Officials use an imaginary company and unregistered others to rake up contracts running into millions of naira in LASODA; and the state’s public procurement agency, others turn a blind eye amid PWD’s suffering.
By Gbenga Ogundare
When the Lagos State Special People Law was creating the Lagos State Office for Disability Affairs, there were a couple of things the Act never envisaged. One: LASODA morphing from a coordinating agency to a Father Christmas. Two: the law never foresaw its creature becoming a law unto itself.
But the agency handlers are not to blame entirely. The law has one yawning loophole—or more. Of the 19 functions the Act saddles LASODA with in Section 9, only one, subsection 13, allows the agency to dabble in infrastructure delivery. That’s establishing rehab centres. Others focus on liaising, advising, collaborating, coordinating, guiding, and enforcing all things relating to disability in the state.
However, sub-section 4 of the Act’s Section 12 establishes the Disability Fund, and empowers LASODA to dip in. The fund has been gulping N500m annually, from the state, since 2016. That’s more like a slush fund tempting enough for an agency largely set up for coordinating purposes to become a spendthrift, and burn through it without triggering any alarm.
Under its General Manager Dare Dairo, LASODA just had to throw money around, and spend N109.5 million on 18 of its projects it publicly accounted for between December 2021 and December 2022. More than half of the contracts were simply for ‘sensitizing and creating awareness’ for the actual projects—which were themselves mostly jamborees. Missing from the public record are the actual amounts LASODA spent on four of its core projects ER reviewed, including a cash empowerment scheme, a health insurance scheme, an en expo, and a sport fiesta.
And to cap up the height of impunity, LASODA, documents reveal, offered a phantom more than 30 percent of these contracts; it shared the remaining among four unregistered others, and only one registered company. The whole contracting process did not follow the state’s procurement law guidelines.
The Special People Law provides for LASODA’s accountability, no doubt. And the state’s public procurement law (PPA 2021) is there to also ensure the PWDs in Lagos get a bang for every buck the office spends out of the Disability Fund. To ensure a similitude of responsibility, the state’s Parastatal Monitoring Agency even engaged R.A. Rabiu and Co. to review LASODA’s activities in 2022. Whatever the monitoring group found is still anybody’s guess.
The chairman of the state’s Albinism Association of Nigeria, Tolani Ojuri, believed it’s all a sweet-heart deal when government agencies probe one another. Other stakeholders in Lagos disability communities share a similar opinion. They all admitted the state Gov. Babajide Sanwo-Olu is doing everything his administration can do for the PWDs in his state. But LASODA has become a drag on the government’s efforts. To worsen things, the governor usually directs complaints of irresponsibility to the agency again. And in that wise, opacity in the office’s affairs and its administration of the Disability Fund continues. ER made Efforts to verify many of the inconsistencies found in documents LASODA made public. Neither G.M. Dairo, a level-8 officer, nor his Evaluation Department Director Oguntoye responded to the phone call and questions sent to them.
According to data from Dec 2021 to last December, which the state’s PPA provides, services take up more than half of LASODA’s contract awards. The services further break down into two: events and Software as a Service (SaaS). Other categories include supplies: of office equipment to the agency itself, assistive devices to Dairo and his public affairs manager, and unspecified types and quantities of assistive devices to the PWD community.
Besides the absence of invitations to tender and details of the bidding process, there is no evidence LASODA carried out needs assessment for the projects. It’s not feasible for now. The law states categorically the office must establish and maintain a database of all PWDs in Lagos—for planning purposes. But the agency has adopted a convenient tack, a hit-or-miss model which shrouds things in secrecy, and makes accountability difficult.
In a mounting violation of Section 26 (subsections 1,2,3,4,and5) of the state’s procurement law, LASODA awarded contracts to a company with no legal or corporate identities—and some not eligible for the award they got. One of them, which doubles as the most-awarded of the contractors, exists only in the imagination of Dairo and his agency.
G.O. Dynasty has been cornering LASODA’s multimillion-naira contracts, more than 30 percent of the 18 awards, since 2021. Yet it has no corporate identity with the Corporate Affairs Commission. It has no form of existence that ER could verify either. And Dairo refused to explain how he made the state’s public procurement agency pass G.O Dynasty as an eligible contractor.
An unregistered oil-and-gas concern from Warri, Delta, also carted off at least four LASODA’s contracts in a field alien to hydrocarbons exploration—events management.
Two other contractors were listed on the CAC the same day, on Feb. 27, 2020, and few months later, with no proven track record, they started grossing in LASODA’s contracts. Both have four between them so far.
A track record is of no essence to LASODA; otherwise a fabrication like G.O. Dynasty would not have raked in six contracts in two years—across three fields of experience. It began with supply of covid 19 preventive aids to the disability community in 2021. The award was priced N3.6m—for hand sanitizers and soap, according to those who knew about the items. Its next foray into medical emergency supply came in April 2022, with the supply of ‘emergency medical relief’ to the albino cluster—for N2.5m. And there was a lot of monkey business that went into this.
Section 67 of the PPA 2021 empowers an agency to directly contract out projects, without competitive bidding, during emergencies, but not without following due process—or handing contracts out to illegal entities like G.O. Dynasty—just for the asking.
In supply of hardware, the illegal company holding sway inside LASODA snagged two contracts: the agency’s office furniture for N2.5m in 2021, and mobility devices for Dairo and his public affairs manager. The second award stood at N2.3m. In event management, G.O. Dynasty got at least two contracts: a one-day sign language training for 200 civil servants at the cost of N3.5m; and “Planning for Media Plan Workshop”—for N1.6m.
ER verified and confirmed many of the events and supplies. But the takes of the PWDs on the projects revealed a lot of shenanigan. Albino cluster’s former chairman Josephine Omotola said the cluster got the delivery last April. “The medical relive was given and Florourasil was handed over to our Dermatologist while sun lotions was shared during the meeting but I will check my Diary for the date,” she said in a Whatsapp message and picture sent to ER. Based on its grammage, a tube of Florourasil ranges from N25,000 to N60,000. The number of tubes Dairo presented is less than a dozen, and was bought for N2.5m—to serve a cluster of over 80 members
G.M. Dairo (seated) presenting N2.5m emergency medical aid to Albino cluster
Josephine, however, said the second set of the pre-cancer treatment cream was distributed during Deep Presentation—a December programme for PWDs that takes place at the Blue Roof, Alausa. “It was handed over to the dermatologist at Lagos State University Teaching Hospital Ikeja Lagos,” she added.
But Ojuri, the cluster’s current chairman, said what the doctor got were not many.
An imaginary contractor could not have delivered any better.
The remaining contractors--- De-MMG, Jay ‘N’ Eff, NEOTS Ltd, Lauryn Banky International Company, and Alpha Liquid Ventures—are all listed, except De-MMG, as mere names with the CAC. But the circumstance of Alpha Liquid and Jay ‘N’ Eff’s listing, both as events managers, on a single day, raised a red flag. All the same, Jay ‘N’ Eff (BN307 89700) got a N2-million Sensitization Programme on Health Insurance Scheme Policy from LASODA, and another sensitization event that targeted Special-need Children, for N1.9m. That was in addition to another event it organized, Stakeholders Award Forum, last year, for N1.8m. The actual amount LASODA spent on procuring the health insurance scheme, if it ever launched, has no record. The other company, Alpha Liquid Venture, BN:3078616, bagged the supply of consumables to LASODA’s units and departments, for N1.8m.
NEOTS, the oil-and-gas company based in Warri, was listed (BN: 1264025) in 2009, and has been creaming off event management contracts and supplies from LASODA. The only odd project it has undertaken so far was the N7.3m contract to buy and install a 45-kva Perking generator set for the agency. The three others were event management contracts: the 2021 Ability Expo for PWDs, N1.2m; the 2022 celebration of Mothers’ Day and Mother with Disabilities, N7.1m; and the Disability Empowerment Fund presentation event, N10m. LASODA has no record of the amount it spent on the expo. And Dairo clammed up when ER asked for clarification. Ditto for the empowerment fund. But in a petition they recently sent the state governor, some concerned cluster heads revealed the amounts LASODA is hiding. According to Salami, Ojuri, and ADDIN President Joko Omotola, LASODA wasted over N6 million on staging the one-day disability expo—an event by the disabled entrepreneurs and for the disabled community only.
For the empowerment fund, some of the eligible beneficiaries of its N100,000, and its N50,000 social security support are yet to receive the handouts—as of the time Salami and others petitioned the governor. This was a project whose announcement alone—or presentation, in LASODA’s procurement-babble—gulped N10m.
Sensitization is a money guzzler in LASODA. And Dairo goes big on it. Maybe because of his experience in running a string of PR hotshops before he joined the state's civil service as a communication officer. For N4.8m, De-MMG Media (RC 2126485) organized the ‘sensitization’ and ‘awareness’ for the Lagos Sport Festival at the Lagos Travels Inn in 2021. As usual, there’s no record of what the agency spent on the festival itself. But the petition revealed the undeclared amount the office claimed it spent: N13 million, for a one-day sport event. “The three winners in each category were presented a meager cash prize of N20,000 ,N10,000 and N7,000 respectively,” Salami and others stated.
One of the last two contractors is LaurynBanky (BN:211674), an import-export company that also deals in general contracts. The big-league contractor bagged the contract to install JAWs ( an app for mobile devices used by the blind ), supply computers, and other unspecified items to the PWD Skill Acquisition section of the Lagos State Women Development Centre at Agege last year. LASODA said the contract gulped N11.4m. But the blind cluster chairman insisted there was fraud here: just three or four computers and the software. Moreover, a source confirmed that the Agege centre didn’t jibe with LASODA’s idea. If it wants to equip its computer skills acquisition unit for the PWDs, the centre said it will do it without LASODA’s help. The desktops the agency claimed it bought, the source added, have not even been accepted yet, let alone installed.
LaurynBanky’s biggest deal was the supply of assistive devices to PWDs in Lagos. No specifics stated—as in the devices, numbers, recipients, and clusters. But the contract went for N44m.
Salami told ER the blind cluster he chairs got 50 white canes, and two laptops from LASODA in 2022. He would not know if the items were parts of LaurynBanky’s haul. But he noted the agency never contacted him to present the most pressing need of his members. “I could have requested 1000 white canes because those were what my members needed the most—not laptops,” he said.
Ojuri, in an interview with ER, said LASODA has been carrying on like it answers to nobody, and the agency has never been transparent. ER got two other petitions the Lagos disability community, through the Joint National Association of People With Disability, submitted to the Lagos government between 2021 and 2022. Sanwo-Olu has not considered any of the petitions (duly received) urging him to call Dairo and LASODA to account, and be transparent.
To award multimillion-naira contracts to an imaginary contractor G.O. Dynasty and unregistered others is a violation occasioned by opacity. To have gotten away with that means LASODA and its handlers are above the PPA. Though it may be of no bite in view of the impunity that reigns in the disability affairs office, the Act’s section 69 states its punishment: A person who contravenes any provision of this law commits an offence and is liable to conviction to a term of imprisonment not less than five years, but not exceeding 10 years without an option of fine. Its subsections spell out what constitutes an offence in the G.O. Dynasty case, including fakery, corruption, collusion, and those of other illegal contractors.
While accountability or its lack may not get the attention it deserves, the suffering minority gets worse as a result of deprivation the resource mismanagement brings.
“My members are dying,” said Ojuri. “And when I complain, they tell me people must die anyhow.”
LASODA is not established to fight skin cancer or revamp education for all. It might not take the rap for all the deaths and illiteracy roiling the disability community in Lagos. But with its policies and programmes, the office can guarantee the PWD inclusion, access, diversity, and equality. Those concerned believe achieving these is far better than all the powwows and doughnuts it claims as procurements.
Inclusive Pry School, Igando
In the absence of those policies, the PWDs not dying from skin cancer complications are dying of other killers.
There are no fewer than 200,000 children with disabilities in Lagos. Of these, the Festus Fajemilo Foundation said, only 10,000 are enrolled in 44 inclusive education units, special schools, and others in the state. LASODA has not been able to make good the state’s promise in education—to leave no disabled child behind.
How inaccessible schools, hospitals, court buildings, and other public infrastructure can include PWDs with others is not the question. Why LASODA, created to enforce the code for accessible buildings, has never developed or made public its building codes begs for answers.
The ignorance this lack of access creates spares neither the young nor the old. Its twin evil poverty is also ravaging many in a state whose labour market is so competitive PWDs will have to fight harder to make a living.
A few, among this minority group estimated at two million in Lagos, still look to LASODA to protect their rights and ensure their welfare. But they do that out of despair. In their critical moments, those ER interviewed dismissed the agency as the honey pot for its managers whose impunity never bothers the state government.
