Former Majority Leader, Osun State House of Assembly, Hon. Wahab Toye, has reacted to a comment credited to Femi Falana (SAN) chiding the investment in education of former Vice President Atiku Abubakar.
A statement signed by Hon. Toye in Osogbo, Osun State Sunday said the remarks made by Falana while speaking at a public forum in Lagos was uninformed and beneath the expected standard of a senior lawyer of his status.
According to the former lawmaker and lawyer, the establishment of the ABTI Academy in the early 1990s, which is the progenitor of what is now known as AUN Academy and AUN University, predates the time Abubakar was elected Vice President.
He said: “Mr. Falana needs to be reminded that the AUN Group of Schools had a humble beginning in 1992 (as ABTI) with the Nursery school, it was then followed with the addition of the Elementary school. And following the success of that experiment, the Junior High School, Senior High School and lastly the University were established
“If Mr. Falana had applied his mind to fact-finding, the hallmark of the legal profession, he would have saved himself the embarrassment of such a careless talk and he would have found out that Atiku’s investment in education is not a business decision, but a philanthropic and humanitarian venture.
“Falana’s insidious remarks deliberately orchestrated to attack the integrity of His Excellency Atiku Abubakar and the clamour for restructuring, is all together a bad job from a supposed advocate of true federalism. It is a very disappointing narrative that an advocate of good governance and democracy will do such a betrayal to the cause of restructuring as to reduce the clamour for it into an opportunity for personal confrontation.
“For the avoidance of any doubt, from the founding of what was then the ABTI Academy and through its crystallization to the AUN, every fund that has gone into the running of the institution has gone through the test of transparent financial transactions.
“By the grace of God, the Turakin Adamawa entered politics as a successful entrepreneur. He does not depend on his public-sector pension, and we believe it is only fair that he reinvests part of his profits into a university that teaches others to create wealth, generate jobs, and build a better future for our country and our continent; a legacy that he is prepared to bequeath with the last kobo of his.
“And, if Mr. Falana will be willing to accept invitation from the school, it will be worthwhile for him to pay a visit to the campus of the AUN to see for himself the several humanitarian initiatives directed towards driving the mass population of the North-East zone of the country out of poverty and illiteracy.
“The choice of Yola as the site of the AUN campus and the tremendous work being done by faculty and students of the institution to impact life-changing empowerment training on the indigent among the people of their host communities are clearly not money-making venture per se, but a not-for-profit and humanitarian endeavor targeted at the long-term development and emancipation of the people whose lives would be touched by the University.
“I believe that as a respectable voice in the advocacy for true federalism, the former Vice President will be willing to work with Mr. Falana other like minds on the arduous task of ushering reforms in the structures of the federation and inevitably its governance in the country in order to arrest the spiral decline in infrastructure and human capital development in the country.”
Trending
- Alleged fraud: EFCC withdraws operatives from Yahaya Bello’s house
- Police recover day-old baby abandoned on Lagos road
- Two friends docked for allegedly flogging woman in Ibadan
- Abuja court gives EFCC go-ahead to arrest ex-Kogi Governor, Yahaya Bello
- Bello Vs EFCC: Confusion as court of coordinate jurisdiction flouts restraining order
- Alleged N150m bribery: Court admits documents in evidence against oil magnate, Akindele
- South-East Development Commission Assent: President Tinubu’s legacy as a progressive unifier, Eze Frank Osita-Chuks
- Atiku expresses sadness over fire outbreak at Yola Market, calls for support