Stop telling lies for political gains, Oyo warns Akinjide, others
The Oyo State Government has warned President Goodluck Jonathan campaigners in the state to desist from peddling outright lies, half truths and fallacies in their futile attempts at hoodwinking the people of the state into supporting the second term bid of their boss.
Reacting to a statement credited to the Minister of State for the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Ms. Jumoke Akinjide on the funding of tertiary institutions in the state by the Federal Government, the state government said it was mere fabrication aimed at scoring cheap political point.
In a statement issued in Ibadan on Monday by the state Commissioner for Education, Prof. Solomon Olaniyonu, he described Ms. Akinjide’s claim as the latest in the series of lies by the minister in her futile attempt at mobilizing support for the troubled second term bid for Jonathan.
In a report credited to Akinjide in one of the national dailies, the minister had claimed that the Federal Government had contributed more to the infrastructural and educational development of state-owned tertiary institutions than the Governor Abiola Ajimobi administration.
Putting a lie to the minister’s claim, the commissioner said that the purported N5 billion alluded to by Akinjide merely existed on paper, since the affected institutions had not been able to access the fund up till date.
Conversely, Olaniyonu said the state government had spent a total of N5.2 billion as capital expenditure on the state-owned tertiary institutions namely: The Polytechnic, Ibadan; LAUTECH, Ogbomoso; Emmanuel Alayande College of Education, Oyo and Oyo State College of Agriculture and Technology, Igboora in the last three years.
Debunking the bogus claims on the amount allocated to the tertiary institutions, Olaniyonu said that the minister could not, at this point, dress Jonathan in a borrowed robe to curry the sympathy of the good people of Oyo State.
“That N1 billion was allocated to The Polytechnic, Ibadan is a lie. The true position is that N661 million was allocated since 2014 and same amount has not been released.
“The normal intervention for LAUTECH for projects in 2013 was N356 million and for 2014, was N552 million. It might interest you that the university is yet to access the funds for the two years,’’ he said.
The commissioner wondered why the minister would be deceiving the people when, in her own words, she said that the money was only “allocated’’ which is not tantamount to “release’’ as it is in the instant case.
“It is so disturbing that a minister of her status could be conjuring figures that are half truth, total false or fallacy and unnecessary innuendoes. The statement by Ms. Jumoke Akinjide should be taken with a pinch of salt.
“To put her statement in proper perspective, what the Minister was talking about is the normal intervention to all tertiary institutions in Nigeria. So why isolating Oyo State?
“It should be noted that as the TETFUND is allocated to some of the tertiary institutions in Oyo State, same was done to institutions in other states of the federation such as Bayelsa, Ekiti, Ondo, Niger to mention but a few,’’ he said.
“It is worthy of sympathy to see attempts to discredit a governor who, even in the eyes of the indifferent, is a proven performer in all of jurisdiction. The motivation for the statement, it will appear, is for mere political expediency,’’ he said.
