The Osun State chapter of the All Progressives Congress (APC) has observed that the recent visit of a combined technical team of COREN and the Nigerian Society of Engineers (NSE) to Osun State on a supposed inspection and audit mission ostensibly at the prompting of Governor Ademola Adeleke which was turned into an open celebration where the visitors were spraying money at the point of entry has cast an unmitigated aspersion on the credibility and independent professional seriousness of the body of engineers.
According to the Osun State chairman of the APC, Sooko Tajudeen Lawal, in a statement issued by the party’s Director of Media and Information, Chief Kola Olabisi, today, the party noted that the circumstances surrounding the visit was equally nauseating and offensive to rational reasoning.
It was reliably confirmed that the controversial
combined engineering visiting team who came under the guise of validating the architectural, structural and construction design and processes of the various ongoing infrastructure projects in Osun State only visited one project site.
The team also paid a visit to Governor Adeleke where the representatives of the professional bodies physically presented an Excellence Award in Infrastructure Development created by the United Kingdom branch of the NSE on the governor.
In Lawal’s words: “It defies a logical sense of reasoning that the Engr Margaret Aina-led professional team was welcomed to Osun State by the members of the state cultural group ostensibly prearranged by the state government which put a big question mark on the seriousness of the corporate mission of the body in the state.
“It is absurd and stranger than fiction that a supposed inspection team of a purported professional association would conduct itself in this kind of unbecoming, lousy and compromising manner.
“The question arises that at what point did the combined team of the NSE and COREN engineers thought it desirable and auspicious to give an award of excellence on the projects they were supposed to audit and appraise in Osun State?
“Is it proper to issue a student a certificate before conducting an examination of fitness for such a student which was exactly the ignominious function of the leadership of the NSE and COREN in Osun State during their last questionable visit?
“It won’t be out of tune for a discerning mind to question the propriety of giving an award to the person you have come to grade his projects.
“Do we need to question why there have been incessant incidents of collapsed roads, houses and bridges across the nation in recent time?
“We make bold to say that the road and flyover projects were awarded to fertilizer distributors and cyber cafe operators by Governor Adeleke.
“The circumstances surrounding the NGE/COREN team visit to Osun State appeared like an endorsement of a glaring failure and mediocrity of the shoddy projects being done by Governor Adeleke.
“It is despicable and contemptible that the pliable professionals found in this ignominious showing were the supposed independent assessors of public projects being financed by the public’s money.
“With this shameful development, one may be tempted to review his hitherto rating of the NSE/COREN which before now were held in high esteem as there could not be any acceptable plausible reason under the sun why the highly-rated professional bodies could descend into such abyss of morally repugnant and professionally less-dignified conduct in order to please an irredeemable failure of the Governor Adeleke-led administration in Osun State.
“There are some other noble ways of soliciting patronage from the Adeleke government by the NSE/COREN team without necessarily lowering the esteem of the age-long professional bodies as it was witnessed in Osun State during the controversial working visit of the bodies to the state.
“It would not be an overstatement to recommend the proper investigation of the mission of the characters who constituted the NSE/COREN team to Osun State by the members of the body who have not been blindfolded by whatever might have been the bait for the controversial visit with a view to separating the pebbles from the edible grains of rice”, the state APC chairman stated.
e-SIGNED:
Sooko TAJUDEEN LAWAL, Chairman,
Osun State APC
