Former Governor of Lagos State, Babatunde Raji Fashola has come under severe attack by angry Nigerians who kept slamming him for allegedly spending a whopping sum of N78 million building only a website.
While some of his loyalists are still defending him, the former governor in his statement did not deny the existence of the website, but denied owning it.
“My attention has been drawn to the Twitter campaign alleging that the Lagos State Government (LASG), led by His Excellency, Babatunde Raji Fashola, SAN spent Seventy Eight Million Naira (N78M) to upgrade the www.tundefashola.com web site, a site dedicated to giving citizens unfettered access to the Governor’s daily activities and open access to information.
“It is imperative to state here that, the website in question is not Mr. Babatunde Raji Fashola’s personal website but an official website which reports and documents his official activities as a way of socially accounting for his stewardship to the people of Lagos State. This initiative of having an official website for the Governor was to build on the earlier commitment to open access which saw Governor Fashola being the first serving governor to publish his telephone number on the pages of newspapers. As pressure mounted on that number, the website and all of its social media handles became alternative platforms for people to directly engage with their elected governor”.
Fashola said “the selective loading of contracts awarded and executed by the Lagos State Public Procurement Agency is itself suspect and aimed at a pre-determined end”. He added that “The statement of the Contract Line Item and the cost ascribed on the website of the agency are therefore misleading and mischievous”.
The above statement however does not in any way indicate the exact amount spent in reconstructing the website, neither did the Fashola deny spending the alleged amount, meanwhile IT specialists whom this reporter spoke to on the issues told us that except for inflation, the cost of building even the best website in the world cannot be valued at N78 million even if built by Mark Zuckerberg.