A civil rights group has petitioned the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC) to investigate Senator Solomon Adeola (Yayi) of Ogun West District for allegedly padding the nation’s budget with projects worth over N1 trillion, the majority of which cannot be traced.
Mr Adeola is the consensus governorship candidate for the All Progressives Congress in Ogun State.
The Pan African Society for Social & Economic Change on Thursday submitted a trove of documents to the ICPC, alleging that Mr Adeola might have misused his position as Chairman, Senate Committee on Appropriation, to insert phantom projects into the nation’s budgets between 2023 and 2026.
Mr Adeola interfered in matters outside his jurisdiction, including allocating projects to other senatorial districts in Ogun State and across the country, the group claimed.
It also alleged that Mr Adeola awarded projects to government agencies whose mandates were unrelated to the nature of the projects.
For instance, the Federal College of Freshwater Fisheries Technology, New Bussa, had N6.7 billion worth of projects allocated to Ogun State in the 2023 budget, including N200 million for the provision of tricycles and N300 million for minibuses, according to the group.
Of particular concern were companies that had the same addresses and directors and were repeatedly awarded hundreds of billions of naira to execute projects that could not be found.
Some of the 13 companies include EST Source Solutions Ltd., End Colours Ltd., Cinedox Solution Limited, Abuja, and Alpuba Services.
Findings by the civil rights group linked the chain of companies to a certain Augustine John Abah, presumed to be dead.
“The most intriguing thing is that majority of the projects Senator Solomon Adeola padded into the budgets cannot be seen on the ground as some of them were highly inflated and funds paid to surrogates companies with one Individual named Augustine John Abah as legal person with same companies address,” the petition received by the ICPC on Thursday said.
The group claimed that Mr Adeola had become an expert in duplicating projects, inflating their budgets and, in some cases, failing to execute them despite receiving funds from the government.
The Pan African Society asked the ICPC to investigate the alleged budget padding, the companies involved and the disbursement of funds linked to the projects.
Asked for comments, Mr Adeola said he had “nothing to say” and that he would allow the investigation to run its course without any obstruction.
“I have nothing to say,” Mr Adeola told Peoples Gazette on Saturday. “Let ICPC investigate and prosecute me if they find me wanting.”
Mr Adeola seeks to succeed Governor Dapo Abiodun of Ogun State in the February 2027 elections. He is running under the ruling APC.