By: Mayen Etim
KADUNA, North-West Nigeria – Senator Danujma Laah who represented Kaduna South Senatorial District at the 8th Assembly, has debunked the allegation of his involvement in the N390 million Kaduna South Senatorial District ZIP, Capital Project Funds.
The former aide to the senator on Project Monitoring, Alhaji Yahaya Suleiman, made the disclosures in an elaborate statement signed and made available to newsmen in Kaduna on Thursday.
Yahaya stated in the release that Senator Laah, NEVER carried out any contract or was directly or indirectly linked to any of the companies that executed both constituency and capital projects during his tenure.
According to the former Aide, Senator Laah’s major mandate was to ensure that the projects were executed and in good quality based on the specifications of the contracts, and challenged anyone with contrary facts to produce them.
The statement reads: “This statement aims to promptly address the fake news published in one or two online news sources regarding Senator Danjuma Laah (Shetiman Kagoro), the immediate past Senator representing Kaduna South Senatorial District at the 8th Assembly. Senator Laah has received numerous calls from friends and well-wishers seeking to verify the truth, prompting this response.
“Isn’t it then befuddling to the mind of a normal thinking person with the slightest knowledge of financial administration and regulations in today’s governance that a former senator can easily work into MDAs and start collecting sums on contract done during his tenure as if government officials are dummies that do not understand its implementations – assuming that is even possible.
“Again, to point out the lackluster job done by the unknown character assassin, there is no such location as “Zangon Kataf – Kwali road” in Kaduna South Senatorial Zone.
Again, in the entire 8th and 9th Assembly that Sen. Danjuma Laah served meritoriously in the red chamber, there was never a time that, “. . .the developing of standard livestock housing for selected livestock species at National Livestock Training Center, Kachia (N17,625,000)” was included in any of the project in his constituency. That’s a total fabrication and an annoying lie.
“On the “Rehabilitation/Reconstruction Of Kwoi – Kafanchan road (N200,000,000)” the company that executed the work that was attached to the 2022 Capital Projects of Sen. Danjuma Laah is called MOFTREH CONSTRUCTION Nigeria Ltd. It is easy to verify the owners of the company by a simple search with the Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC). Sen. Danjuma Laah has no whatsoever link with the company outside ensuring it executed the contract awarded to it in his constituency. And in any case, it was purely a maintenance project and NOT “Reconstruction”. That’s was why the amount was N200,000,000 Naira (two Hundred Million Naira). Reconstruction of that road at that time would have cost nothing less than N2.5 billion Naira.
“Even at the N200,000,000 million, taxes and statutory charges amounting to 17.5% of the contract are always deducted at the end of the day. So the best that the contractor could have earned was N175 million Naira. And it could NEVER have been Senator Danjuma Laah. Furthermore on this project, we called on any doubting Thomas to visit the Kaduna Zonal Office of the Nigeria Building & Road and Research Institute (NIBRRI) – the government agency that supervised the work and verify the quality of the work carried out by the contractor.
“On this Koi-Kafanchan road, it is important to mention that there were other interventions by other contractors and agencies of government on that road during that period outside that under Sen. Dajuma Laah.
“To portray the ignorance and lack of in depth understanding of the writer, the ICPC already has a desk solely dedicated to investigating all Constituencies and Capital projects of members of the National Assembly. It is not a function of the EFCC. It may do the writer well to approach the ICPC and make a petition to it and not come to the Internet and embarrass his sponsors who also remain faceless.”
The former Aide further stated in the release: “In trying to authenticate and find out who was behind the shoddy write up with the view of giving the Senator’s side of the story, I have traced the address given by Metro Daily as “PLOT 273 REINSURANCE BUILDING
HERBERT MACAULAY WAY
2ND FLOOR, C WING, CENTRAL BUSINESS DISTRICT (CBD)
ABUJA – FCT” and discover that no office like that exists. The number given was also not going through.
“It therefore suffices to say that the main thrust of the writer of the highly malicious and libelous story is to hurt the integrity of Senator Danjuma Laah without consequences to both the writer and the owner of the website.
“This is rather unfortunate given the fact that Senator Danjuma Laah does not play the politics of mudslinging and hate to garner the huge political capital that he has earned for himself over time.
“Senator Danjuma Laah is a grassroots person and has been committing his hard earned resources to the development and progress of his people long before he thought of joining politics.
“He cannot therefore be involved in dirty deals to shortchange his constituency which he has sacrificed his own resources and even risk his life to safeguard.”