RE: CAMPAIGN AND ALLEGATIONS AGAINST MY PERSON.......THIS MY STORY! My attention has been drawn to various online posts and paid advertisements calculated at disparaging my person and aimed at discouraging me from discharging my responsibilities as a legislator and as one of the vocal voices of the OGHA in support of the good works of the State Executive. To my traducers let me quickly and unequivocally state that i am not deterred but remain focused and even emboldened in my determination to continue to bring germane developmental issues to the fore and to support the Executive where required and ask those in charge of our affairs accountable where i think its necessary. Because I believe in accountability, I also must be accountable to the electorate. It is for this reason and this reason alone that I have decided to respond to a mainly faceless and amorphous group that lacks the courage to affix their real names to the publications. I was elected a Councillor in December 1998 when I was in my final year in University of Benin and sworn in in May 1999, our tenure came to an end in 2002 and our party was voted out of office in the 2003 Governorship Election in Ogun State. I travelled to Cambridge in December 2003 to resume my Masters in International Business Law program in February 2004 with a promise to return to politics. I completed my Masters in International Business Law in Cambridge in 2005. I decided to stay further in the United Kingdom when intelligent report shows that the 2007 elections in Ogun State werent going to be free and fair. I became a Qualified Solicitor in the United Kingdom after taking all required exams in 2005. I started practicing fully in 2006 with Wrightway Solicitors as a Partner, this is after various sojourns with couple of firms as paralegal and under study Solicitor. In 2007, I in company of an India opened a law firm MIB Solicitors. May I state that I have never fell foul of the laws in the entire period of my stay and practice in the UK. In January 2009, I decided that I needed to return back to Nigeria because the heat for party primaries were on and my people in Sagamu were sending messages to me in various forms. I inquire from the Law Society about winding up my Law Firm but wasnt happy when I was informed that the firm has to stop receiving new briefs in the last year prior to closing down, main while the office will continue running and bills will have to be paid. At that stage i was frustrated and ready to heed the call of my people at the risk of abandoning my practice, I wrote to the Law Society informing them of my intention to wind-down the firm at the end of March 2009 and firm out on-going files to sister firms in the interest of our clients and the public at large. I returned to Nigeria on the 4th of April 2009 leaving behind a skeletal office and two paralegals with a consulting Solicitor. I left with the Law Society my Nigerian forwarding address, email and telephone number all of which remain valid till date for any housekeeping matter that may arise after I might have left. It is necessary to state this as it is alleged that I absconded. On the contrary, i informed the Law Society that i was moving back to Nigeria. I had to come because the party AC was about to become ACN and I wanted to be a part of it plus the party congresses and primaries were insight. I must also state that while returning in April 2009, I left my wife and three kids in the United Kingdom living in the same address. They only returned back to Nigeria in May 2011. I must state that I did not receive any letter from the Law Society and I was in contact with my paralegals until end of April when I was told the last pending file was disposed off. I was only informed of a petition by my party (ACN) after I was nominated as the party candidate for State House of Assembly. I stated my case to the party and went further to contact the Consulting Solicitor and paralegal I left behind, to find out what happened. I also contacted and instructed a firm of Solicitors to review the matter and possibly Appeal the Disciplinary bodys decision. Its instructive to note that the disciplinary bodys decision clearly shows that its inconclusive especially when it states that it APPEARS that the respondent had misappropriated clients money for his own benefit. I was informed that the Law Society upon receipt of complain from a client, intervened in the firm and reached a decision that dishonesty was perpetuated on some files mainly because it could not trace the record firming out those files to another firm. I was advised to wait for the Metropolitan Police investigation into the matter as this is the best evidence with which we can seek redress having been be vindicated in it and this is the 5th year since the incidence and we are still waiting. We have written the SRA informing them of our willingness to assist in this investigations to speed it up. This was a matter of not complying with strict professional ethic rules. I put up my hands on hindsight that I might have been Professionally Negligent by not waiting behind to personally wind-down the firm before returning to Nigeria. At no time was i tried by any court for any criminal offence as it was never such. If I had committed an offense like this, there better places and professions I could have hid myself in. Coming home to contest elections and become elected as a public officer whose past and present must be verified wont have been an option. May i advice my traducers and their paymasters who are majorly oppositions to the Peoples Government in Ogun State presently, that It is libelous to call a man a fraudster unless he has been convicted of the crime of fraud by a court of competent jurisdiction. The Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal is not a competent court of law for an offence of fraud either in the United Kingdom jurisdiction or in Nigeria. There are no ifs, buts or ands about it, indeed I faced a work-related professional disciplinary hearing (though i wasnt notified so i wasnt represented) which is not an uncommon thing in any professional employment especially in Law Practice in the United Kingdom. The punishment for fraud in the United Kingdom is usually a custodial sentence. Because of my strong belief in accountability and unknown to my traducers, i had publicly disclosed this incident to the whole world in my biography printed in exercise books distributed during my campaign and during an interview i granted Gbenga Fanoro of the Guardian Newspaper and same was published by two other National Newspapers. It is clear therefore that i had nothing to hide. The cowardly act of this group and its paymasters shows unfortunately how low and degenerate our politics has become. To the discerning, it is obvious where these attacks are coming from and indeed a crying shame that an elected representative can no longer speak freely in defence of those who elected him and in the interest of the state. I find it rather curious that these attacks came on the heels (only few days) of my moving from the camp of the Opposition to the current State Govt in the House of Assembly. At no time did i ever think taking on a powerful force would be a tea party or would not produce virulent attacks. Such would be naivete on my part.However i am propelled by the belief that the hottest part of hell is reserved for those who say nothing when they should. The mandate of my people am enjoying is to attract development to my constituency and nothing I repeat nothing will stop me from doing that. I have read that I should resign, my responds is that I never hid any fact from my party or INEC and i didnt run foul of any Criminal Law (in United Kingdom or Nigeria) or Electoral Law or even the Nigerian Constitution in all of these. Finally, if morality alone rather than enacted law were to be used as the sole basis for regulating elections in Nigeria or anywhere else, it is quite conceivable that no one, not even a single man or woman among the most ardent moral crusaders will be eligible to contest at anytime. I wish to state that i have never prophesed to be saintly neither have i paraded myself as perfect but my imperfections should not and will not stop me from doing that which is right. I have always believed and still do that a mandate is not fulfilled nor does it end upon election, rather it is fulfilled in standing up after the election to speak for the people who gave you that mandate. I have been given a mandate two times and i will continue to do the bidding of the owners of that mandate. That is my job. No more no less, and for that i have no apologies. My people are happy with the responsive representation I provide them and the dividend of democracy in less than two years of being elected, (at the risk of sounding immodest) prominent amongst which are; 1. Relative Peace in Sagamu, 2. Location of the $1m Shell Partnership for the rehabilitation and upgrading of Ogijo Health Centre into a General Hospital Status. 3. The construction of 8billion Naira Akarigbo Road (on going). 4. The location and Construction of 1billion Naira Sagamu Model School in Likosi. 5. Personally building of Latawa Health Cenre. 6. Personally constructing Idado Community Health Centre. 7. Personally Constructing Odo Kekere Health Centre near Ogijo. 8. Organizing FREE Coaching Classes for ALL SS3/GCE Students since July 2011 till date. 9. Construction of Emuren Town hall (painting stage). 10. Organizing the mother of all Empowerment Programme with free medicals and training/retraining of Traditional Birth Attendants. We must as a country learn to address issues and not skirt them. We must leave shadows alone and deal with substance. HON ASIWAJU YINKA MAFE MEMBER (APC) OGUN STATE HOUSE OF ASSEMBLY
Posted on: Fri, 08 Aug 2014 06:26:08 +0000
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