Lasun Yusuff, a former Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives and Labour Party’s governorship candidate for the Osun State governorship election coming up next Saturday, was once fingered as the mastermind behind a N1.1 billion water scam project in the state.

A 2018 investigation by the ICIR revealed that Yusuff used Nur and Company Nigeria Ltd., his personal company, to secure water projects in Ife-Odan, a community in Osun West, and Ila-Orangun in Osun Central Senatorial District but failed to carry out the projects effectively.

In 2012, the Ogun-Oshun River Basin Development Authority (OORBDA), the agency supervising the water projects, awarded the Ife-Odan scheme at the sum of N538,412,653.06 and the one meant for Ila-Orangun at the rate of N539,128,429.13 to Nur and Company Nigeria Ltd.

In February 2017, five years after the project was initiated, the OORBDA thanked Nur and Company for jobs well done and handed the projects over to the Osun State Government through its water corporation.

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However, ICIR found out that a year after the supposed completion of the projects, water scarcity in the communities was far from over and the projects had failed to ameliorate the issue that spurred their approval.

In Ife-Odan, the massive water plant erected by the contractor had not produced a drop of water, and weeds and cobwebs had overtaken the plant.

Chief Amoo Adegbite, the Obajio of Ife-Odan, said the alleged poor handling of the project dashed the people’s hope, saying it disappointed the entire community after high expectations.

Also, a civil servant who lived in Ila-Orangun said apart from the four tap points sited at the water plant, there was no other public tap point within the vicinity that he was aware of.

The State Water Corporation, embarrassed by the poor work done by the contractor, rejected the projects in Ila-Orangun and Ife-Odan. According to the ICIR report, the amount of water yielded at the two sites was grossly inadequate.

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Another officer of the corporation, who spoke anonymously, told ICIR, “The current Deputy Speaker of the National Assembly (Yusuff) owns the company that handled the Ila-Orangun and Ife-Odan projects. It is a secret arrangement between him and the contract awarding agency because it is against the law.”

When a reporter embarked on a search for Nur and Company Nigeria Ltd., they could not find their details anywhere. No website, contact or social media account was found.

The company’s address at Plot 8, Impressive Close, off Dosumu Street, Agidingbi, Ikeja, Lagos, as reportedly quoted in Lasun’s application document for the bidding exercise, belonged to a different owner entirely.