As reactions still trail the February N6.23 million allocation received by Osun State from the Federation Account, a group on the platform of Civil Societies Coalition (CSC) for the Emancipation of Osun State (CSCEOS) has queried the state Governor Rauf Adesoji Aregbesola, on what really happened to the N2.4 billion monthly allocation accrued to the state by Federal Allocation Account Committee (FAAC), which N6 million were received in the month of February 2016 and while other states of the Federation went home with the aggregate of over N1 billion in the same month.
The coalition, which is the umbrella body of some 20 human rights, community and faith-based organizations in the state, demanded public explanation from Aregbesola on the debt profile of the state, which 99.8 percent of its monthly allocations were used to service such huge loan in the recent time, saying that because of the debt incurred by the Aregbesola’s administration, life has been miserable for the generality of the people, particularly, the workers who were economy determinant factor of the state.
The group equally warned the Federal Government against releasing any money to Aregbesola under the guise of embarking on federal projects, especially on the acclaimed roads project, urging the Federal Government to come to the state and re-award all the acclaimed Aregbesola’s federal roads project to save the meager funds from being diverted by Aregbesola and his cronies. It added that releasing any fund to Aregbesola on the Federal roads project in the state would go the same way of the over N52 billion gargantuan loan obtained for the project went.
The group therefore declared that “the courageous and incorruptible Judge of Osun State High Court, Justice Olamide Folahanmi Oloyede, who authored the 39 pages letter to the rubber stamp State House of Assembly members, calling for credible and forensic investigation into the Osun Public funds under the watch of Mr. Rauf Adesoji Aregbesola in June 2015,” was now being vindicated before the whole world over the present state of Osun finances, urging the people of the state to always salute and commend her courage for speaking the truth without fear or favour to the power that be in the state, adding that Osun people should be praying for Oloyede for exposing what was hidden on the finances of the state . In a statement by by Chairman, Directorate of Media and Strategy, Adeniyi Alimi Sulaiman on Sunday, the group urged Aregbesola to tender an apology to the people of the state for plunging the state into debt regime, which made life unbearable again for the citizenry, describing the development as sad, unusual and crime against humanity and God.
The group also described Aregbesola’ government as a ‘political insurgency’ in the political life history of the state. The activists however appealed to Aregbesola to show the world the projects he executed with Osun State money. Sulaiman further reiterated that the unjustifiable loan was having abysmal effect on the well-being of the citizens of the state, and called on the National Assembly Committees on Works and Finance to send its members to Osun State for eyewitness account of the debilitating state of the Aregbesola acclaimed Federal Road construction projects in the state.
“Osun is the worst state in Nigeria today with high debt profile. Federal Government should know one thing about the state under Rauf Aregbesola’s watch that the state has been destroyed beyond redemption and Aregbesola has diverted all the loans obtained in the names of one project or the others, including Federal Government roads in the state into the private purse of his cronies which the meager state monthly allocations have been deducted to pay back now,” he said.
