By Mike Olise
In Lagos, Alpha Beta, as consultants, gets 10 percent of whatever Lagos State generates monthly. If this statement confuses you, you are not alone. There are just a few things you need to keep in mind though: Lagos State generates roughly 31 billion Naira a month. Ten percent of that is going to a consultancy firm owned by the former governor of Lagos State, Bola Tinubu. 75% of the revenue generated by Lagos State comes from taxes.
If you need to read the paragraph again, you are not alone. However, the truth of the matter is that Alpha Beta Company has been the tax consultant to the Lagos State government since 1999, when the former governor Tinubu began his tenure.
That year, Alpha Beta Company had definitely succeeded by delivering a dramatic rise in monthly state revenue from about 600 million Naira to 7.7 billion Naira. A laudable achievement indeed, but it would have been less so if the citizens of Lagos State knew what they had traded it in for. Alpha Beta Company had charged the state of Lagos a whopping one billion Naira a month for their services.
Now, just to reiterate, Tinubu owns Alpha Beta Company. Tinubu was also at the time, the Governor of Lagos State. Alpha Beta Company became the tax consultant for Lagos State in 1999, and they charged roughly 13% of the entire state revenue.
Today, Alpha Beta Company is still the tax consultant for the state. They now charge roughly 10% of the entire state revenue and Tinubu still owns it. The only thing that has changed is that Tinubu is no longer the Governor of Lagos State, or so it says on paper. With utmost respect to the office of State Governor, Tinubu is still very much in control of the state’s affairs, or at the very least, its revenue.
Despite all feelings of being scandalized here, one must look at the big picture. Governor Fashola is still working for Bola Tinubu. If he was not, things might have changed. New relationships would have been forged with the State Government and interest groups. However, the standings beg the question: what has really changed since then?
Undisclosed sources claim that Tinubu’s role in installing Fashola as Governor of the State is the biggest hindrance for the present regime. An agreement between Fashola and Tinubu over the duration of the tenure of governorship, as well as the selection of certain cabinet members paints a vivid picture on the sort of bind Fashola is in. At the moment however, one wonders whether or not he finds it at convenient as he used to, or if he ever did.
What is clear, however, is that there appears to be a lot of money changing hands, and the masses are still bewildered over the fate of roughly 31 billion Naira in revenue per month. There are a number of allegations regarding Fashola’s spending penchants. Here are just a few of them that beg to be disproved:
1. That in 2009, Fashola gave N250 million to the Rotimi Akeredolu-led executive of the Nigeria Bar Association (NBA) for the NBA conference held in Lagos, at a time when Lagos teachers and doctors were on strike for improved welfare package.
2. The Babatunde Raji Fashola Government within six months, January to June 2009, spent N420 million on the hiring of private security – to guard who? – despite his heavy investment in the Police Force through the State Security Trust Fund.
3. Babatunde Raji Fashola spent N1.5 billion to demolish the Bank of Industry (BOI) building, paying a company introduced by one Tunji Olowolafe in cash transfer, only for him and his cronies to claim the land adjacent to it.
4. The Babatunde Raji Fashola Government awarded a part of Western Avenue (Funsho Williams Road), about two kilometres road for N7.7 billion, just between Abalti Barracks and Costain. And without the construction of any bridge, the project was carried out by Julius Berger. This project must certainly be investigated.
5. Between January and June 2009, the Babatunde Raji Fashola Government claimed to have fuelled 225 vehicles in his office alone with N135 million. These figures amount to about N800,000 per day at a time that petrol was sold for N65 per litre. The Government always got fuel cheaper, but Babatunde Raji Fashola claimed to have bought it at N85 per litre.
6. Between January and June 2009, Babatunde Raji Fashola’s Chief of Staff and Personal Assistants expended N290 million in sending text messages and phone calls on their lines.
7. It is also very sad to know that the Babatunde Raji Fashola Government awarded the construction of a road and drains inside Gbagada General Hospital for over N1.8 billion to the same Tunji Olowolafe’s company (DEUX Projects Limited).
8. The sum of N1.5 billion of un-appropriated funds, without approval, was claimed to have been spent on the demolition of Oshodi.
9. The Helicopter Deal was a big fraud. The helicopter was not built for any kind of emergency evacuation, rescue or to even combat urban fire. Over N5 billion has been spent on the two helicopters. And the seal of Lagos State is not on it, and it is not even in Lagos but in the Niger Delta making money for some private people in Government. The whole helicopter deal stinks to high heavens; it constitutes the biggest governmental fraud of all times and confirms the rot in the State. See THISDAY December 19, 2009.
10. The Senior Special Assistant, SSA (Media) to Babatunde Raji Fashola spent N183 million in six months on press coverage and editors outside the approved budget but funded directly from the Governor’s Office.
11. In a State where children are sitting on the floor in classrooms, where unemployment is rampant and poverty pervasive, Babatunde Raji Fashola paid the wife of a controversial pastor over N600 million in two years for Christmas decorations for about six streets in Lagos.
12. In six months, between January and June 2009, Babatunde Raji Fashola spent monies on several faceless organisations, subventions, grants and donations such that they quickly pocketed N2 billion.
Most of these allegations were compiled by the True Face of Lagos, the same group that petitioned against Fashola to the House of Assembly and the EFCC. The Lagos State Government is under the proverbial microscope and the masses are watching wit rapt attention.
Olise, a public affairs analyst wrote from Lagos
