Only one borehole seen in Kogi Lawmaker N100 million constituency projects

Only one borehole was seen in alleged N100 million constituency projects facilitated by Mr. Yakubu Oseni, a lawmaker from Kogi State.

Mr. Oseni is a federal lawmaker in the upper legislative chambers, the Senate, representing the people of Kogi Central. Oseni had in the year 2021, facilitated Zonal Intervention Projects (ZIP) popularly known as constituency projects, to be sited in the communities he represents.

Under the deal, Mr. Oseni facilitated drilling boreholes in some communities at the Kogi Central, where he represents at the National Assembly.

To ensure that Mr. Oseni’s constituency projects are executed, the Nigerian Government in the year 2021 budgeted the sum of N100 million for it.

Tracka, a public accountability organization that was at project sites, say they only found one located in the Enyinare community in Okene Local Government Area of Kogi State.

This is even as the Nigerian Government, had released funds for the projects.

Kogi state is one of the least developed states in Nigeria, with many communities facing a huge infrastructural deficit, with water, health, education, and roads topping the list.

Worse still, apart from the lawmaker and the contractor constructing a single borehole after allegedly getting N100 million, Tracka, says it was poorly constructed.

Constituency projects are Zonal Intervention Projects (ZIP) nominated by the lawmakers and recommended to the executive to be included in the budget. They are often projects sited in the rural communities to improve their living condition through the provision of local infrastructures and rural empowerment programmes.

Nigerian experience has shown that Lawmakers do not execute constituency projects as they appear in the national budget, and getting them to account for monies approved for such intervention projects is always difficult.

And, often, community residents are not aware such monies have been given to their lawmakers, and that makes accountability very difficult.

MAWA Foundation could not immediately reach out to Mr. Oseni for an official response.

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