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Tag: OSUN

  • Egbirin ote in Osun

    The Yoruba often talk of egbirin ote— a complex web of intrigues, sustained with unconscionable coldness: and the more you weed out one, the more others sprout, literally from nowhere!

    That appears the situation in Rauf Aregbesola’s State of Osun.

    At the heart of that intrigue, sprouting from a clinically sustained egbirin ote,  is a body that calls itself Civil Society Coalition for the Emancipation of Osun (CSCEO).  Its public face is one Adeniyi Sulaimon Alimi, who takes the title of “chairman”.

    But the real mastermind would appear one Seun Adeoye, a “pastor” in one life and journalist in another, churning out CSCEO’s endless Osun apocalyptic press releases, this time referring to Alimi as CSCEO “chairman”, and that time referring to him as “secretary”!

    Adeoye, a former Osun correspondent of The Guardian, later became the editor of the weekly Osun Mail, an answer to the then opposition Osun Defender, as the Mail railed against the opposition, in the aftermath of the disputed 2007 governorship election.

    Adeoye’s contentious resume, as he cavils against progress but trumpets reactionary causes; as well as his controversial record and tenure in Osun local Nigerian Union of Journalists (NUJ) politics,  would appear to stand him out as a suspect crusader meet a dubious cause!

    To be sure, there is no love lost between the Aregbesola government and the Osun opposition.  Immediately after the Supreme Court threw out Iyiola Omisore’s last challenge to Aregbesola’s re-election, the governor’s supporters mocked, on facebook, twitter and allied social media jungle: “Aregbesola je gomina, Omisore j’agbado!” (literally, “Aregbesola is governor, but all Omisore could crunch is a cob of maize!”).

    That, of course, was a devastating pun on Omisore’s laughable play at “the friend of the poor” ala Ekiti’s Ayo Fayose, munching two maize cobs, on the campaign stumps!  That the ploy spectacularly backfired, with the Osun electorate handing Omisore a resounding defeat, was bad enough.  That Aregbesola supporters would rub it in with such a devastating pun must have stung the Omisore camp to no end — and Alimi and Adeoye’s CSCEO appears happy to be pressed into service!

    That would explain Osun’s current egbirin ote, a rather panicky but cold-blooded get-Aregbe-out-by-hook-or-crook, milking the mass misery of a nationwide crisis of salary defaults, even if the financial recklessness of the Goodluck Jonathan presidency (which, by the way, tried all strong arm tactics to procure an Omisore’s victory, after Fayose’s in Ekiti) caused the crisis.

    Well, their intrigue has ploughed new lows.  A sitting judge, Justice Folahanmi Oloyede, has abused the sanctity of her high office, hauling reckless partisan accusations at a sitting governor.  Yet, she would not appear in the Osun legislature to defend her allegations, as she merrily threatened in her petition.

    CSCEO, a dubious human rights coalition, eggs her on.  But every second, her conduct becomes a rebuke to her core judicial constituency and her National Judicial Council (NJC) employers.  How on earth can NJC, the bastion of judicial independence, defend the reckless conduct of this judge, and protect the bench from the odium sure to follow such judicial rascality?

    Then, a so-called education summit, also vociferously promoted by CSCEO, ended a damp squib.  Though CSCEO shrilly cried blue murder as usual, the people appear to know their genuine leaders, and how to keep charlatans and opportunists at bay.

    Hardball has no business telling CSCEO to quit a barren business, for falsehood would eventually consume its vendors.  But as the Yoruba also say, you need not tell the blind the market has broken.  The funereal quiet, after the din, passes the message quicker!

  • ‘Aregbesola’s transforming Osun economy’

    ‘Aregbesola’s transforming Osun economy’

    Prince Dotun Babayemi is a chieftain of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Osun State. In this interview with SINA FADARE, he says, despite the challenges the state is facing, it is a model for future generation of good governance.

    As a politician and entrepreneur, what are you doing to boost the economy of Osun State?

    We have started the process and it is going to be a continuous exercise. What drew me to politics was the style of governance l saw in Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola in the first two years that he became the governor of Osun State. He came as a crusader who has the knack to serve, the type that we witnessed in the early 60s. Not looking at the state as it is but as it can be in the future. When the late Obafemi Awolowo in the 60s introduced free education, a lot of critics thought the policy cannot work, but look at the benefits today and where it has put the former Western Region.

    That was what attracted me home that something unique is happening here and wanted to be part of it. Apart from interfacing with organization within Nigeria, we are working with the government to see how we can bring investors to the state to open her economic potentials which are all over. One of the core policies of the state is to make it the food basket of the country. We have the green land and all what it takes to make this a reality.

    Action has been taken to that effect about 80 per cent of the rural areas have been  linked up with the state capital through  road net work where food has been transported from Oshogbo to Lagos and other states. What we are seeing is the gradual civil servant economy to that of agro-based economy. Since the Federal Government has said that the country is now ready to exploit the country’s natural resources, Our state has a lot of gold that can be exploited. We are going to collaborate with the Federal government to aggressively pursue those natural resources.  In terms of employment our outfit has engaged significantly the people of the state. We queued into the programme of the state by providing employment for the youths.

    Are you comfortable with what is going on in the National Assembly? What is the way out?

    No, The APC members in the House should look back and be conscious of where they are coming from. They did not get to the House in a vacuum; the constitution provided that you must run under a party therefore the supremacy of the party should be sacrosanct. Therefore since you are representing the party in the house you must follow the rules and guidelines of the party. The decision of the party is supreme and should be adherent to and should be respected. Our members should realize that service to humanity is one of the cardinal goals of APC; therefore they should be guided on this so that the nation can be moved forward.

    What we have seen in the National Assembly in the recent time is that some members have allowed personal ambition to override the goals and objective of the party on whose back they all rode to the National Assembly. Though all that happened was still in the purview of the law, but morally it may not, as a representative of the people, they should lead by example. They should let the past belong to the past and sit down to put in place laws that will alleviate poverty in the country and let the people see in them that they are actual  representative of the people.

    It is also important that the party that gave the platform of their existence in the Assembly should be respected in the future, this is critical so that they will remain focus and promises they made to the people would be actualized. When member strained out of line, the consequences of such action if un attended to, can cause anarchy. It is better that member should not stray out of the rule of the agreed norms; otherwise it is the beginning of the end for such a union.

    What do you think should be the priority of the APC members in the National Assembly?

    The first step they should take is that they should retrace their step back to the party and conform to its wishes. When a child falls, he look  at the front but when an elders falls, he looks back, the elders that looks back wanted to know what brought him down. They should do likewise. It is necessary that we should not forget where we are coming from. For 16 years that the PDP are in the saddle of power, the APC has been toiling all over to provide a credible alternative to the miss-governance of the past. That we have the alternative programme that can restore the lost hope of Nigerians and take care of their basic needs. That the university students would no longer stay at home unnecessarily due to lack of job to do after graduation. Now that we have the reality coming up, we should not buddle the opportunity. Some people toiled night and day to get us to where we are, therefore we should not derail from our known norms and value as a political party with progressive inclination.

    Your critics said you are very slow in action which is not expected of a progressive, what is your take on this?

    What we have seen in the last 16 years was a nick-jack reaction to situation, no strategy no cohesion and any form of articulation. Everything done was looked from their selfish and personal pocket interest therefore that was why a lot of rot was inherited by APC. A case in point is the recent happening when Ni.2 b was withdrawn from the nation’s purse with impunity. The government at the centre now is completely different from what it used to be, it is no longer business as usual.

    Since our campaign days, we have put in place a strategic policy that will fall in place as we execute our programme. We are starting on security and corruption; we have to look at what is happening in the space of five weeks compared with what happened in the last five year.  In case of corruption, you can see how EFCC has been active in the last few weeks, unlike in the past. As we speak three governors have been charged to court, we did not see any of this those years ago.

    For many years there was different kind of impunity, but now there is a wakeup call that the music has changed, likewise the dancing step. Accountability is now the watch word, there is always a tomorrow unlike in the past. For the first time on the issue of security, there is a concerted effort with collaborations with other likes mind in the sub- Africa to curb the insurgence of Boko Haram.  The money that suppose to go to the army as a driving forces in the past goes to private purse, but today things have changed. In terms of economy, we voted for a president that is focused, has integrity and know what to do.

    The recent bail out to some states when they could not pay their workers salaries is a testimony that the president was not comfortable to see Nigerians workers in agony over accumulated un- paid salaries arrears. This has never happened in the last 16 years. Aside this we are now looking at viable economic impetus that can drive the industry. The President has announced that he is looking at textile, mining and steel industries to create employment opportunity. These industries are viable if you go back a bit into our history before the tenure of PDP. The best textile was made in Nigeria with good value chain that created a lot of opportunities. This government will take the country to this level once again.

    When member strained out of line, the consequences of such action if un attended to, can cause anarchy. It is better that member should not stray out of the rule of the agreed norms; otherwise it is the beginning of the end for such a union.

     

  • Aregbesola and Osun’s financial realities

    Aregbesola and Osun’s financial realities

    It is generally agreed that a worker is truly deserving of his wage. This is functioned on the singular fact that it is the worker’s efforts and contributions in the production process that creates the wealth which the socio-economy depends on for survival. A worker’s wage is therefore not charity but truly just a fraction of his total creation and contributions to the Gross National Product (GNP). It is his share of his contribution to the bottom-line of any organisation; be it public or private, which is often infinitesimal compared to the quantum of his total contribution to the national effort.

    When it is realised that workers depend on their salaries for sustenance and for taking care of their extended families and discharging their obligations to the larger society, one begins to understand the crisis which the withholding of these from the worker portends not only directly for the worker and his immediate dependants but for the society at large. A worker’s salary is his lifeline. As a lifeline, it ought not to be treated with carelessness or any form of irresponsibility as that would amount to either suspending the lives of some people or actually destroying them outright.

    I hold the opinion that when a worker is denied his salary, he becomes stripped of his humanity as he becomes castrated of the capacity to discharge his social obligations and carry out responsible and dignified activities within the society. This is traumatic and humans ought not to be allowed to go through this experience in a modern society especially in a democracy.

    We hold therefore that any organisation or employer for that matter, which includes various governments at different levels, that intentionally withholds salaries from her workers stands condemnable for subjecting fellow human beings to sub-normal conditions. The persons or group involved ought to be held in contempt of all civilised societies and ostracised from public discourses and conversations. It is truly criminal. The Holy Books say so, our Laws and conventions reject it and our social morals seriously frown at it.

    However, in reaching these conclusions, it becomes imperative that we make further inquiries as to why a sane employer could subject her employees to such harrowing conditions. Is it out of sheer wickedness; out of inexplicable carelessness and irresponsibility; out of a degradation of our moral values; out of a loss of focus for the central place the worker occupies in our production chain; out of greed and avarice or perhaps are their objective conditions such as the unavailability of funds or paucity of capacity to meet the salary demands?

    This plank forms the basis for our intervention in this recent national conversation around the huge and accumulating salary arrears which is almost turning into an outrage amongst the citizenry and the various interest groups. Truly, most of these cases in some of the states of the federation cannot be excused under any circumstances especially when we look at the cheeky manner some of the state governors are going about trying to explain this comeuppance against Nigerian workers and Nigeria. And, when we factor in the financial buoyancy of such state governments at the backdrop of the small comparative recurrent expenditure we cannot but question the nature of the conscience of such leaders.

    The case of Osun State under the leadership of Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola immediately comes to mind and seems to stand at a cursory look in contrast with the very well-known and publicly stated beliefs of the governor who has always maintained that the welfare of the workers in the state remains top most priority. When you however peel the veneer, one will objectively observe why the salary of workers in the state became unfortunately delayed over these past months.

    His was truly not one of those borne out of irresponsibility, greed and utter neglect of the welfare of others based on the feeling that they are not part of the people in leadership in the state. It was not because public funds were criminally diverted or misapplied for other selfish purposes. It was purely borne out of conditions that are extraneous to his sphere of control and thus the econometrics will call it the intrusion of the X variables or the stochastic variables which as we know cannot be easily handled no matter how clever we are in our planning effort.

    State Osun at creation had peculiar circumstances and we would therefore attribute part of the present salary overhang to a historically generated phenomenon which was unavoidably thrust unto the state at birth. Can we then call it a genealogical defect? No! But one that truly poses a deep challenge and has continued posing challenges to those who have had the opportunity of leading the state and are presently leading it.

    When Osun State was created, a very large percentage of the workforce of the old Oyo State moved with the new State Osun to Osogbo. We would therefore say that while Osun inherited heavy recurrent expenses from the Old Oyo state, it however came away being a new state with smaller portion of the internal capacity for wealth generation. In essence, it had a heavy recurrent expenditure confronting it right at birth with inverse capacity for wealth generation needed to satisfy the inherent expenditure profile. This put the state at birth to a negative balance in its financial standings. This it has struggled with since then and which receipts from the Federation Account has helped in meeting all these while.

    It was the realisation of this financial gap that propelled the present leadership into making a case for accelerated development of the state and to build internal capacities within in order to create multiple streams of revenue for the state and wean it from dependence on the Federation Account for survival. That explains the myriads of projects that dot the major cities of the state which are all geared towards solving this natal challenge.

    These have however created two major challenges. While the financial imbalance makes it imperative that it has to look for externals to augment its position to fund its activities, the drop in its receipts from the Federation Account, of which the state is one of the lowest in Nigeria as a result of the huge drop in international oil prices, further exacerbated the situation and made its finances very precarious, thus unable to meet the expectations of its major stakeholders, especially the workforce.

    His quest to make the state independent of the Federation Account was the second challenge. It meant that huge funds were quickly allocated to capital projects and most of these projects have not been realised when suddenly the national financial crunch struck. While the expenses persisted, the source of augmentation has dried up and the projects that was hoped would catapult the state into a commercially viable destination have not come on stream yet to contribute to the state’s effort; this seems to be the present quagmire which the state seem to have found itself.

    The unpaid salaries was not therefore a creation of the state government but a product of unexpected national financial crisis as a result of not just international price adjustments in crude oil but also deep and systemic corruption that pervaded governance at the federal level under the PDP-led administration of Nigeria for the past 16 years. Osun State’s case must therefore be seen for what it is; a historical and structural problem. It was not internal but externally induced.

    Another example of this debacle is the presence in the state of two state Polytechnics and two Colleges of Education including the State University each making humongous demands on the treasury of the state. I still do not know of how many States in Nigeria with such number of state educational institutions. I also do not think that outside Lagos state in the whole of the South West of Nigeria, there is any other state with the size of workforce which Osun state has. The import of this is dizzying within the context of the revenue capacity of all these states comparatively.

    There is however, a good side to all these for despite these disadvantages, Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola has been able to empower the people reducing absolute poverty in the process to the minimum and making the state one of the best states in terms of poverty index in Nigeria. The recent report of the study of all the states in Nigeria as compiled under the MPI shows that while Lagos State has the lowest poverty rate, Osun stands next in rank while Anambra State follows. This is commendable and shows that it is always better to invest in the people as the governor has been able to do in Osun. His good works in the state are beginning to show in diverse areas especially in the psyche of the average Osun citizen. This is truly commendable.

    –Honourable Jimoh, who represents Apapa Constituency II, is the Deputy Majority Leader of the Lagos State House of Assembly.

  • Labour to Osun workers: resume now

    Labour leaders in Osun State have directed workers to resume immediately.

    Entering into a new agreement with the government yesterday, the team leader,  Jacob Adekomi, who is the Nigerian Labour Congress (NLC) Chairman, said the suspension of the industrial action was in the state’s interest.

    In the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU)  signed by the labour leaders and government representatives, workers are to expect payment for  February salary from Monday.

    Adekomi threatened that NLC would resume its strike, if the Monday agreement was not honoured.

    Directing workers to resume immediately, the NLC boss said the government had renewed its commitment to workers’ welfare.

    The Chief of Staff to the governor, Gboyega Oyetola, said the government had never reneged on its agreement with labour.

    He said the salary crisis was due to a shortfall in the Federal Allocation, which according to him was not peculiar to the state.

    Thanking workers  for their understanding,  Oyetola assured them that all arrears would be paid immediately funds are available.

    The workers went on strike to protest the non-payment of February salaries as part of an agreement reached with the government.

    The government said the payment was based on the availablility of funds.

  • After the failed ‘coup’ in Osun

    With the May 26 Judgement of the Supreme Court that affirmed Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola as the winner of the August 9, 2014 governorship election in Osun, the state’s PDP knew it has come to the end of the road in its long sustained but futile bid to come to power in the state. It therefore had to devise some unconventional means to unseat the governor.

    On Sunday June 14, one of the leaders of the party in the state called a meeting of party bigwigs, stakeholders and loyalists at the party’s secretariat for the purpose of repositioning the party for next elections after its brutalisation and crushing defeats in elections since 2011. But to their chagrin, they were told by the frustrated politician to brace up to his plan of action of making the state ungovernable, if they ever hope to win any election in the state.

    However, Osun State Security Council got wind of the plans and read the riot act to them on June 19 after its emergency meeting.

    The first stage of the plan was to import thugs and hoodlums into the state in the week starting from June 22. These thugs were to unleash mayhem in the name of protesting delay in payment of workers’ salaries and pensions. The ‘protest’ was to be accompanied with killing, looting and arson, both of public and private property. An NGO was formed a week before the rioting to be the arrowhead of the felony in order to give the thugs a façade of legitimacy.

    Justice Olamide Folahanmi Oloyede’s petition asking for the impeachment of the governor would have fitted perfectly into the dastardly plot. Coming after the mayhem, destruction and state of insecurity, the petition would have provided a comfortable ground for some of the legislators who had allegedly been promised money and positions if they should carry the impeachment through.

    When the state Security Council aborted the subversive protest with its sabre rattling, the bottom has been knocked off Oloyede’s petition and has therefore been denied the impetus to compel the impeachment of the governor, as it would have been if the mayhem had been carried out.

    The PDP, unrelenting and disappointed that the petition lacked any force, decided to give it a fillip. This, as it were, would be the stage three which was eventually carried out on Tuesday July 7 but it was stillborn. The ‘protesters’ made up of known PDP members and local leaders, a very tiny section of the retirees on the payroll of an Ife politician (about 50) and sundry thugs (local and imported) had gathered around Ola-Iya junction in Osogbo (the area is a hotbed of progressive activism).

    However, Aregbesola, the master tactician and a good student of Asiwaju Bola Tinubu took the wind out of their sail. While going to his office that morning, he turned the trip into a carnival as he slowed his convoy to acknowledge cheers from the people on the route, who trouped out to greet him. Women, men, children, traders, artisans, commercial motorcyclists, just everybody within the vicinity came out to mob his convoy. Some were weeping. Other were praying loudly and openly for him while others were cursing his enemies.

    When the convoy reached Ola-Iya, which is a market place, the crowd surrounding him had become tumultuous, swallowing and overwhelming the miserable protesters who had gathered in the place before. Possibly out of fear and or shame, many of them took to their heels on being overwhelmed. And so, Aregbesola rode to the office triumphantly that day, overwhelming and shaming those who thought they could ambush and embarrass him.

    To add salt to injury, the story that went to town that day was how Aregbesola rode triumphantly to office and how his enemies put tail between hind legs and fled – ran away as in fright.

    Interestingly, while signing a memorandum of understanding with the state government before calling off its industrial action, the state’s NLC denied that its members participated in the farcical protest of July 7, claiming that the charade was politically motivated.

    The body of pensioners in the state also claimed that the union did not participate in any protest, that Governor Aregbesola’s administration had treated retirees very well before the financial crisis that engulfed the whole nation, and not Osun alone.

    Also, the chairman of the state’s vendors association also signed a statement, denying that his members were attacked by Aregbesola’s supporters.

    Lastly, on July 28, Justice Oloyede refused to appear before the house committee set up to investigate her claim. Apparently, she has developed cold feet. There are unconfirmed reports that the state’s Judicial Commission is unhappy about her petition, which has put the judiciary into a bind. They were shocked to find that a judge displayed open political partisanship, something unheard in the history of the judiciary.

    Her not appearing meant her petition is dead. For all practical purposes, therefore, the plan by the PDP to remove Governor Aregbesola from office through subterfuge and conspiracy may have failed.

    The first lesson we must learn from this is that if God is with someone, no matter how formidable his enemies are, he would overcome them and put them to shame.

    Secondly, politicians must accept that a democratically elected governor, that is popular with his people and has not committed an impeachable offence, can only be changed through tenure expiration, losing election or by a competent court of law.

    Thirdly, a new dawn has come to Nigeria where only values like credibility, integrity and a track record of unblemished public service will commend a candidate to voters.

    It is my hope that the defeated candidates of PDP will accept their destiny and try to amend their ways, instead of working to destabilise Osun State. If, with all the support they got from former President Goodluck Jonathan with cash, dogs, masked gunmen and other security operatives, they could not unseat Aregbesola in Osun, what makes them think that they could overthrow him now?

    • Ogundele writes from Osogbo, Osun State
  • Osun Assembly committee summons judge

    Osun Assembly committee summons judge

    A nine-member investigative committee of the Osun State House of Assembly has summoned Justice Folahanmi Oloyede to appear before it tomorrow.

    Justice Oleyede, in a petition, alleged that Governor Rauf Aregbesola and his deputy, Mrs. Titi Laoye-Tomori, misappropriated public fund.

    The judge is seeking the impeachment of Aregbesola and Laoye-Tomori.

    She is expected to appear before the committee to substantiate the allegations raised in her petition.

    A letter to the petitioner signed by the committee’s chairman, Akintunde Adegboye, who is also the Deputy Speaker, reads:  “You are to appear before the committee constituted by the Speaker, Najeem Salaam, saddled with the responsibility to investigate the allegations raised in your petition.

    “And you are enjoined to appear with your evidences to substantiate the allegations.”

    The chairman warned that protesters would not be tolerated within the Assembly premises.

    He added that no troublemaker would be allowed to disrupt the peace of the state.

    Other members of the committee include the Majority Leader, Timothy Owoeye, Oladoyin Olayinka, Afolabi Olalekan, Adeleke Ogunsola, Gbola Adebayo and Akinola Olasunkani.

    The technical assistants are the House’s Director of Legal Services, Kayode Titiloye and the Director of Legislative Management, Simeon Akinwale Amunsan.

  • Propagate true information, says Osun APC

    Propagate true information, says Osun APC

    The All Progressives Congress (APC) in Osun State has appealed to professionals and educators to purposefully promote and disseminate truthful and enlightening information.

    The party advised the media to always seek truth and propagate facts that would not mislead the public.

    The party’s Director of Publicity, Kunle Oyatomi, was reacting to an article by Prof Niyi Akinnaso.

    Oyatomi said: “The publication is perhaps the most graphic, truthful, factual, educative and enlightening piece that has been done by any commentator, critique, reporter or investigative journalist on the financial crisis in Osun.

    “It is a model of dispassionate and carefully investigated story told by a person who fully understands what truthful and factual information is all about – to educate an ignorant or misinformed public.

    “It is regrettable that in the Nigerian market place of ideas, so much falsehood about Osun has been propagated and assimilated by the gullible and impressionable consumers that the facts contained in Prof. Akinnaso’s piece will be a bitter pill for them to swallow.

    “‘Facts garnered from the article are that the economic crisis in Osun was as a result of a reckless, profligate and kleptomanic Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) government in Abuja that collapsed the country’s economy.

    “That in reality, it was a masterpiece of socio-economic engineering that Aregbesola could still undertake the level of development he achieved before the crash, despite the fact that every kobo earned by the state was used for recurrent expenditure from 2012 to 2014, incurring a deficit of N2 billion.

    “The level of ignorance about the Osun situation is so widespread that it becomes a sad commentary on the status of education in the country vis-a-vis the quality of information available.

    “People are as educated as the quality of information available for their consumption.  Those who are in that business have a huge responsibility to educate our people correctly.”

    The party, therefore, advised that any unbiased person or believer in truth who wants to know the facts about the Osun situation should read Prof Akinnaso’s article.

    “No fake summit of unenlightened stakeholders can match the details in that piece”, the party said.a

  • Osun Summit suffers setback as convener ‘withdraws’

    There were indications last night that the summit slated for today by a group of opposition politicians in Osun State has run into a hitch.

    One of the organisers, Dr. Muyiwa Oladimeji, reportedly dissociated himself from the programme.

    Oladimeji, who addressed a news conference on June 17, heralding the summit, may have been discouraged by the condemnations the proposed summit drew and the failure of the conveners to divorce it from politics, sources said in Osogbo, the state capital.

    The Osun chapter of the All Progressives Congress (APC) had called on security agencies in the state to look beyond the summit as the real motive,stating that the entire programme could creating confusion.

    A source close to the organiser was quoted as saying that Oladimeji, who is a former governroship aspirant in the state, had referred those who sought enquiries from him on the summit as yesterday to direct their inquiries to co- conveners, Messrs Yinka Odumakin and Niyi Owolade saying that “he no longer speaks on the controversial summit.”

    The proposed summit attracted wide condemnations when it was associated with the defeated governorship candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party in the 2014 election Otunba Iyiola Omisore.

    Contacted on the matter last night, an Osogbo-based human rights campiagner, Mr. Amitolu Shitu, said those who call themselves Osun stakeholders are just a bunch of renegades who are just bent on creating crisis in Osun.

    He said: “These are just allies of Iyiola Omisore camouflaging as summit organisers. We know Odumakin and his recent past. We know Niyi Owolade aligns with Omisore’ s position that this state must not know peace for one day. So, what summit do they think they want to put up that Osun people won’t say it is intended to just keep the embers of their political battles burning?”

    Attempts to speak with Oladimeji were unsuccessful as calls placed to his phone were not going through.

    It was learnt that the Police Command in the state invited some arrowheads of the summit for interrogation.

  • The charade in Osun

    SIR: I wish to bring to the attention of the Speaker of Osun State House of Assembly, Rt. Hon. Nojeem Folasayo Salaam, and the honourable members of the House, to the charade going on in the name of a petition from one Justice Olamide F. Oloyede against Governor Rauf Aregbesola.

    It is in the public domain that her petition has been sent to the governor and for which he has responded. The House has also constituted a panel to look into her petition, invite her and the governor and make recommendations to the house.

    This whole exercise is a huge charade and an injustice to the governor. The governor has a state-wide overwhelming mandate which he received from the governorship election of August 9, 2014 and which has just been validated by the Supreme Court. He is therefore not answerable to her and her petition which emanated from malice and ill-will. Why then should the governor be subjected to this ordeal? Is it because she is a judge? Where is the separation of powers? Lawmakers should not be brow-beaten by a judge who has clearly overstepped her bounds. They constitute the second arm of government. They should call her bluff.

    Her petition should have been dismissed long ago; instead, she should be the one answering charges for bringing the judiciary to disrepute. It is never heard that a sitting judge will write a petition against a governor. It is the height of judicial recklessness. They should not entertain this lawlessness. Judges and lawyers in Osun are outraged by her action while the generality of the people are bewildered by her brazenness and indiscretion. If anyone therefore should be on trial, it should be her, not the governor.

    I hope also that the Osun State Judicial Council and the National Judicial Council will arrest this cancer before it spreads to the entire judicial body.

     

    • Mike Ogundele,

    Osogbo, Osun State

  • Aregbesola denies plan to sack 10,000 workers

    Aregbesola denies plan to sack 10,000 workers

    Governor Rauf Aregbesola of Osun on Monday denied speculations that that his administration was planning to sack 10,000 workers.

    Aregbesola in a statement by his media aide, Semiu Okanlawon, said in Osogbo that “the so-called plan’’ to sack 10,000 workers is a figment of an imagination by the opposition party in the state.

    According to the statement, nowhere has the Aregbesola administration signifies any intention to sack any worker.

    “The workers’ sack speculation was part of the opposition party calculated move to misinform workers, confuse them and demoralise them.

    “Discerning and decent people have come to the conclusion that when opposition makes any allegation, you must quickly dismiss it as being in its character to fabricate falsehood to confuse unsuspecting masses.

    “This latest falsehood is part of the opposition tactics to misinform workers, confuse them and demoralise them. Nowhere has the Aregbesola’s administration signified any intention to sack any worker.”