POLITICS: YOUR ‘FACILITATED’ PROJECTS OPAQUE, DECEPTIVE, EKIMOGUN ROUNDTABLE TELLS ABIOLA MAKINDE

The Ekimogun Roundtable, a socioeconomic group of Ondo indigenes both home and abroad has told Hon Abiola Makinde, a lawmaker representing Ondo East/West to desist from publicizing constituency projects without necessary details such as cost implications, funding sources and other procurement details, saying that such amount to disinformation injurious to the concept and principles of accountable representation, community sensitization and national orientation.

The group made this known through a statement made available to newsmen in Ondo on Monday through its acting secretary, Ms Christiana Ayodele.

Ms Christiana, in the statement, argues that "most constituents are not lettered and or well informed enough to interpret cryptic projects information without financial and procurement details, thereby giving room for such to be misconstrued as a personal project of lawmakers’’.

The Roundtable is reacting to a publication by Hon Abiola Makinde, a member representing the Ondo East/West federal constituency at the National Assembly, announcing the near completion of a constituency project he facilitated in the constituency.

Ms Christiana says constituents have no detail of the implication of the particular project to the community, she equally sighted example of a multimillion naira Ondo City library project and other countless projects running into billions in the constituency that fall short of this  essential code on community sensitisation.

Ms Christiana further stressed that  "project information is not a too difficult thing to make, and people should not be seeing constituency projects as a magic wand that appears and disappears at the whims and caprices of legislators, in fact, constituents must first be engaged and aware of all project detail including financial and procurement elements in order to generate the appropriate and required projects need and impact assessment on the community before it becomes a budget line-item for appropriation and final execution’’. 

"Anything short of the aforementioned makes such a constituency project a legislative conjuration, deceptive legislation and or mis-procurement’’.

"Our representatives should not be too arrogant with power to an extent of thinking that they can be wiser than all their constituents put together, hence should make community engagement topmost in their priorities particularly in the area of constituency projects identification and nomination’’ Ms Christiana concluded.