It was a fire for fire between the Senator representing Osun Central, Ajibola Basiru and a Nigerian Civil Society that specializes on budget implementation, Tracka Nigeria on Twitter over the empowerment programme facilitated by the lawmaker to his constituency.
During the weekend, the zonal intervention project for Osun Central was implemented in Osogbo where items such as motorcycles, freezers, generators and other equipment were shared to the people.
Zonal Intervention Projects are projects of the federal government provided for in yearly budgets and implemented by agencies of the FG in Federal Constituencies and Senatorial Districts across the country.
Shortly after the incident, TrackaNG berated the lawmaker for labeling the projects “donations” to people, stating that it’s a malicious attempt to curry some selfish political gains.
The group tweeted’
“EXPOSED!!!
Dear Sen. @DrSRJ_
“We reiterate that constituency projects should not be LABELLED as DONATIONS by elected representatives in the National Assembly; this is a malicious attempt at deliberately misinforming their constituents, for selfish political interests.”
“Tracka is out to kill the culture of diversion of public funds by lawmakers who usually tag constituency projects as personal donations during project implementations. It is YOUR RIGHT, not a GIFT. We encourage residents to engage their reps #GetInvolved”
“N163,333,000 allocated in the 2020 FG ZIP for the supply and distribution of empowerment tools for trained cooperatives in Osun Central Senatorial District, Osun State.
“We tracked and report that 100 SELECTED beneficiaries received empowernment items and N8m to traders.”
Responding to the allegation, Basiru via his official twitter handle said the organization was “crying foul” stating that the N8m Trader Support he doled out to traders is his personal donation.
He tweeted, “N8 million Trader support initiative is my personal donation and is not ZIP. The Federal Cooperative College is in charge of the ZIP tools and coordinated that. It was made clear in my speech and to the constituents. You organization could have inquired before crying foul.”
Some of the tweets..
