The Deputy Minority Leader of Nigeria’s Senate, Senator Kamorudeen Lere Oyewumi has revealed that the Senate has so far identified over 10,000 government projects abandoned at various stages across the country.
According to Oyewumi, the Upper Legislative Chamber has granted its consent for a comprehensive investigation of the abandoned projects with a view to reviving them as needed for the sake of the country.
When speaking with journalists, the senator who represents Osun West indicated that the investigation’s goals were to determine the viability of the projects, the causes of their abandonment, and the amount of money invested in them.
He added that specialists from many sectors have been collected to analyze the effectiveness of the projects and how much it would cost the current administration to resurrect them in order to prevent the goals of their conception from being defeated.
The previous NPC Commissioner further intimated that the contractors who abandoned the projects will be identified and encouraged to return to the sites.
He further disclosed that anyone found to have broken the law would be turned over to anti-corruption agencies for appropriate action.
The Senator, who complained that examples of project abandonment had become worisome and uncomfortable, declared that the current administration will take drastic measures to minimize the embarrassing national humiliation.
“Having completed the ‘committee assignment’ process and senators assigned to committees, they have gotten off to a good start by focusing on cases of abandoned projects.
“Members of the 10th Senate have been assigned to various committees. The senate is in recess and we would be returning on September 25th to start legislative activities with a fresh vigour. I want to tell you something. We have nicknamed the 10th senate as a corrective senate.
“Before we came up with this, it was as a result of so many observations and brainstorming. Most of the people that are in the 10th Senate have gotten elected for the 3rd term, 4th term. They were part of past administrations. So, we have seen things that are wrong and if we see that something is wrong, we have to change the way we do it.
“If not, we will keep on getting the same bad result. If we ourselves have christened the 10th senate as a corrective senate, it has to be made known that what to expect from us will be different from what you have been seeing before.
“Let me just give you one hint, we discovered that across the country, there are more than 10,000 abandoned projects.
“These are projects that have gone through all the required processes and it is assumed in the reckoning of the government that these have been delivered to the people of the communities in question.
“But, alas, when you get there, nothing has been done”, the Senator said and appealed for maximum cooperation of Nigerians to enable the Senate achieve the set goals.
