The PDP led government in Ondo state says it will submit
itself for probe after its exit.
The state governor, Dr. Olusegun Agagu, said this while
receiving the report of the Judicial Commission of Inquiry into some public
expenditure in Ondo between May 1999 and May 2003, headed by Justice William
Akintoroye.
Agagu, said if Nigerian leaders were willing to submit
themselves for probe after their tenure, such action would sanitize the
polity.
NAN reports that the last Ondo governor, Chief Adebayo
Adefarati, whose administration was being investigated, refused to appear
before the commission throughout its sittings.
He said that the decision of his administration to look
into some activities of his predecessor, was not borne out of vindictive .
``Though at inception, my administration had no intention
to probe, but along the line, a lot of things which were not right were
discovered which necessitated the institution a probe panel to unravel the
cloudy areas,'' Agagu said.
According to him, when his administration came on board,
``we said we were not going to probe anybody, but if in the course of our
duty, we come across areas that are not clear to us, we shall as questions'
``So when we discovered that the awards of four major
contracts were begging for answers, we decided to ask questions.''
Agagu, said in his government�s bid to improve the
fortunes of the people in the coastal areas, in terms of electricity and
roads, it was discovered that contracts that were awarded and paid for, were
not executed.
``Even in cases where they were executed, the level of
work done was far below the money collected by the contractors,'' the
governor lamented.
``That was the reason why we ask the commission to help
us unravel what went wrong.''
`` We also expect that by the time we leave, those who
will succeed us will equally subject us to the same scrutiny' `` That is how
to cleanse the society. Nobody should expect anybody to cover him up. We
must take transparency as our watchword,'' he stated.
Agagu, promised to set up a committee that would come up
with a white paper on the report within four weeks.
He commended members of the commission for their thorough
job, and promised to implement the recommendations contained in the report.
Earlier, Akintoroye noted that his commission had worked
without any persuasion, molestation, intimidation, or inducement in any form
from government.
Akintoroye appealed to government not to allow the report
of his commission to suffer the same fate which had befallen previous
reports.
``People should remain skeptical until the white paper on
the report had been released and our recommendations implemented,`` he
stated.
