Emmanuel Thomas, Lagos
October 14, 2015 – Former Governor of Lagos State, Mr. Babatunde Fashola today absolved himself of any blame for using N78 million to build his personal website and spending N139 million to install two boreholes in Lagos House.
Fashola made the denial on the floor of the Senate when he appeared for screening.
He said there are institutions set up for the purpose. According to him, there is tenders board and public procurement that take care of contracts. He said he does not sign cheques.
He also reemphasized his earlier call for decentralisation of the Nigeria Police Force for effective performance.
According to him, while some have argue that state police would be abused by governors, he posited that while there are institutional arrangement for correcting abuse of power, there are no such framework for redeeming lives that may have been lost due to inadequate policing.
He said security of lives and properties remains the greatest responsibility of government adding what he did as governor was to ensure that government outpaces and thinks ahead of criminals.
For him, the criminal can only succeed for the first time adding that where they have succeeded he ensured that they are fetched out and made to face consequence of their actions.
