RE: RESPONSE TO SENATOR BURUJI KASHAMU BY ONAMUSI DANIEL ONADEKO
I have again read the response of my former Senior Legislative Aide (SLA), Hon. Onamusi Daniel Onadeko, to the rejoinder I wrote, replying him over his claims that his ordeals in the hands of the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC) - which is trying him for fraud, abuse of office and other sundry offences - was sponsored and politically motivated.
1. Onamusi, it should be clear to discerning minds who have read your hogwash that you failed woefully in your attempt to blackmail me and wipe up unnecessary sentiments. By your own account of the events that transpired between us, you have inadvertently and incontrovertibly confirmed that you used two of your companies to execute 18 of out 21 constituency projects I facilitated for Ogun East Senatorial District in the 2016 budget while serving as my SLA! However, your justification was that you did so based on the instructions of some unnamed party leaders. Onamusi, you lied! No leader authorized you to execute projects on their behalf. Yours was a fraudulent act, bordering on insatiable greed, abuse of office, betrayal of trust and unconscionable treachery.
2. With respect to your claim about those I have political differences with, it is not today that people; especially politicians, disagree with one another and then settle their differences. That is why they say we agree to disagree. If as you claimed, you were warned not to relate with me or get close to me, why did it take my objection to your dishonest and fraudulent acts to realize this?
3. The truth of the matter is that based on instructions that my office should not be involved in contract award and execution and that you should inform qualified constituents and party leaders who are contractors and who may be interested in executing such projects in their communities, you informed some of them and they submitted their documents to you. You even collected money from some of them that you needed to use to pay for bids and process some documents. But, you later told them that their companies did not qualify and that you could help them to get contractors who would execute the projects on their behalf. Unknown to them, you and your companies were the “contractors” that you offered to get for them. Stop lying that you executed the contracts with the consent of the leaders or in my best interest? Which interest? Are you saying that you had my interest at heart more than those you falsely claimed to have acted for? How could you have executed contracts on someone’s behalf without his or her knowledge of the contract name, sum, site and other details? Besides, were you a legislative aide or a contractor?
4. You consistently lied to me and community/party leaders and constituents that different contractors handled the projects until the Constituency Projects Monitoring Committee that I set up went to inspect the projects and stated the names of the companies handling each of them. That was when it was revealed that two of your companies – Stanton Nigeria Limited and Haines & Baines Nigeria Limited – handled over 90 percent of the projects.
5. Upon the committee’s report, when I repeatedly asked you who owned the two companies, you denied same until I confronted you with Sworn Affidavits at the FCT High Court, Abuja and documents from the Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC), bearing your passport photograph, name and signature as director of the companies! You then went down on your knees, owned up to the deals and started begging for forgiveness. But, I told you that the matter was beyond me because the crime you committed was not against me but the Federal Government and I would not want to be accused of complicity or using you as a front to influence the award of contracts to myself or companies where I had interests.
6. Now, if you claim that there are decided cases and laws which preclude legislative aides from being public officers, why not just go through the judicial process, like I did in the United Kingdom over the needless case that you referred to and have had to defend in the past, to establish your innocence? At least, you have publicly stated and admitted that you saw some judgments and documents relating to the case and you became “VERY comfortable” with me, adding that, “Whatever could be the opinion of any individual (including you, Onamusi) regarding the issue…cannot supersede the court judgments”. So, why the old worn-out talk about going to the US?
7. Going by your claim on precedents, it is only “The President and Deputy President of the Senate, Speakers and Deputy Speakers of the House of Representatives and Houses of Assembly of the State and all members and staff of Legislative Houses” that are public officers. If you knew that senators are public officers who should not be involved in contract awards and execution, and yet you carried on as if I instructed you to represent me in executing the contracts, it goes to confirm my suspicion that you deliberately wanted to set me up and put me in trouble – the very reason I had to be proactive in proving my innocence and exonerating myself. It should also be noted that the case (s) you cited, according to you, had to do with terminal benefits and emoluments and not abuse of office and gross misconduct. Again, if by your admission, public officers include “ALL members and staff of Legislative Houses”, then the argument could be stretched further to mean that it includes Legislative Aides because the drafters of the law did not specify whether temporary or permanent staff. While I have only gone this route to open up your mind, I honestly think that all these your positions are better canvassed in a court of law.
8. While I appreciate all you claimed to have done during my election and the six days that the NDLEA illegally laid siege to my house, they are not enough reasons for you to put me in trouble or deprive others, including party leaders and constituents their right and entitlements. They are Nigerians and equal stakeholders.
9. If it is true that you spent N3million of your personal money to organize raffle draw in your hometown or local government for my election to the Senate, I thank you for the gesture but I am aware that you have equally realized up to N70million in the 22 months that you worked with me as SLA, either by hook or crook. That is why you have the guts to be exchanging these kinds of shameless messages with me after your brazen acts of corruption and fraud. You think you have made some good money and could look anyone, including your benefactors, in the face.
10. On the issue of 2019 and the promise that you said I made to you on either a governorship or senatorial ticket, Onamusi, you lied again. It was when I heard that you were using my name and influence to fight people like Zacchaeus and others over the PDP Exco in your local government that I told you to desist from such act. I said if you had gone to the House of Representatives between 1999 and 2003 on the platform of the Alliance for Democracy (AD), you cannot possibly go below that. And if that were to be the case, it would be decided at the State or national level. I then admonished you to leave these people whom you met in the party and still by-passed to clinch the SLA position to constitute the LG Exco. That was all I told you. I never promised you any senatorial or governorship ticket. I could not have done so because I am not God!
11. Onamusi, it is surprising that you stated that your second piece would be the last on this issue. I had expected you to continue so that I can go further to release all the correspondences and text messages that we both exchanged on this matter and then people would see who should seek forgiveness from God and man between the two of us.
12. For now, I will keep my powder dry; waiting for you to fire the next salvo and then you shall have it in full measure since you asked for it. Thank you and God bless.
Signed
Senator Buruji Kashamu
Ogun East Senatorial District
03.01.18
