Kwara Hotel: Wahab Oba’s Shamelessness Stinks To High Heavens!

You see, Alhaji Wahab Oba was a loyalist of Dr Bukola Saraki and Alhaji Abdulfatai Ahmed (both of whom served Kwara for 16 years). The first one inherited a brand new Kwara Hotel from late Governor Muhammad Alabi Lawal who carried out a massive and extensive renovation of the hotel (no such renovation took place afterwards in their 16 inglorious years). But what did that administration which Wahab Oba was a loyalist of do? It concessioned the brand new hotel to a consultant who was engaged to drive the operations of the hotel and invest his own two million dollars (N360m then) in it. Surprisingly, this consultant took a facility from the bank amounting to about N350 million in the name of Kwara Hotel, a clear violation of the terms of engagement. It didn’t stop there. He never invested this money in the hotel, but went on to repay the debt with the revenues of Kwara Hotel. It was grave silence and inaction on the part of the government!

By 2016, the government of Alhaji Abdulfatai Ahmed, which Wahab Oba served as CPS, found out the consultant had totally mismanaged Kwara Hotel and had a humongous debt profile of over N400 million, being obligations to staff and product suppliers. But what did it do? It gave the consultant a soft landing by inheriting all the debts he had accumulated. That was how that administration bought Kwara State into indebtedness that’s clearly not its own!

You can go over these two scenarios again. They happened under the administrations Wahab Oba loved. So, seeing the same man come out to make insipid remarks just to score political points not minding his integrity leaves much to desire. He was part and parcel of the two administrations that literally killed Kwara Hotel (a brand new Kwara Hotel inherited from late Lawal). After their own 16 inglorious years, Kwara Hotel which they left in a moribund state was evaluated to require nothing less than N2bn to be taken back to shape. They also left liabilities to the tune of over N500 million which included obligations to staff and suppliers. The infrastrucally deficient hotel they left had barely 40 rooms out of 172 rooms in manageable condition. So, what gut does Wahab Oba have to come out to celebrate all these inanities, to the discomfiture of Kwarans? Not to forget that his former boss promised to do infrastructural upgrade of the hotel too. Nothing was done! Nothing!

Oba also made noise about how his newfound principal will revive ailing state enterprises. I ask, why was that difficult to achieve in 8 years under the government of Ahmed which he served? The same government that got a N10 billion loan, allocated N4 billion for the setup of Harmony Holdings which was its own initiative of reviving ailing state enterprises based on the recommendation from a think-tank group it commissioned that posited that the minimum of N2bn should be injected to revive ailing state enterprises including Kwara Hotel, Kwara Express, Erin-Ile Paper Converters, amongst others.

What came out of it? It turned out that the government only gave the management of Harmony Holdings something in the region of N400 million as capitalisation. To date, they have not been able to account for what happened to the remaining N3.5 billion. It must be part of the N11.9 billion naira that an audit firm had found to have been misappropriated under Wahab Oba’s government. The same Wahab Oba, a product of a fraudulent government, is the one coming out to pledge reviving ailing state enterprises for Yaman Abdullahi today. Is that not laughable?

Wahab Oba served a government that couldn’t pay workers salaries of various months across MDAs; couldn’t pay the minimum wage; was owing contractors; had many unfinished projects. Many of these inherited rots have been cleared by Governor AbdulRahman AbdulRazaq who has been paying salaries of workers in the MDAs as and when due and had also implemented the minimum wage which they refused to pay. Please, who’s in a better position to tutor who on governance?

Wahab Oba is a journalist. What was the situation of state-owned media enterprises under the government he served? They left a Midland FM that had gone off air. The Herald was not publishing again. Kwara TV’s studio left a sour taste in one’s mouth. They owed their workers months of salaries too. Governor AbdulRazaq has cleared all those inherited challenges, and has not owed a single month. Herald now runs consistent publications. Radio Kwara is back on air running a 24 hour transmission. Go see the studio of Kwara TV and compare it to the shabby sight left by Wahab Oba’s boss. They refused to pay NBC licence fee too. This government has paid that. Who’s in a best position to tutor who on governance?

Yaman Abdullahi, who I doubt read what Oba released in his name, was in the news recently for a suit put up against him. The accusation was that he contracted somebody for a service and has refused to take responsibility. Is that the person that would do tutorial on governance? Since this current administration came on board, it has not abdicated responsibility to better the lives of Kwarans and clear the rots of the past.

What people like Wahab Oba don’t like is when we do a background of the challenges facing Kwara. They shout government is a continuum. Yes, it’s a continuum, but we have a history and people must know that so that they can judge the current situation rightly. I should also add that it was during the last administration which Wahab Oba served that UBEC fund running into billions of naira was diverted, shutting the state of all opportunities to develop its basic education sector. How many accreditation gaps did the current government meet at our Colleges of Education, and has addressed? Who’s tutoring who on governance?

Despite the fact that they left Kwara Hotel in the state they left it, with just 40 rooms out of the 172 rooms functioning, the current administration has been able to keep the enterprise afloat. It is also working on a new investment that would see to the infrastructural upgrade of the hotel which Wahab Oba’s governments could not do in 16 years. The process has been approved by the State Executive Council already and is now at the Assembly which will convene a public hearing to aggregate the inputs of citizens.

Yaman Abdullahi should always scrutinize whatever intellectually dishonest people like Wahab Oba are writing in his name. As a son of the soil, Yaman Abdullahi should be hurt by the infractions those he now romances in a fruitless bid to become governor had committed against Kwara and our priced heritage, including Kwara Hotel. Nothing short of such is expected from him!*Kwara Hotel: Wahab Oba’s shamelessness stinks to high heavens!*