As Aliko Dangote commissioned his multi-billion dollar oil refinery in Lekki on Monday, a governorship aspirant in Ogun State, Segun Showunmi, has called for punishment for those behind the relocation of the project from Ogun to Lagos.
It can be recalled that the refinery was initially slated to be sited in Ogun, following the efforts put in place by the Gbenga Daniel administration at the Olokola Free Trade Zone.
In 2011, when Senator Ibikunle Amosun came on board, the administration failed to reach an agreement with Dangote, and the project was moved to Lagos for yet-to-be-identified reasons.
The project, which started in 2017, has been commissioned today by President Muhammadu Buhari, generating discussions about how Ogun lost such a huge project to Lagos.
While congratulating Lagos State and Dangote on the commissioning of the refinery, Showunmi said: “I cannot but wonder what explanation Ogun State has for not housing that project that sits pretty within our Ogun Development Master Plan with Olokola Free Trade Zone in Ogun Waterside!”
Showunmi lamented further, saying, “It is time to have a law that punishes economic sabotage occasioned by bad politics.”
According to him, no one should be allowed to set a state back on the altar of winning an election.
The chieftain of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, maintained that no state would make any steady progress “if that nonsense is not punished” to forestall a repeat.
Showunmi posited that the cost of maintaining governors is way too huge a price to pay, “only for the state to now carry huge consequences of their myopic tantrums.”
He insisted that a law must be enacted to review and punish this type of economic and development sabotage going forward.
He expressed appreciation that Dangote did not take the project outside Nigeria, saying that would have provoked him beyond words.
“No one must be allowed to be irresponsible at the expense of all of us,” he said.
