Amosun’s Country Home: ‎Flaunting wealth while masses groan under inhuman Government policies

Adekunle Sowemimo

There is a popular Yoruba saying that “Ile Oba to jo, ewa lo bu si” meaning “A king’s house that got burnt, will only make it more beautiful”…..

Over the few decades I have spent in this world, I have seen so many burnt palaces. Some were rebuilt while some are still in their deplorable state. I believe it’s all just depend on how lovable or influential the king is amongst his people that will guarantee if a burnt palace will be rebuilt beautifully or left to rot away.

The case of Governor Amosun’s house which got burnt and being rebuilt into what we are seeing now can only be described as a massive fraud against the people of Ogun State. For a governor to secretly set his house on fire all because he wanted to show the world that he has stolen so much money from the State is short of nothing but EVIL.

By the time Amosun will leave the government house in 2019 (bearing an undeserved favourable decision from the Election Tribunal) he will be 62 years of age. He already has houses in Lagos, Abuja, London, Dubai, United State of America and some other locations around the world. People are wondering what he intends to do with this new madness called a HOUSE.

As at today alone, a bill of not less than N146,000,000 ( #146 Million) must have been incurred on the crane he is using to construct the mad-house. That is even if he is paying a paltry N200,000 per day for the 2 years the crane has being on the site. This N146,000,000 is enough to construct another 146 homes for many Ogun State indigenes if we are to use the Laderin Workers Estate Model in Abeokuta which was built by the Otunba Gbenga Daniel’s administration and sold to workers at below N1million each. Now imagine, if a sum of N146 Million has already been spent on crane alone. How much is the total cost of constructing the WASTEFUL EDIFICE?

Quoting one of the Project Managers on site…”You Africans are mad people, in my country Governor Amosun will be in jail or shot by firing squad by now”. Another immediate neighbor of the Governor who said he refused an offer of N100,000,000 (#100M)  for his house said “Everyday that I wake up and step out of my house to see the construction going on, the respect I used to have for him evaporates even further”.

Investigation revealed that at the earlier stage of the project, Amosun was knocking his neighbors’ houses at the den of the night with raw cash of N50M in three different currencies namely British Pounds, US Dollars and Naira just for them to part with their properties all for him to build “His Dream Country Home”.

For the benefit of people that might not know the details of this Amosun Country Home, let me break it down a bit:

The house is an Eight (8) story building apartment with Four (4) underground floors and Four (4) over-ground floors

The top-most floor is designed to with-stand the weight and turbulence of an Helicopter meaning its designed to have an HELIPAD.

Four neighboring houses have been acquired, the least price being  N55M to accommodate a swimming pool, Arabian garden, car park and others.

According to the information supplied by an environment expert, he wondered how the building plan scaled through approval in the first place due to the enormous danger the construction poses to the houses in the immediate square radius. He stated that due to the heavy digging done to accommodate the four (4) underground floors. He added that  if any meaningful Environment Impact Assessment (EIA) had been conducted, it would have shown that carrying out such massive earth evacuation in an already-built-up residential area will have impending consequences.

There is a popular saying in Ogun State now that the ONLY no-stop project in the entire State is the “Amosun Country Home”.

For a Governor that is so notorious for rendering thousands of families homeless through senseless expansion of roads and acquisition of lands, one is completely surprised that he could be expending so much on building a house when at the end of the day he will only sleep in ONE ROOM.

Omo Ogun…..A ko ni ri eru eleyi mo o!

Sowemimo writes from Ijeun, Abeokuta.