Shonga Farm: Don’t scare away investors with your unsubstantiated allegations – Group warns Kwara Gov.
Kwara Advancement Initiatives has reacted to the controversy over the seizure of state government’s properties by the Asset Management Company of Nigeria, AMCON, cautioning Governor Abdulrahman Abdulrazaq not to dissuade investors from coming to Kwara state.
The group said playing politics with such a sensitive matter instead of addressing it only exposes the government as unserious, inept and mischievous.
The group, Kwara Advancement Initiatives, stated this on Saturday, in a statement issued in reaction to unsubstantiated allegations levelled by the Abdulrazaq government against the previous administrations.
According to Hajia Adeola Bashiru, the Head, Democratic Mobilization and Monitoring Desk, Kwara Advancement Initiatives, any serious minded government should know that playing politics with a matter like this will only backfire and reveal the incompetence of such government.
She said, “What a serious government will do is to look for ways to resolve the impasse and save itself of the imbroglio.
“Trying to exonerate itself especially with unsubstantiated allegations against its predecessors only depicts the government as confused and rudderless.
“It is more worrisome because this is coming from a government that has attracted no investor to Kwara unlike its predecessors.
“What investment, foreign or local, has this government added to what the previous administrations brought? Absolutely nothing, yet, it cannot successfully manage the ones on ground.
“No asset of the state was pledged for loans, but it takes a learned and informed government official to know that.
“The State Government only used its land to capitalize for shares in Shonga farm. Or where is the evidence of the previous administration’s spending of billions on the farms?
It also questioned the Abdulrazaq government’s failure to fulfil its own part of the deal as other stakeholders.
“Other stakeholders in the ownership structure are commercial banks, who have branches all over and jointly have 75% shares. Yet, they have protected their shares from being taken over by AMCON, but Kwara State Government under Abdulrahman Abdulrazaq, with the least shares amongst them, failed to do so in the name of politics.
While describing the situation as unfortunate, it attributed it to the academic deficiency of the people leading and asked the people to henceforth vote in well-read individuals to power, to avoid such national embarrassment in future.
