Former Ogun State Finance Commissioner, Kemi Adeosun has denied allegations of financial impropriety levied against her by a group called Organization of Financial Probity.
The Group had in a statement issued last week accused the former commissioner of dual citizenship, fraud, awarding contracts to her husband, manipulation of government records, and living above her income.
Adeosun said that there was no truth in the allegations and dared the group to provide evidence of their claims made in their statement.
Adeosun was the Ogun State Finance Commissioner for four years during the first term of Governor Ibikunle Amosun.
In a statement itemising what it called “Ten Things People Need to Know About Mrs Kemi Adeosun, Former Commissioner for Finance, Ogun State,” the group said that Governor Ibikunle Amosun is lobbying to convince President Mohammed Buhari to appoint Adeosun to a high level position where she will be in charge of one of Nigeria’s federal MDAs.
This, the group said, would not only be injurious to an administration that is
embarking on an anti-corruption campaign but it would be a gross abuse of
access on the part of Governor Amosun.
“Mrs Kemi Adeosun’s four-year stint in Ogun State leaves behind a trail of financial mismanagement, immeasurable ineptness and unspoken avarice. Mrs Kemi Adeosun failed in her primary duty to guide Governor Ibikunle Amosun in prudent financial management.
It alleged that “A British citizen, Adeosun returned to Nigeria in the early 2000s, having worked at a local branch of a UK building society, but determined to break into the Nigerian financial sector by any means possible.
“One of the first positions she obtained in Nigeria was in Bolaji Balogun’s ChapelHill Denham where she was asked to resign, following anti-company activities which she executed in conjunction with Niyi Adeosun, her husband – a heavy drinker who has made a career of capitalising on dubious opportunities created by his wife.
“We would like Kemi Adeosun to let the general public know about the role both she and her husband played in the failed Ogun State Model Schools project which resulted in a huge waste of public funds.
“Her husband’s company collected an advance payment for building some of the schools yet the structures did not materialise.
“Although their relationship has since gone awry, it is widely known that it was Mr Wale Edun, former Lagos commissioner for Finance (under Tinubu) who generously recommended Kemi Adeosun to Governor Amosun. Due diligence was clearly not done or else it would have been apparent to Ibikunle Amosun that he was appointing someone who is commonly referred to as a ‘rogue’ in the Nigerian financial sector.
“On getting the job as Commissioner for Finance in Ogun State, Kemi Adeosun constantly misled both the State Executive Council and the governor by over-inflating the state’s IGR.
“This led to the Ogun State government being further plunged into debt. It would be instructive to learn just how much debt Ogun State has accrued in the last four years under the watch of Governor Ibikunle Amosun and his Finance Commissioner.
“We challenge Mrs Kemi Adeosun to provide an analysis of the recurrent
income that supports her IGR claims. Does Kemi Adeosun not know that the
huge debts owed to hundreds of contractors should form part of the state’s
current liabilities? Ogun State’s finances are in a mess.
“During her tenure, Kemi Adeosun routinely rejected good opportunities for investor funding of projects, in preference for loans to the state so that she could benefit from kickbacks from banks such as GTBank and First Bank. So devious is she that when given preloaded bankcards, she would specifically demand that the money be handed to her in cash.
“Kemi Adeosun misled the State Executive Council in divesting from or underfunding potentially lucrative but failing parastatals like Gateway
Savings and Loans, Plantgate etc thereby creating business opportunities
for companies to which her husband is linked.
“Kemi Adeosun used her inside knowledge of projects in other ministries to hijack initiatives that the ministries were promoting. A case in point is the flagship programme, Home Owners Charter, which ended up being driven by the Ministry of Finance instead of the Ministry of Housing.
“Such projects provided the opportunity for profiteering. Based on our research, Mrs Kemi Adeosun managed the statewide supply of the bright
green Home Owners Charter porter cabins at six times the going rate.
“A particularly juicy project was the implementation of the cashless
policy. It affected almost all major ministries yet was done without
consultation or collaboration, leaving Kemi Adeosun as the controller-in-chief of the ‘thank-you’ packages from the banks who paid her a percentage on a recurrent basis.
“In the words of a member of staff at the Ministry of Finance, “When Mrs Adeosun can not find a way of personally benefitting from an initiative introduced by any of her colleagues, she is known to kill it with lies, thereby abusing her access to the governor.
“She would then repackage the same ideas in a way that would benefit her directly, more often than not using the Ministry of Finance or her external surrogates.”
The details of such transactions will be made public in due course.
“It is important for Nigerians everywhere to know that if Kemi Adeosun
is appointed to any Federal MDAs, she will without a doubt undermine
President Buhari’s intentions by damaging such an institution with her
greed and inclination for corrupt practices.
“Without resorting to bamboozling people with her cockney accent, we challenge Mrs Kemi Adeosun, who is not an indigene of Ogun State to provide the general public with references from the financial institutions she has worked for.
“This is not the end. We are in possession of proof of her wide-scale
corrupt practices. Within two years of assuming office in Ogun State, Mrs
Kemi Adeosun registered her children in independent schools in the UK
where she is paying in excess of twelve thousand British pounds per term.
“All this on a salary of N320,000 a month from Ogun State. It would serve
the British government well to investigate financial transfers made by
members of Mrs Kemi Adeosun’s family to ascertain that this is not money-laundering.
“We are highly impressed by President Buhari’s determination to rid the
government at all levels of corruption and shady practices. We have
focused our research on Commissioners of Finance in various states. As
Nigerians, it is to our common advantage that corrupt government officials
are not further rewarded,” it said.
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