started from Ibadan to Iwo road. Another one from Asejire, they did 5 kilometers from Asejire to Ikire, they stopped. They started from Iwo road, they stopped in Alakia. So where do we go from here. You cannot be doing that. If you want to take one, start that one project and complete it. Those ones will know that you have completed their own then you move to another place. So these are the strategies that the 10th senate wants to champion this time around. It’s not necessary that we take 20 roads in southwest, 20 roads in each of the regions. No. If it is five roads each that we can take from each of the geopolitical zones, let us take those five. Let the government ensure that they are taken to completion.
Nobody ask you to come and do everything. But anything you want to do, start it, do it and let it be useful to the people. These are part of our agenda in the 10th senate that we want to do and by extension those of us that championed the cause, that is what we believe in respect of the Imole government in Osun state’ he submitted while also urging all the stakeholders in the ‘Osun state project’ including the medal to support the Governor Ademola Adeleke administration.
‘ It is not about who started a project, any project ongoing in Osun state must be brought to completion that is what our governor is committee to, if you look at the road projects everywhere, we are going to take everything to completion. Our airport project, by the grace of God, we will soon take it completion. This is Osun state. Osun state is very compact. If we have a serious government for about 8 years, narrative will change. That’s the truth. Look at the roads now, almost every local government, everything is moving as if we have just created the state. Ladies and gentlemen, we have a lot in the cooler but we need your support, we need your prayers, we need your advice. Don’t show indifference and be waiting for our failures. Some people like that kind of thing, they’ll just wait and be looking at you. Let us move together, let us guide ourselves in order that we can all collectively end well. That’s the message I want to pass across to you. In our state, our governor needs your prayers, he needs your support, you advice, constantly, we want to be the pace setter. We want them to know that Osun was driving Oyo state when we were together and we are now our state. We should lead then others should follow’ he added.
Senator Lere Oyewumi has also sought support from the media in respect of his ‘legislative agenda’ while adding that this ‘is also necessary’ in order that he could meet ‘expectations’ with regard to his new role.
He also talked about reasons why he would support the President Bola Tinubu administration.
‘The purpose of interacting with you today is to appreciate the support you have given us so far and let you know that the journey has just started. We have finished stage 1, which is electioneering and God has crowned our efforts. Then the next stage is governance which is more difficult, more complicated than the first stage. As somebody who has learned from several offices in the past, I know that the business of governance is very complicated and it involves a lot of actions. In this struggle, we need you. The media is a principal and critical stakeholder in this journey. To succeed and to fail, you are very critical and very important. As individual, I don’t love failures. If you fail to plan, you’re planning to fail. You must be doing something either to succeed or to fail. As we set off to a good start, I want you to join me in this journey, this movement so that we can succeed together. This is an invitation. This is an appeal that I want to personally make on behalf of myself and my family, on behalf of my political associates and on behalf of Osun West Senatorial District, who gave me the mandate to represent them.
And coincidentally and by God’s intervention, through the continued support of my people, they have added an impetus to the struggle by making me the Deputy Minority Leader of the 10th senate.
So, this has expanded the horizon beyond my senatorial district, even beyond the state. In the National Assembly now, only two of us are the principal officers in the Senate from the Southwest.
Iam from the PDP, while Opeyemi Bamidele, the senate leader is from the APC. Only two of us. So we are piloting the affairs of the Southwest in the Senate in the 10th National Assembly.
Fortunately, the president of the Federal Republic of Nigeria is from the Southwest. That’s an opportunity, notwithstanding the fact that we don’t belong to the same political party.
President Bola Ahmed Tinubu is a Yoruba man, he’s from the Southwest. The purpose of being in government is to improve the welfare of the people. No more, no less. God has His own plans and He can use anybody to fulfill a destiny. I want to be on the side of the history of those that God will use to change the narrative of what is happening in the country now for the better’ he said.
The federal lawmaker has also emphasized importance of getting ‘feedback’ from constituents noting that this would help to ensure that those in positions of authority deliver ‘good governance’.
‘I have my PhD in Community Development and we have what we call Bottom-up approach of planning. Not top-bottom. As a lawmaker, you must hold meetings and must be in constant touch with your people at all times so that you will know what they need and not what you think they need. Journalists are representing that platform that will assist us to get the real needs of our people. You may embark on a project that is very expensive and it may not be useful. So, it is not even the amount of the money spent on a project that determines its usefulness, it is about what people want. I read one book when I was doing my master’s degree. In Pakistan, there was a community there; they used to be disturbed by thieves. So they called a community meeting and they started digging up their roads. They dug up a lot of potholes on their roads and they bought whistles and handed out them to all residents. They said ‘If you hear anything suspicious just blow your whistle, and everybody will just wake up’. Then, somebody got elected and as he was driving on the road in the afternoon he saw potholes, and he later brought a grader, and graded the road. They took him to court that he must be a thief, that he came to grade the road so that thieves can strike. When he expressed his mind, he was fined and he was asked if he had asked the residents whether they wanted the road fixed or not’ he said.
Urging media practitioners in the state to support the Ademola Adeleke administration , Senator Lere Oyewumi also said the governor has ‘no luxury of time’ while noting that all political office holders in the state are lucky to have a political godfather who will not ‘request money from them’.
‘We thank God for the kind of governor that He has given us in Osun state. He has some advantages that are very rare for politicians to have. He has a sound political background. It’s very rare. And that background, they have what is called political pedigree that is very attractive. When you talk about the history of creation of Osun state, his father was among those who championed it.
His brother was the first executive governor of Osun state. You see, these are not easy coincidences. You will see God intervention in such very important coincidences. His father served as senator; his brother served as senator; he also served as senator. Anybody that cannot see God’s intervention in this is blind. As a child of destiny, therefore, the only thing that he needs from you is your cooperation. We don’t have a governor that is looking for wealth to amass. To do what? We don’t have a godfather that will say every time you must come and pay this. We have a godfather that says you must go and perform. That’s the only thing that will make me to continue to pray for him. The pressure on us is on performance. We have given our word to our benefactor and to our governor. The support I’m soliciting for is for the state because our government in our own case is one family.
PDP government, Osun State, are inside the same vehicle. The driver is our governor, Senator Nurudeen Ademola Jackson Adeleke. All of us, the three senators are in front seats of the vehicle. The representatives, assembly members, commissioners, all of us are inside the vehicle and I’m sure by the grace of God, he will drive us to a safe destination and the Promised Land .
He needs our support. We’ve just put up our state executive council , it’s like the government has just started. Everybody is now on ground. Let us out journey on together as members of the team because if it is good it will be good for all of us. I don’t pray for otherwise. We all remain one in Osun state especially those of you that are from this state.
Please, we want you to support the governor, relate with him because some of you are very close to him. The same with our commissioners , open up to them. If you have good programmes, like the one we are doing ‘Gbagede Oro’. Relate with Rasheed, Rasheed is one of you. The Commissioner for Information, Kolapo Adeniyi, is a grassroots man, Kolapo Alimi is a grassroots man. We want to throw ourselves open to the public so that we can get to their hearts from our interactions with them because we want to be doing exactly what people want.
Somebody came to me in Abuja and said is governance so easy because the way the governor is doing in Osun state makes government so easy. I said it is like that because he doesn’t have any impediment. If he’s going on the road and he sees a bridge that needs to be fixed, he would say ‘okay they will go and repair this bridge tomorrow’ and before you know it, the works department will be there tomorrow and they will attend to the bridge. That’s how it should be. Four years is very close by, we’ve almost finished one year now. It will be 3 years in the blink of an eye. So, no time to waste. We are too much in a hurry to achieve, too much in haste. We don’t have any time to waste. That is what the governor told us. No time to waste. Every hand must be on deck and we must move as if we are having hot charcoal in our hands’ he submitted.
The senator has also urged PDP leaders to tread cautiously in respect of calls for the suspension of the Minister of FCT, Mr. Nyesom Wike from the party.
‘Wike is our leader, he is one of the prominent leaders, and he is former governor of Rivers state, where he did wonderfully well. The current governor is also one of the PDP governors who had never missed party programmes.
Wike may have some issues that he is reacting to, but I am sure the party leadership and the National Working Committee are handling it better.
Ending membership of people is sometimes taken out of proportion and politicized, but I am sure people at the helm of the affairs of the party know the right decision to take at the right time, and they will continue to do that for the betterment of the party’ he said-Team@orientactualmags.com
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