Kemi Adeosun Declared Not Fit To Be Minister
Adeosun was one of the 21 nominees for ministerial positions sent by
President Muhammadu Buhari to the Senate and which was read by the Senate President, Bukola Saraki on Tuesday, October 6.
In a petition titled: Kemi Adeosun’s
Ministerial Nomination; CACOL Discovers Another Misfit, Adeniran said
after running through the list, he and other concerned Nigerians, cannot
pretend to be comfortable with some names, prominent among which is
that of Kemi Adeosun, the former Finance Commissioner in Ogun State of
Nigeria.
“Whilst conceding to you, as
constitutionally empowered, the power to appoint, even without
consulting with anyone, we in CACOL consider it a patriotic
responsibility on our part to bring to your notice, facts and
information at our disposal that are considered useful and helpful to
your administration; all in the overall interest of Nigeria and
Nigerians.
“This petition, we want to make clear, is not aimed at pulling
anybody down or settling scores other than to ensure the right pegs are
in the right holes; a sermon you have consistently, since assuming
office, been preaching.
“Do permit us to remind you that CACOL had, right from time,
been in the vanguard of advocating thoroughness and sincerity in the
exercise of selecting those who were to man top positions in your
government as Nigerians are yearning for a sharp departure from the ugly
past whereby appointments were made strictly as a means of settling
loyalists of the ruling party while competence and integrity were
relegated to the background.
“You will also remember, your excellency, how we have remained
consistently vocal in demanding that some of your favoured party men who
had previously served in high public offices but were having
allegations of one corrupt act or the other hanging on their neck, be
thoroughly investigated and cleared before being considered for higher
responsibilities in your government, or prosecuted if found culpable.
“The former governor of Lagos State, Babatunde Fashola is one of such cases in question.
“This is why we would be imploring you to see and treat this
piece as just one way of contributing our quota to the process of that
positive change in our life as a nation and to further strengthen the
degree of impressive credibility and confidence your young
administration is presently enjoying from across the country,” Adeniran said in a petition to the President.
He added that Mrs. Adeosun is one
individual that cannot add any value or gain to Buhari’s administration
which, as the President had promised, would be focused, proactive,
selfless and above all, corrupt-free.
He said his protest against Adeosun was due to her many scandals
premising on financial mismanagement, questionable and self-beneficial
transactions of government businesses, wastefulness, acquisition of
questionable wealth, ineptness and graft.
“Report even has it that Mrs. Kemi Adeosun has been parading a
dual citizenship (British/Nigerian); a status that constitutionally
disqualifies her from holding such office.
“Your Excellency, as you can see from the attached, our office has
been inundated with petitions from various quarters, apparently out of
patriotic zeal and inclination for a positive change in our national
life and polity, as consistently being canvassed by you and your party,
the APC and certainly NOT out of personal grudge or bitterness,”
Adeniran said adding that his organisation was in possession of
documents which chronicles allegations of financial impropriety leveled
against her by Organisation of Financial Probity.”
The group had in a statement issued
last week accused the former commissioner of dual citizenship, fraud,
awarding contracts to her husband, manipulation of government records,
and living above her income.
It, also in a press release titled ‘Ten Things People Need to Know About Mrs Kemi Adeosun, Former Commissioner for Finance, Ogun State’,
alleged that Mrs Kemi Adeosun’s four-year stint in Ogun State left
behind a trail of financial mismanagement, immeasurable ineptness and
unspoken avarice. Mrs Kemi Adeosun failed in her primary duty to guide
Governor Ibikunle Amosun in prudent financial management.
Among the claims of the group include:
1. A British citizen, Adeosun returned to Nigeria in the early
2000s, having worked at a local branch of a UK building society, but
determined to break into the Nigerian financial sector by any means
possible.
2. One of the first positions she obtained in Nigeria was in
Bolaji Balogun’s ChapelHill Denham where she was asked to resign,
following anti-company activities which she executed in conjunction with
Niyi Adeosun, her husband – a heavy drinker who has made a career of
capitalising on dubious opportunities created by his wife. We would like
Kemi Adeosun to let the general public know about the role both she and
her husband played in the failed Ogun State Model Schools project which
resulted in a huge waste of public funds. Her husband’s company
collected an advance payment for building some of the schools yet the
structures did not materialise.
3. Although their relationship has since gone awry, it is
widely known that it was Mr Wale Edun, former Lagos commissioner for
Finance (under Tinubu) who generously recommended Kemi Adeosun to
Governor Amosun. Due diligence was clearly not done or else it would
have been apparent to Ibikunle Amosun that he was appointing someone who
is commonly referred to as a ‘rogue’ in the Nigerian financial sector.
4. On getting the job as Commissioner for Finance in Ogun
State, Kemi Adeosun constantly misled both the State Executive Council
and the governor by over-inflating the state’s IGR. This led to the Ogun
State government being further plunged into debt. It would be
instructive to learn just how much debt Ogun State has accrued in the
last four years under the watch of Governor Ibikunle Amosun and his
Finance Commissioner. We challenge Mrs Kemi Adeosun to provide an
analysis of the recurrent income that supports her IGR claims. Does Kemi
Adeosun not know that the huge debts owed to hundreds of contractors
should form part of the state’s current liabilities? Ogun State’s
finances are in a mess.
5. During her tenure, Kemi Adeosun routinely rejected good
opportunities for investor funding of projects, in preference for loans
to the state so that she could benefit from kickbacks from banks such as
GTBank and First Bank. So devious is she that when given preloaded
bankcards, she would specifically demand that the money be handed to her
in cash.
6. Kemi Adeosun misled the State Executive Council in
divesting from or underfunding potentially lucrative but failing
parastatals like Gateway Savings and Loans, Plantgate etc thereby
creating business opportunities for companies to which her husband is
linked.
7. Kemi Adeosun used her inside knowledge of projects in other
ministries to hijack initiatives that the ministries were promoting. A
case in point is the flagship programme, Home Owners Charter, which
ended up being driven by the Ministry of Finance instead of the Ministry
of Housing. Such projects provided the opportunity for profiteering.
Based on our research, Mrs Kemi Adeosun managed the statewide supply of
the bright green Home Owners Charter porter cabins at six times the
going rate.
8. A particularly juicy project was the implementation of the
cashless policy. It affected almost all major ministries yet was done
without consultation or collaboration, leaving Kemi Adeosun as the
controller-in-chief of the ‘thank-you’ packages from the banks who paid
her a percentage on a recurrent basis.
9. In the words of a member of staff at the Ministry of
Finance, “When Mrs Adeosun can not find a way of personally benefitting
from an initiative introduced by any of her colleagues, she is known to
kill it with lies, thereby abusing her access to the governor. She would
then repackage the same ideas in a way that would benefit her directly,
more often than not using the Ministry of Finance or her external
surrogates.” The details of such transactions will be made public in due
course.
10. It is important for Nigerians everywhere to know that if Kemi
Adeosun is appointed to any Federal MDAs, she will without a doubt
undermine President Buhari’s intentions by damaging such an institution
with her greed and inclination for corrupt practices. Without resorting
to bamboozling people with her cockney accent, we challenge Mrs Kemi
Adeosun, who is not an indigene of Ogun State to provide the general
public with references from the financial institutions she has worked
for.
Adeosun said that there was no truth in the allegations and dared the
group to provide evidence of their claims made in their statement.