Jimi Agbaje posted this on his Facebook page this morning.
It's a response to Governor Fashola's comments that
Agbaje's company only paid his taxes after he was publicly
called out. Read below...
The Honourable Governor B.R. Fashola (SAN) has lied
again and I think it's time to address his repeated
blunder.
With regards to my taxes, there is no truth in this latest
piece of misinformation that the Honourable Governor
has been peddling. Following the repudiation of his initial
allegations about Jaykay Pharmaceuticals unpaid taxes,
he has lied again, giving the impression that my
company has gone to pay money supposedly owed to
the government.
JAYKAY PHARMACEUTICALS has not paid a kobo since the
day the Honourable Governor launched his initial attack. We
stick to the facts contained in its initial publication, which
encapsulated the company's reaction to the Governor’s initial
falsehood. To now insinuate that I have gone behind the
curtains to pay N500,000 is clearly political silly season, for
lack of a better phrase, and quite frankly, beneath your
person.
It's understandable that we've both had our differences in
course of this election season, but when the Honorable
Governor goes about launching unbridled, flat-out-false
attacks at me about something as important as taxes, you
leave me no choice but to call you out, Sir.
When I got into this race, I decided to make it about the
issues. My opponents, not so much. They talked about me
being inexperienced and at some point they said I was too old
to govern and we responded with BOLD IDEAS intended to put
Lagos on a new trajectory - one that is NOT based on the
Jagaban's tax-and-spend economics but on a framework that
would radically push us to new economic frontiers for some of
the most under-developed regions of the state like Epe and
Ikorodu. They ridiculed our ideas around government-enabled
free wifi hotspots across the city - an idea targeted at
widening the reach of a world of knowledge that the Internet
offers to our young and aspiring populace - especially in areas
of low penetration. They called it bold ignorance and out of
touch with reality yet they quickly went on to implement wifi
Internet-enabled buses a couple of weeks after. As much as
we're glad that our BOLD IDEAS inspire you as much as they
do us, one must begin to question the seriousness of the
opposition in Lagos to make this election about the issues.
How ever you cut or dissect our success as a state over the
last 16-years, the fact is that Lagos in the Economic
intelligence Unit (EIU) is still ranked 137th out of 140 cities
listed in the liveability index. This means that if you take 140
cities worldwide where people consider good to live in, Lagos
is the fourth worst place to live in. Apart from this, a World
Bank survey shows that of the 36 states in Nigeria, Lagos is
still the worst state in terms of the ease of securing Building
Permits. It is still on record too that the party the Honourable
Governor represents has delivered less than 5,000 housing
units till date. It is still on record that more students in Lagos
fail WAEC than those who pass. Even when we consider
corruption, we are aware that Honourable Governor Fashola is
yet to challenge anyone for corruption at the state level. Or is
he saying Lagos is 100 percent corruption-free? Yet he goes
about castigating the Federal Government. He should walk his
talk and lead by example – expose and prosecute high-
ranking corrupt officials in his government and the state civil
service. The corruption in the Lekki Toll Plaza will be made
public in due cause.
Clearly, we still have a lot of work to do as a State but the
Honourable Governor Babatunde Fashola has set out to exploit
the commanding heights he occupies in the seat of
government to bully us. And quite frankly, we shall stand up
to bullies.
I think what Lagosians should begin to ask is what is driving
the Honourable Governor Fashola’s violent outbursts? What
has he got to hide? Other than lay the facts bare to enable
the public form an informed opinion.
I refuse to be baited into his self-declared verbal warfare. My
politics and campaign will be issues-based and no roforofo
badmouthing from anyone, no matter how highly placed, will
steer me away from development-based politicking.
There are more pressing issues, more important conversations
to have and more problems to solve. And the people of Lagos
are wondering if their leaders get it. The teachers, the
students, the blacksmiths, the bankers, the taxi-man, the
small-business owners, they all hope that their leaders
understand that the outcome of this election and the future of
this state is bigger than any one personality or party.
Whatever we do or commit to doing determines whether they
have food to put on their tables; whether they can own
homes, pay salaries or that their children can go to schools of
their choice. They deserve better. The people definitely deserve
better.