One of the few females declared not fit to be minister in Nigeria

Kemi Adeosun was the former Finance Commissioner in Ogun State of Nigeria... The head of the Coalition Against Corrupt Leaders, Debo Adeniran, has described the ministerial nominee from Ogun state, Kemi Adeosun, as a misfit for the task if eventually confirmed by the Nigerian Senate. The allegations against her are as follows:

1.        A British citizen, Adeosun returned to Nigeria in the early 2000s, having worked at a local branch of a UK building society, but determined to break into the Nigerian financial sector by any means possible.

2.        One of the first positions she obtained in Nigeria was in Bolaji Balogun’s ChapelHill Denham where she was asked to resign, following anti-company activities which she executed in conjunction with Niyi Adeosun, her husband – a heavy drinker who has made a career of capitalising on dubious opportunities created by his wife. We would like Kemi Adeosun to let the general public know about the role both she and her husband played in the failed Ogun State Model Schools project which resulted in a huge waste of public funds. Her husband’s company collected an advance payment for building some of the schools yet the structures did not materialise.

3.        Although their relationship has since gone awry, it is widely known that it was Mr Wale Edun, former Lagos commissioner for Finance (under Tinubu) who generously recommended Kemi Adeosun to Governor Amosun. Due diligence was clearly not done or else it would have been apparent to Ibikunle Amosun that he was appointing someone who is commonly referred to as a ‘rogue’ in the Nigerian financial sector.

4.        On getting the job as Commissioner for Finance in Ogun State, Kemi Adeosun constantly misled both the State Executive Council and the governor by over-inflating the state’s IGR. This led to the Ogun State government being further plunged into debt. It would be instructive to learn just how much debt Ogun State has accrued in the last four years under the watch of Governor Ibikunle Amosun and his Finance Commissioner. We challenge Mrs Kemi Adeosun to provide an analysis of the recurrent income that supports her IGR claims. Does Kemi Adeosun not know that the huge debts owed to hundreds of contractors should form part of the state’s current liabilities? Ogun State’s finances are in a mess.

5.        During her tenure, Kemi Adeosun routinely rejected good opportunities for investor funding of projects, in preference for loans to the state so that she could benefit from kickbacks from banks such as GTBank and First Bank. So devious is she that when given preloaded bankcards, she would specifically demand that the money be handed to her in cash.

6.        Kemi Adeosun misled the State Executive Council in divesting from or underfunding potentially lucrative but failing parastatals like Gateway Savings and Loans, Plantgate etc thereby creating business opportunities for companies to which her husband is linked.

7.        Kemi Adeosun used her inside knowledge of projects in other ministries to hijack initiatives that the ministries were promoting. A case in point is the flagship programme, Home Owners Charter, which ended up being driven by the Ministry of Finance instead of the Ministry of Housing. Such projects provided the opportunity for profiteering. Based on our research, Mrs Kemi Adeosun managed the statewide supply of the bright green Home Owners Charter porter cabins at six times the going rate.

8.        A particularly juicy project was the implementation of the cashless policy. It affected almost all major ministries yet was done without consultation or collaboration, leaving Kemi Adeosun as the controller-in-chief of the ‘thank-you’ packages from the banks who paid her a percentage on a recurrent basis.

9.        In the words of a member of staff at the Ministry of Finance, “When Mrs Adeosun can not find a way of personally benefitting from an initiative introduced by any of her colleagues, she is known to kill it with lies, thereby abusing her access to the governor. She would then repackage the same ideas in a way that would benefit her directly, more often than not using the Ministry of Finance or her external surrogates.” The details of such transactions will be made public in due course.

10.     It is important for Nigerians everywhere to know that if Kemi Adeosun is appointed to any Federal MDAs, she will without a doubt undermine President Buhari’s intentions by damaging such an institution with her greed and inclination for corrupt practices. Without resorting to bamboozling people with her cockney accent, we challenge Mrs Kemi Adeosun, who is not an indigene of Ogun State to provide the general public with references from the financial institutions she has worked for.