Opinion: Chinese Contract: How Dapo Abiodun Misled FG on Litigations

 

  -Yiseyon Agbonyinu

Now that more and more Nigerian assets are being dragged into the web of seizures by the "rogue" Chinese company according to Senator Amosun who was  the Governor at the period of the controversial contract, it appears that we won't see the end of these unfolding dramas in the quickest time.

If significance is the role of the current Governor of Ogun State, Mr. Dapo Abiodun under whom the litigation process, the negotiation process and the eventual seizure is taking place. Two former Governors of Ogun State have spoken differently on what they know about the contracts, and their statements were clearly unambiguous, unlike the initial Press Release by Dapo Abiodun's media errand boy who claimed that the Chinese merely erected some perimeter fence of insignificance at the Free Trade Zone and for which the government was ready to enter into negotiations and pay provided they can agree on a sum. 

This is the real crux of the matter. Dapo Abiodun was willing to "deal" with a rogue company and also ready to pay if the Terms of settlement could be agreed with a company which his predecessor described as an "impostor", definitely this does not add up. It appears that the Dapo Abiodun administration is actually the "rogue" negotiator, the wheeler-dealer in the present circumstance. This is further compounded by the speed with which the administration went on a shopping spree for "rogue writers" to be doing hatchet jobs of sinking the nails of the controversial contract on his immediate predecessor, Senator Amosun. It is like Dapo Abiodun has too much to hide.

Those who were conversant with how the Senator Amosun's government ran, there are practically no major decisions of that administration that would have passed Mr. Abiodun by; he was the Governor's alter ego and he ran things like he was the Governor. Apart from that, Mr. Abiodun was the "Official" Consultant and Advisor to Senator Amosun on Free Trade Zones. As the Chairman of the Olokola Free Trade Zone, he allegedly orchestrated and negotiated the rumoured percentage which irritated the owners of the Dangote Refinery and the eventual relocation to Lagos.

If there is anything, Mr. Abiodun was part and parcel of the Senator Amosun's administration so much that he can not in good conscience extricate himself from any decision of that administration. For instance, when Senator Amosun was handing over to Abiodun in 2019, the media space was awashed with the sudden discovery of 2,000 AK 49 with four million rounds of ammunition in an underground warehouse in the Government House. It was like an expose and most media were ready to feed on it, especially because Mr. Abiodun was coming in as a very hostile successor to Amosun then.

A single Press Statement from the just retreating Governor doused the inferno of frenzy and celebration of "catching a thief". The statement from Senator Amosun simply hinted that Mr. Dapo Abiodun was the contractor who procured all these arms, including some refurbished 13 Armoured Personnel Carriers for the Police which were supplied by Mr. Abiodun at the cost of new. Mr. Abiodun, quickly ordered all his media handlers to steer clear off the matter and the story died.

Another instance was when Mr. Abiodun paid an unscheduled inspection visit to the New Judiciary Complex at Kobape road in Abeokuta which was built by his immediate predecessor where he made an off-side remark about the substandard quality of jobs done. He was barely a few meters away from the complex when the fitting response came, and that was from the Architect/Engineer who designed and supervised the construction of the Complex. The message to Mr. Abiodun was "it also means that his private residence in Iperu where he lives and made the new Government House in Ogun State is also substandard". This was because the same Architect/Engineers around the Judiciary Complex were the same who designed and supervised the construction of Mr. Abiodun's private residence in Iperu. This is the extent to which Mr. Abiodun was entrenched in the Senator Amosun's government.

There are of course still many more details. So, to say that Mr. Abiodun is not also in concert or aware about this Chinese Zongfhu contract will be the greatest lie. As a matter of fact, Mr. Abiodun cannot in all good conscience claim not to know anything about the Zongfhu contract or "deal". If the details of the deal should miss him while serving as Advisor to Governor Amosun, what about the details in the past five years during which time the legal process was ongoing. Why did Mr. Abiodun advised the Federal Government to withdraw from an Appeal barely hours to the hearing? What did Mr. Abiodun knows that the rest of us don't know? And what records and facts he made available to or withheld from Mr. President to mislead the legal team and lure them into what he called negotiations and ready to pay mode.

Until we are able to piece together all these missing links, Mr. Abiodun will continue to middle up the facts in order to confuse the nation about these national assets and to thrive in the midst of the controversy.

*Yiseyon Agbonyinu*

Ago Sasa, Ipokia

Ogun State