‘It’s time to resign as threatened’ – Oyo APC chides Makinde over notebook contract scandal

Oyo state chapter of the All Progressives Congress (APC) has asked Governor Seyi Makinde to resign from office immediately in fulfilment of the promise he made in April this year when the news of allegations of fraud surrounding the awards of contract for the production of exercise books meant for the use of public school pupils in the state was broken by a private organisation.

Dataphyte, an Abuja-based media research and data analytics organisation, had in late March accused the government of Makinde of violating its procurement law in the award of a contract worth N998million in favour of companies linked to him and his cronies.

On April 3, Governor Makinde faulted the reports as he denied any wrongdoing while he also threatened to resign from office as the Executive Governor of the state if found culpable after the investigation. Meanwhile, the state government went ahead a few days later to undertake a similar award of a contract worth N694million to cronies to produce and supply another batch of exercise books.

Piqued by the development, Oyo APC has taken up the governor who the opposition party has alleged as the most corrupt governor in the history of the state.

In a statement issued on Wednesday and made available to journalists in Ibadan by its Publicity Secretary, Olawale Sadare, the broom party said that “Dataphyte only discovered one out of several cases of fund misappropriation under the 41-month-old government of the PDP in the state.

“What the governor did on April 3 was to diverse the attention of the whole world away from the sleaze. He vowed to resign from office if found wanting when he knew no investigation would be done immediately. This was the same man who had earlier dragged the EFCC to court for carrying out a lawful investigation of a case of fraud under his watch as the governor of Oyo state and with that step, he feels he has obtained the full liberty to be reckless with the state treasury.

“Gov. Makinde neither debunked the allegation by Dataphyte that he paid N2,100 for each exercise book to be produced nor denied the discovery that the beneficiaries of the fraudulent contracts were companies linked to him and his cronies including an Ibadan-based private radio station proprietor who is also a promoter of the PDP and Gov. Seyi Makinde. The same was the case when he claimed to have paid a whopping N9.6billion for 106 units of mass transit buses in 2020. It was later discovered that the cost of each bus was inflated by over 100 per cent while questions were also raised on the actual number of buses supplied and why it took the few ones presented about 20 months to start work on the road.

“Similarly, tongues have wagging lately on how the present administration has prioritized grabbing of pieces of land belonging to the state government as recorded in the case of BCOS Staff Quarters which was seized and sold to a crony of the governor at a giveaway price of N15m per plot only for the proxy to start selling it out at the right market value of N60m per plot. Out of a total of 116 plots, the investigation revealed that 100 went to the governor while the remaining 16 were shared among his friends and lackeys.

“The same Gov. Makinde removed over N20b from the treasury as contact sum for four bus terminals only to deliver two just like what he did to the N5.2b he earmarked for the orchestrated renovation of 10 stadia across the state but managed to deliver only Lekan Salami stadium at Adamasingba, Ibadan. While the good people of the state await the appropriate authorities to beam their searchlight on Gov. Makinde and his cronies, we use this medium to call on the governor to make good his promise and throw in the towel since it has been established that he was guilty of fund misappropriations in numerous cases.” Sadare stated.