PDP, APC in war of words over Fashola’s performance

Senator Musiliu Obanikoro has deflated public adulations of the performance of Governor Babatunde Fashola of Lagos State, saying that mounting debts and class discriminations make the government a failure.


The Interim Publicity Secretary of the All Progressives Congress, APC, in Lagos State in a sharp rebuttal dismissed the insinuations, saying that Obanikoro lacked the moral and intellectual capacity to speak.
Citing the past stints of the former senator as local government chairman and then commissioner, he said Obanikoro’s antecedents disqualified him from speaking.

Speaking in a media interaction in Lagos, weekend, Senator Obanikoro who was the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, gubernatorial candidate in the 2007 election flayed the Lagos administration for failing in the basic tenets of transparency in financial matters.

Senator Obanikoro, who is now the Chairman of the Industrial Trust Fund, ITF, flayed the administration in the state for failing in the three critical sectors of education, health and environment, as he claimed that everyone that “can afford it seeks private school education for their children.

“I’ll not sit down here and tell you that we don’t have few things to celebrate in the state, but by and large, there are still many holes to fill up,” Obanikoro said even as he added that, “the overall decision I will take in terms of performance of Lagos government in the last 15 years is slightly below average,” Obanikoro said.

“People may be saying they have done some new roads, they have done this, they have done that; one, we must look at the costs of these roads and then, note that the state’s debt profile is about N1 trillion as we speak today.
“I schooled in the USA, the biggest investment that country made that is still working for them is in education. We have not done such in Lagos State despite all the noise they have been making.

“As we speak today, people of Lagos are not interested and they will not voluntarily send their children to public schools in the state.
“So, how one governor can just stand up and beat his chest that he has performed still marvels me.”
“Today, our hospitals in the state are mere consulting centres. Even the consultation is minimal in the true sense of it. Everybody that is somebody now goes overseas for ordinary medical check –up.”

”Their leader and ex-governor of the state had a medical challenge recently and he was flown abroad to take care of ordinary knee injury.

”In the area of health, Lagos government has equally failed,” he said.

“They are still struggling in the area of refuse management.

“Looking at the Olusosun dumpsite at Ojota and the level of pollution that is injected to the atmosphere on daily basis says a lot about the state government that has been in power since 1999. Where have you seen such big dumpsite operating in a metropolis anywhere in the world?”

Commenting on the allegations made by Senator Obanikoro, Mr. Joe Igbokwe, former publicity secretary, defunct Lagos State Action Congress of Nigeria, ACN, now APC chieftain, said: “You are taking that Obanikoro seriously? What does he know about simple economics or leadership? What does he know about leadership? He does not understand the intricacies of leadership and accounting system. He was once with us and we know what he did.”

Continuing, Igbokwe alleged: “Was it not the same Obanikoro that was the chairman of Lagos Island Local Government? What does he know about accountability? Please, stop wasting your time with this kind of people.”
”What he is saying is not worth wasting energy and ink to write on. His history is very well known and he does not have the capacity to speak. He does not have the intellectual capacity to speak about economics and leadership,” the APC spokesman said.