Fashola questions Jonathan’s ‘transformation’

Fashola, while delivering an address at the Leadership annual conference and awards presentation in Abuja, said if truly there was a desire to make a change for the better which is what transformation means, it should be obvious as a statement of intent from the budget.
He said contrary to what the leaders at the national level say, “the country’s budgets spend more on recurrent; payment of salaries, travel, importing kerosene, petrol, rice and every other imaginable thing.”
The governor said since around 2011, he has made a conscious effort not to use the word ‘transformation’ on the present government stressing that the administration is not transforming for the better.
“No patrol vehicles for policemen, arms are being rushed in purchase because none was budgeted for until we hit a crisis,” he said.
“So we have heard of wives of soldiers protesting deployment of their husbands; soldiers making tactical withdrawals; and small nations that are not as big as some local governments in Nigeria embarrassing us. Yet some Nigerians, who claim they are more patriotic than us, say that they are ambassadors of this transformation and that we are wrong because all is well.
“We removed a young minister who was rebuilding our sports and connecting with his generation. His offence? He did not attend a political rally. How can we transform if we spent over N2 trillion on importing fuel. This is approximately $12.5 billion,” he said.
“How consistent is this action with the transformational agenda to empower the young people of this country? Again you will see inconsistency; words leading in the opposite direction of action.
“According to our own government, our transformation is evident in the handful of billionaires and the number of their private jets. In order to understand our transformation, you might wonder what kind of ideology this transformation is, which makes it difficult to buy arms to pursue and diminish criminals,” he said.