CSCEOS warns Governor Aregbesola to stop selling people’s property to friends

“Civil Societies Coalition for the Emancipation of Osun State (CSCEOS) has warned Governor Rauf Aregbesola of the state against selling property belonging to the people of the State to his Lagos friends and associates under the guise of Public Private Partnership (PPP) and Concession arrangement.”- Daily Post

The group noted that such arrangement was not in the best interest of the people of the State but to expand the business and investment frontier of Mr. Aregbesola
and his cronies after leaving office in 2018.

It declared that “the call became imperative because Mr. Aregbesola has been in the habit of prodigal leader of giving out the State property to his Lagos friends and associates which he could not give money, out of the State meager resources due to the present financial quagmire putting the state into by the present administration”.

The group noted “that Aregbesola has dashed out landed property of the State like old Ministry of Agriculture and Natural resources, Ilobu road, Osogbo, demolished
Fakunle Comprehensive High School, Gbongan road, Osogbo and host of others to his Lagos associates at a cheaper rate”.

CSCEOS in a statement sent to DAILY POST on Sunday signed by its Chairman, Comrade Adeniyi Alimi Sulaiman while reacting to the recent announcement of the State government’s plan to concession the M.K.O. Abiola Airport to a private Company, AWOL International Investment to the tune of N69 billion, which the company would return back to the state after 30 years, rejected the concession arrangement.

The group in the statement also warned the company against accepting what it described as “such a Greek offer at the tail end of Aregbesola’s administration” adding that the next administration would revoke such an illegal and anti-peoples agreement.

Sulaiman in the statement also called on Mr. Aregbesola to account for the N3.6billion earlier spent on the Airport project, alleging that Aregbesola has turned the different
white elephant projects of his administration like Airport, Market and so on, into conduit pipe where the meager resources of the State were flown to Lagos State.

He further alleged that the State government came up with the idea of concessioning the Airport project into the hand of private investment to cover up the mismanagement of N3.6 billion earlier claimed to have been spent on the “nothing-to- show project”, calling on the State House of Assembly under the headship of Mr. Najeem Salaam to investigate the acclaimed N3.6 billion wasted on the phantom project before the concession idea.

Sulaiman then called on the anti-graft agency, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) to beam searchlight on the how the State government mismanaged the huge amount of public funds on a project and later came up with the idea of concession after failure to account for earlier spending on the same project.

He said “As a formidable group and stakeholder in Osun State projects, we would not fold our arms and watching a prodigal government like Rauf Aregbesola’s administration to be selling our property to its friends, associates and cronies.

“We have concluded arrangement to approach the Court of competent jurisdiction to stop this illegal concession arrangement of M.K.O. Abiola International Airport to AWOL Investment Company because we have discovered a lot of impropriety in the arrangement”.

Source: Daily Post