CSOs Validate Adeola’s Constituency Projects, Urge Evidence-Based Assessment

The Civil Society Groups for Good Governance (CSGGG) and the Integrity Advocacy for Development Initiative (IADI) have commended Senator Solomon Olamilekan Adeola for what they described as significant development interventions across Ogun West Senatorial District.  
The groups made the assessment at a news conference in Abuja, where they said their position followed independent monitoring and verification of several projects and empowerment programmes facilitated by the senator, who represents Ogun West and chairs the Senate Committee on Appropriations.  
President of CSGGG, Chief Dominic Ogakwu, said the intervention was informed by the organisations’ evidence-based approach to assessing governance and public projects.  
Ogakwu explained that representatives of the organisations visited project locations, inspected completed and ongoing interventions, interacted with residents and beneficiaries, and documented their observations through monitoring reports, photographs and field assessments.  
He said the projects inspected included roads, schools, electricity projects, healthcare facilities and other community infrastructure, while empowerment initiatives covered traders, artisans, farmers, youths, students and other beneficiaries.  
“We are here in response to recent allegations and public commentary concerning projects facilitated by Senator Solomon Olamilekan Adeola, Senator representing Ogun West Senatorial District and Chairman of the Senate Committee on Appropriations.  
“Ordinarily, a civil society should not intervene in every controversy involving a public official or become a participant in every political dispute.  
“However, when claims are materially at variance with facts independently observed and documented by us, silence would amount to a failure of responsibility,” Ogakwu said.  
He stressed that the organisations’ assessment was not based on information supplied by Adeola or his associates, but on their own monitoring activities and observations on the ground.  
According to him, the inspections revealed substantial evidence of physical project execution, with several interventions delivered to what the groups considered a commendable standard.  
Ogakwu, however, cautioned that physical project execution should not be regarded as a substitute for broader accountability requirements.  
He said procurement procedures, contract values, quality, value for money and financial transactions remained legitimate areas for scrutiny, but insisted that such issues should be assessed through documentary evidence and verifiable facts rather than assumptions.  
He also disclosed that during some monitoring exercises, the CSOs observed personnel of anti-corruption agencies, including the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC), monitoring some of the programmes.  
“We do not speak for the ICPC or claim knowledge of its findings. We state only what our teams observed: we were not the only observers of some of these programmes,” he said.  
 
The Executive Director of the Centre for Peace and Transparency Initiative, Mr Patrick Onomodeke, also commended Adeola, saying the senator had made appreciable efforts towards addressing the needs of his constituents.  
Similarly, the Executive Director of IADI, Mr Christopher Ofomhi, urged civil society organisations to remain independent and resist attempts to use them for political purposes.  
Ofomhi said CSOs should ensure that their positions on public issues were supported by verifiable facts.  
“We saw all the projects executed by Senator Adeola, also known as Yayi. He gave his best to all the projects he executed in Ogun West,” he said.  
The Director of Programmes, Transparency Advocacy for Development Initiative (TADI), Mr Adeniran Taiwo, also expressed satisfaction with the projects inspected and urged other lawmakers to emulate what he described as Adeola’s constituency development efforts.  
“All these projects can be verified instead of making claims that are not true. I call on other senators to emulate Senator Adeola,” Taiwo said.