YarAdua’s whereabouts not my business – Bankole

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Category: Politics

Published on Wednesday, 31 March 2010 04:15

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Speaker, House of Representatives, Hon. Dimeji Bankole, yesterday in Ibadan said it was not his business to be searching for, or to disclose the whereabouts of ailing President Umaru Yar’Adua.

A 300-Level student of the Department of Agriculture and Environmental Engineering, University of Ibadan , Mr. Lekan Amusa, had asked the Speaker to tell the country the location of Yar’Adua and whether he was still alive.

Bankole, who was momentarily flustered by the question, however, said that it was not within the purview of his office to speak for the executive arm of the government. The speaker was at the university to inaugurate a 500-capacity computer-based testing centre a private-public project between the university and a private company, Electronic Test Company Limited. The student had grabbed the opportunity of an interactive session with the Speaker on the occasion to pose the question, which prompted an apparently embarrassed Bankole to inquire if he {Amusa} was only trying to be mischievous’
But, the student boldly repeated the question.

The Speaker in his reply said that strong institutions ran a nation and not an individual, stressing that the important thing was the smooth-functioning of the presidency and not the president as an individual.

As the speaker, he said he was privy to certain information, which the student that asked the question did not have.
“What we know is that the president is in the Presidential Villa, Abuja. But, it is neither here nor there.
“Presidents have been sick in all nations. Winston Churchill was sick for seven months during the war period and he was attended to by his personal physician and his wife. “Let us not play unnecessary politics with this matter. I’m not the spokesperson of the Federal Executive Council and I don’t intend to be. I only speak for the country.

“Our essence is to preserve institutions to move forward and that is what we are doing.” 

The Speaker had earlier revealed how the House uncovered a N40 billion fraud in the Federal Ministry of Works and thus prevented the country from being fleeced of the sum through the 2009 Appropriation Bill. From the total budget estimate of N100 billion the ministry presented to the House, last year, he said the Lower House discovered that the said amount was budgeted for projects already completed, certified and paid for. In the last 10 years, he said that the House also uncovered between N800m and N1tr accruals from the internally generated revenue that were not remitted to the national treasury.

Bankole expressed surprise that nobody had been arrested in connection with the alleged discovery and noted that the figure could be higher if the books were properly scrutinized. The speaker swore not to allow the matter to be swept under the carpet, even if the culprits initiated a “campaign of calumny” against him in the next few weeks. The Speaker said, “Chances are that the figure could be higher, because it was the civil servants themselves that gave us the figure.”

Imagine what N10tr could have done for this country in the last 10 years. “This is an amount that could have been spent on education, power, or the health sector. And up till now nobody has been arrested despite the undisputed fact that we have submitted our report on the matter. “Those involved will start campaign of calumny against Bankole soon, but I don’t care. I’m now used to it. You call me speaker and I will speak. When they start abusing me in the next few days, just know why. “We will continue to exercise our oversight function without fear or favour...” Sometimes ago, he said that the country also lost the opportunity of having about $8bn invested in various sectors of the economy by a group of bankers.

He said that the five ministers designated by the president to work out the modality with the investors allegedly frustrated the move because of their conviction that they would not be in direct control of the money. In his speech on the occasion, the Vice Chancellor, Prof. Olufemi Bamiro emphasized the imperativeness of private-public partnership in moving the universities forward, He said the newly commissionedcentre would eliminate all forms of sharp practices during examinations.

The Chairman of the donor-company, Mr. Tunde Yusuf, said that the firm had committed about N2bn to similar project in eight universities in the country to enhance e-learning and testing. He explained that the centre was useful for e-learning and e-library and could also be commercialised as testing centre for government and the private sector; apart from being the modern facility for conducting tests.

Sun

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