Governor Babatunde Fashola has returned the ThisDay Governor of the Year Award for distinction in infrastructure development conferred on him in February to the Leaders and Company, the organiser of the award.

Fillers from the governor’s office at Alausa yesterday said that the action came in the aftermath of the recent publication in ThisDay which was designed to force government to violate its physical planning laws to serve the interest of an individual.

According to a letter titled: “Return of award”, which was personally signed by Governor Fashola, the Thisday awards was a greek gift meant to tie the hands of the state’s helmsman.

The letter reads: “Little did I know, on receipt of the award, that it was a greek gift meant to do right to all manner of people according to law without fear or favour, affection or ill-will.”

He also restated his determination to continue to hold sacred the oath of office.

The governor further declared in the letter that “Let me emphasised that on no condition will I depart from my binding commitment to protect the best interest of Lagos State at all times.”

It will be recalled that the Lagos State Government has stoutly defended its integrity pointing out that recent publications of THISDAY newspaper casting aspersion on his character were borne out of malice, mischief and parochial self-interest.

The Lagos State Commissioner for Information and Strategy, Mr. Opeyemi Bamidele, said the state government strictly follows due process and transparency in the award of all contracts.

According to him, “Hi-tech is a highly reputable and reliable construction company that has handled projects of very high standard in Lagos State and at costs that are even lower than the rates used by the Federal Government”.

The commissioner cited some of the jobs satisfactorily handled by Hi-tech to include the reconstruction of Saka Tinubu Street, Victoria Island, which has a very difficult terrain, construction of Adetokunbo Ademola road, rehabilitation of the bridge to Aboyade Cole, rehabilitation and expansion of Bishop Oluwole road and the ongoing reclamation, stabilisation and transformation of the Bar Beach.

Mr. Bamidele regretted that THIS DAY misled its readers on the cause of the Ijegun Pipeline fire disaster when the National Assembly in a resolution had asked the NNPC to pay compensation to the victims of the fire for not properly burying and encasing their pipelines and properly identifying their setbacks for pipelines.

In the same vein, he explained that the Lekki Infrastructure project, involving the Lekki Concession Company, is a heavy direct private sector investment in the country and it is thus not the business of the Lagos state government to select the contractor.

“All Nigerians can bear witness today to the high quality of work done so far on the first two kilometers of the Lekki – Epe Expressway already delivered by the Concessionares” the commissioner said.

He equally dismissed claims that the cost of projects in Lagos State are shrouded in secrecy stressing that “details of our project costs can be found in our budgetary breakdown and in several publications of the government, which are in the public domain. There is absolutely no reason for a government that is doing so much that is visible to hide the cost of its undeniable achievements”.

The commissioner said further that the Lagos State government has no business dealings with any individual or corporate organization indicted for violating any known laws of the country and does not intend to do so.