THE story goes that AbdulFatah Ahmed, Kwara State Governor,recently held a meeting with traditional rulers to be upgraded in a process targeted to harvest votes in the next elections.
Each traditional ruler was told to contribute N500, 000 for the coronation ceremony that will herald upgrading. One of them plucked the courage to inform the governor that he and his community had not even been able to raise the N150, 000 to repair the community’s water tank!
A friend was telling me on Tuesday evening, that as he drove out of River Basin road, he saw six well diggers prowling his neighborhood for people who might use their services, unable to pay the huge sums that borehole outfits collect.
Borehole business is huge in Ilorin, because of the irresponsibility of government to complete work on the city’s water supply project. I spent N1.6million on three boreholes, right in the heart of the GRA, before finally getting water in my house!
This was apart from hundreds of thousands I initially spent futilely, trying to get water supply through the Kwara State Water Corporation.
The desperate installation of boreholes in people’s homes is an indictment of Bukola Saraki’s irresponsible, self-serving and ruinous hegemony, given the billions of Naira that has disappeared into the blackhole of contracts for “water supply”.
Former Presidential Adviser, Senator Makanjuola Ajadi said billions of Naira has ‘retriculated’ into private pockets in Kwara, instead of ‘retriculating’ water through our pipes!
The future danger to our underground water reservoir also hangs on the conscience of those who turned water supply contracts into a conduit for theft. Yet Bukola Saraki is Chairman, Senate Committee on Environment!
In the past few weeks,Bukola Saraki has been going around with the Buhari Campaign, mouthing the slogan of “CHANGE”. He desperately hopes to cream off the credibility associated with General Buhari. But Kwarans know better.
Bukola has been ruling Kwara state since 2003. What manner of “CHANGE” can he promote?”CHANGE” from Bukola Saraki to Bukola Saraki?
From six to half a dozen? From a prostrate state to a completely bankrupt state? From a state existing to cater for Bukola Saraki’s creature comfort to a state that priorities Bukola Saraki’s pension as number one item of expenditure?
“CHANGE” the Bukola Saraki way in Kwara means more of the same: Kwara’s monthly allocations or loans taken in Kwara’s name will be used to start projects and Bukola Saraki will turn around to say those projects don’t belong to our state; no, but they belong to Bukola Saraki’s “private sector”.
“CHANGE” indeed! The person that promises to give out a dress, the African people say we must first look at what he wears. APC’s “CHANGE” slogan might be sincere in other settings but not with Bukola Saraki and Kwara.
Just with water supply contract heists alone, we can catch a whiff of the “CHANGE” in the offing under Bukola Saraki’s Kwara State APC from May 2015!
No comments:
Post a Comment