The Lagos State chapter of the Action Congress of Nigeria, ACN, has reacted to a comment by the Minister for Information, Labaran Maku, in which he said the only achievement of Lagos State Governor, Babatunde Fashola, is “environmental sanitation”.
Maku made the statement at the 2013 ministerial briefing on the transformation of the road sector in Nigeria, being part of activities marking the mid-term achievements of the administration of President Goodluck Jonathan.
He went on to say that the good road networks in Edo and Lagos states were roads rehabilitated and funded by the Federal Government, citing Benin Ore road and Benin- Auchi expressway as practical examples.
But reacting, ACN said that Governor Fashola’s refusal to honour Maku’s tour of folly remains the reason why Maku made the nonsensical statement that Fashola is doing nothing when every other opinion thinks otherwise.
In a release in Lagos, signed by the State Publicity Secretary, Joe Igbokwe, the party said that it is ridiculous and senile for a so-called information minister to demonstrate this low level of opinion about a globally lauded government just because Lagos refused to entertain the kind of banality Maku and his ilk have employed to extort states in the name of good governance jamboree.
According to him, “Ordinarily, we would not be drawn to join issues with Maku because he does not know what good governance is and will never recognise one, if he comes in contact with it. We know that Maku is a professional jobber and for a man who said he employed student unionism to live like a king, says of the moral depravity of the character who is no more than a jester and praise singer in a government that has failed in every facet of governance.
“We know that Maku is merely vending sour grapes because the Lagos State government saw through his folly of organising a programmed revelry in the name of good governance tour when he had done nothing to uplift his ministry in the years he had been the Minister of Information. One would have expected a parodist like Maku to come to Lagos to unveil the new Lagos-Ibadan Expressway, the new Lagos-Abeoukuta Expresway, the new Lagos-Badagty Expressway, the new Aiport Road, the new Apapa-Oshodi Expressway, the modern, state of the art schools, hospitals, modern railway, etc, which his government has fixed with the whopping 52 per cent monthly allocation it corners every month. But here we are, Maku jumped over the death traps which the so-called federal roads have become in Lagos to come and play pedestrian PDP politics in Lagos.
“If Maku in his voluntary blindness, saw only progress in the environmental sector in Lagos, can he tell us even one sector his PDP Federal Government has made a mark in fourteen sordid years of waste laying in Nigeria? Can he show us what he has done in the Federal Ministry of Information for the period he has been minister? Can Maku tell us any fruitful achievement, except the ones he conjured in the heat of his extortion drive, the PDP governments he has patronised in his tour of folly did better than the Lagos State government?
“We challenge Maku that rather than sounding so incredible to even himself, he should tell Lagosians and indeed Nigerians those so-called structures his government built in Lagos from which Lagos is collecting tolls. We feel it is a pity that someone that occupies such a position as Maku has reduced it to his low level by his infantile desire to take liberty with the truth because his extorting mission is the worst for the Lagos State government’s refusal of his tour of folly.”
Lagos ACN further stated: “One would have thought that once the Lagos State Government disallowed his frivolous jamboree of good governance tour, that Maku would have come to Lagos to show us what the government he serves as a chief propagandist has done in the health sector, the education sector, the security sector, the science and technology sector and indeed every other sector in Lagos, especially as they relate to Lagos. But he did neither of these because there is nothing Maku and his government can show for the trillions of naira it spends every year.
“But Maku, blinded by the fury of his unmet demand came to Lagos to expose the ignorance that has made him a misinformation minister who thrives in singing the praises of a bland and incompetent administration that has failed in all spheres of governance.
“Maku came to Lagos to play the blind PDP politics of denial of the great transformation going on in Lagos, even when his party’s governors loudly acclaim these achievements and have come to understudy some aspects of Lagos governance. We wish Maku some luck in this ludicrous mission but we wonder how Maku can recognise what good governance is when the government whose praises he blares has become a huge joke and a piece of ribaldry among Nigerians.
“Lagos ACN wants to tell Maku to concentrate on telling Nigerians what the government he is serving has done with the hefty 52 per cent of monthly allocations it corners and uses to feed indolent, incompetent bootlickers like Labaran Maku himself. We want Maku to stop fooling himself and extorting state governments on the pretext of conducting governance tours when the government he serves has not made any dent on the many gargantuan problems that continue to assail the nation.
“Labaran Maku is a poster boy of corruption. He revealed how he extorted and lived like a king during his days as a students leader so we believe his present sour grapes is borne out of the way and manner the Lagos State government shunned the revelry he is mounting all over the states at present.
“In the blind fury of such unrealized dream, Maku is acting deaf, blind and dumb in deference of the putrid politics with which his party has wrecked a well endowed nation but we want to put him on notice that Lagos is different from the looting paradise they have turned the country and the states under their control to. We want him to know that Lagosians know what good governance means because they are feeling and touching it. Lagosians do not need mercenary extortionists who do not know what good governance means.”
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