How Controversies Dogged Senator Adeola’s N50m Covid-19 Lockdown Donation

MICHAEL AKINOLA

When on Tuesday April 7, Senator Solomon Adeola announced the donation of the sum of N50million for distribution among his constituents in Lagos West Senatorial District as part of relief measures to complement the efforts of Lagos State Government in ameliorating the hardship and inconveniences of the COVID- 19 lockdown of the State, it was greeted with applause.

But two days into the distribution, controversies have started to trail the gesture as a political group simply known as ‘Political Renewal’ claimed that the donation by the Chairman of Senate Committee on Finance was anything but altruistic and not transparent.

In a statement sent to P.M.EXPRESS, the Group claimed that the N50 million cash gifts by Senator Adeola to people of the Lagos West has “turned out to be a fraud after all”.

According to the group, their investigations revealed that though money was shared among the 28 Local Government Areas —10 LGs and 18 LCDAs— constituting the Senatorial District, the amount was a far cry from the N50 million said to have been expended by the Senator popularly known as Yayi.

“The purported N50 million, if divided by the 28 local councils in his district, ought to be N1.7 million per local government. Divide this by seven which is an average number of wards in each local government and you get N255,000 per ward,” the Group explained.

The statement continued: “Virtually all of the Chairmen of APC Local Governments branches in the Senatorial District disclosed that the sum of N100,000 was sent to each Council to be shared to the seven wards thus making it about N14,000 per ward. This is what Senator Yayi is coming up with for the five years he has been Senator.”

The Group wondered how N100,000 could be shared to thousands of party faithful in each Local Government, not to talk of the entire populace.
They therefore, unanimously resolved to reject the amount which if added together is a paltry N2.8 million, a far cry from the N50 million announced to the world.

“This act by the Senator is not new. Since assumption of office, the Senator had never deemed it fit to recourse back to his constituents, neither had he initiated any tangible project that would benefit them,” the statement concluded.

In a separate message to our correspondent, a high ranking All Progressives Congress, APC stalwart in Lagos West also accused the Senator of inconsistency and lack of decency.

According to the prominent politician, who is from Badagry, most party leaders in the Senatorial District no longer trust the Senator again because on several occasions he has made promises of financial assistance upon which he reneged.

“Yayi is tight-fisted. Only God knows what he does with the huge allowances he collects on our behalf”, the party stalwart said.

But a source close to Senator Adeola, who spoke to our correspondent, dismissed all the allegations by the group as an unfortunate smear campaign by the foot soldiers of a certain top public office holder in Lagos.

His words; “We know where all these smear campaigns are coming from. It’s from the camp of a drowning man, whose foot soldiers have been going round various media houses with a promise of some substantial amount of money for publications aimed to attack the person of Senator Solomon Adeola Yayi and his well-thought out palliatives for vulnerable constituents to the tune of N50 million in tandem with COVID19 precautionary measures for Lagos West including Agege Local Government Area and Orile Agege LCDA.”

According to the source, “these foot soldiers recently brought to global shame and ridicule their master when they bungled his palliative measure drive. They seem not to have learnt a lesson from that amateurish and ill-timed political campaign for a nonexistent/non vacant political office for their master”.

He continued, “Of course the major puncture to their concocted calculations and smear campaign against Senator Yayi is that the distribution of cash as much as possible was recorded on photographs, videos and editorials that are awash on the social media already and the general public can see the despicable attempt to demean the laudable COVID-19 precautionary complaint palliatives.

“What they failed to realise in their infantile and puerile petty politicization is that Palliatives for COVID-19 lockdown are not campaign materials. Palliatives are relief materials to assist Constituents in lockdown as part of the containment policy against the spread of COVID19. It is not a reward for votes and neither is it a solicitation for future votes as the ideas challenged those foot soldiers thought to their principal’s ongoing degradation in public esteem.

The source noted that “Donations for Palliatives are humanitarian gesture pursuant of the fight against a global pandemic and not a sudden avenue for political posturing as if election is tomorrow or even next year. Those foot soldiers should be well educated in this light.

“As said, the COVID-19 pandemic is not an assessment of the achievements of Senator Adeola or any politician. But the record of Senator Yayi as a representative from the State House of Assembly for two terms through House of Representatives and now Senate are clear enough to the satisfaction of Constituents leading to five consecutive electoral victories. Incidentally an internet search would easily have educated these hack writers, assuming they seek education on the performance of the Senator.”

Also speaking when contacted on Thursday for his reaction, Chief Kayode Odunaro, the media adviser to Senator Adeola, initially dismissed the allegation but only reiterated that the donation of financial assistance by the Senator is targeted at vulnerable persons, families and groups in need during the lockdown period to combat the global COVID19 pandemic.

“This is not the time to play politics or turn the donation into a platform for political campaign as some are misguidedly doing with name and photographic branding of palliative items,” Odunaro said.

Reacting to the issue of disbursement and amount shared among beneficiaries, the seasoned journalist told P.M.EXPRESS: “The minimum disbursements for individuals under the financial donation of Senator Adeola is N2,500 for 15,000 persons, graduated upward for families from N5,000 to N50,000 and up to N250,000 for groups at the first instance. So any figure being concocted must be based on just a segment of the distribution.

“The records of beneficiaries for all financial transactions are available should any genuine need arise beyond the photos and video. But beyond photographic and video evidences of some of the distribution, there is a record of disbursements which is still ongoing. So it is only uninformed or very ignorant persons with political campaign on their mind that will bandy figures without knowing the strategic deployment of the donation in consonant precautionary measure of social distancing,” Odunaro said.