February 8, 2025

Ondo Flooding: Address the ineptitude in your ministry – ZL CEO tells Environment Commissioner

…Accuses Oseni of collecting huge kickbacks from company

The Chief Executive Officer of ZL Global Alliance, Abiola Bashorun has insisted that that the alleged ineptitude of the Ondo State Commissioner for Environment, Oyeniyi Oseni was responsible for the recent flooding recorded in some parts of the state.

This was contained in statement personally signed anf made available to newsmen.

Bashorun claimed that as Special Adviser to the late Governor Oluwarotimi Akeredolu, Mr Oseni “collected kickbacks running into huge sums from the company thereby making ZL appear ineffective.”.

“How hypocritical of him therefore to come out to accuse the company he himself rendered helpless through his incessant demands for unrighteous payments, gifts, kickbacks etc”, Bashorun said.

Full Statement below

WHAT EXACTLY DOES OSENI WANT?

I have read the response of the Commissioner for Environment to my sympathy to the government and people of Ondo State on the avoidable tragedy of flash flood that ravaged Ondo City. While I took time to offer candid advice to the government on what it had failed to do to prevent the avoidable tragedy and challenged the Environment Commissioner to brace up to his responsibilities, Hon. Oseni took the path of pettiness to defame my person and the legal entity, ZL Global Alliance by imputing an allegation of fraud against the duo. It must be established that Mr. Oseni’s statement is a personal enunciation of his vendetta with ZL Global Alliance and so should stop being clever by half trying to give it a state government coloration.

While I would have looked the other way had it been the Commissioner addressed the issues raised in my previous release, it is no longer possible as Mr. Oseni has allowed pettiness drag him to the side of defamation which at the appropriate time I will handle legally. However, it suffices to say that he that comes to equity must come with clean hands. It is surprising that the Commissioner would think he has moral standi to impute allegations of fraud to anyone when in the real and actual fact, he is an embodiment of bribery, cutting corners and inhibiting projects that were supposed to be to the advantage of the people of Ondo State just for his personal gains.

It is laughable that Mr. Oseni claimed to be proactive and aware of the prediction of Nigerian Metrological Agency (NiMet), yet he did not take actions. He claimed the flood was as a result of the inefficiency of ZL Global Alliance as if he is not aware that for two (2) years, such flood occurrence never happened in Ondo State because ZL Global Alliance works with information and take actions immediately. Let me remind the commissioner that over Six hundred lives were lost to flooding in Nigeria in 2022 and properties worth billions of naira were lost. ZL Global Alliance was still in the saddle and did very well such that Ondo State never experienced any of such incident. Just a few months that Mr. Oseni came to the saddle as he had always wanted and all we can see is inefficiency and ineptitude.

The Commissioner claimed that 24 waste collection trucks were handed over to ZL Global Alliance, but I must set the records straight that ZL Global Alliance is with capacity and effectively carried out the contract it had with the state government with her resources, most especially trucks.

I do not want to believe that Mr. Oseni lacks administrative tact and precision. How on earth will a commissioner term a contract he supervised as fake? Yet his ministry takes a huge chunk from the contract sum under the cover of “Monitoring Fees” every time the company was paid. Mr. Oseni’s Ministry and even when he was Special Adviser to late Governor Akeredolu (having been nominated in 2021) supervised the same ‘fake contract’ issuing schedule of work and other directives. I think he should look elsewhere for a dog to call a bad name just to hang it.

Hon. Oyeniyi Oseni as the Special Adviser on Environment to late Governor Akeredolu used that office to portray himself as the consultant (unsolicited though) to ZL Global Alliance and therefore became the greatest beneficiary of money being paid to the company. I write with proofs and Oyeniyi Oseni knows me very well that I always have my pictorial, video and documentary evidence. He will not deny having collected kickbacks running into huge sums from the company thereby making ZL appear ineffective. How hypocritical of him therefore to come out to accuse the company he himself rendered helpless through his incessant demands for unrighteous payments, gifts, kickbacks etc.

Mr. Oseni colluded with some powerful forces to balkanize the original contract of ZL Global Alliance and therefore brought a company to collect pep bottles and we were against it that it’s in our contract. That was what led to his hatred toward ZLGA. That was a major breach in the execution of our contract.

Moreover, Mr. Oseni arm-twisted ZL Global Alliance by introducing sub-contractors to handle some dredgings and thereby making the contract unprofitable to all but himself as he made humongous millions of naira from the job. He knows I have evidence and if he tries to deny this, I will publish receipts and other pieces of evidence showing how he got so much money from the company especially in relation with the Magbehinwa/Idi-Ogba dredging. The issue that got the current Environment Commissioner, Mr. Oseni so bitter is the refusal to pay him a sum of five million naira when the money for Lowbed came. This was because Macroeconomic forces such as dollar rise among others had affected the envisaged profitability of the project. Again, Mr. Oseni cannot deny this as ODBPP had to come into the space to resolve the impasse.

There are many other issues that our lawyers are already handling that I would rather be silent on them for now. This is a man who came with unknown gunmen to harass workers of ZL Global Alliance working on water channelization on Easter Monday having pettily driven from Lagos to Igbotako to carry out the dastardly act but for the intervention of the traditional ruler of the community. It is also on record how Mr. Oseni harassed, with unknown gunmen, my person on the claim that my workers went to landfill sealed by a court order.

It is funny that the Commissioner has failed woefully to address the issues of ineptitude of his ministry especially in the handling of water channelization that led to the unfortunate incident. Instead, in his statement, he had veered into issues merely exposing how corrupt and inept he is. I wish Governor Aiyedatiwa knew his real colour before appointing him to head Environment Ministry.

As I end this statement, I dare the Commissioner, Hon. Oyeniyi Oseni, to deny the issues raised in this statement and then I will be left with no choice than to publish evidences of his looting spree.

Once again, I sympathize with the people of Ondo State on this avoidable tragedy and I repeat my call on the Environment Commissioner to repent and do the needful in truly serving the people of the state as against allowing greed dictate his actions.       
Signed:
Dr. Abiola Bashorun, FCICN
GMD/CEO ZL Global Aliiance Ltd