The People’s Democratic Party in Osun State has described the virtual colloquium held in commemoration of 63rd birthday of Minister of Interior, Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola as display of guilty conscience.
The party in a statement on Sunday May 31, 2020, by the State Publicity Secretary, Sunday Bisi, the party described Aregbesola as “a man troubled with dementia of his own failure, who under normal operations of a sane system, should be in jail answering for his financial crimes against the good people of Osun State.
The main opposition party advised the Interior Minister to “stop struggling with open wound of his conscience which can only be healed by truthful admission of his failure occasioned by his insatiable lust for money bouyed by competitive tendencies of uncanny fraud.”
The statement partly reads, “The former governor had through his birthday colloquium held on Saturday tried to justify actions taken during his reign as the state governor and rewrite history of his fraudulent regime as one that was pro masses even when debris of his failed government have continued to threaten the very existence of the same people he claimed to have served.
The Osun PDP said it sympathized with some members of All Progressives Congress ( APC) in the country who out of idleness brought about by global pandemic of COVID-19, participated in the Colloquium as innocent victims of misinformations and eminent guests railroaded to window dress a tattered image.
“The PDP specifically wants to know if there is any need for a merriment invented technical valuation when it is clear enough that the measured assets on ground in Osun State are far below the quantum of the loans accessed to achieve the largely undelivered assets.”
These loans according to PDP, “have also proved to be far above collateral size of the state, aside running foul of all 5 C’s of Credit analysis of character, capacity, capital, collateral and conditions. It is suffice to say that the economic strength of the State, in liquidity and projections, were poorly and criminally padded by Aregbesola’s economic team of looters to unsuspecting lenders, with the sole aim of sun drying the state for their pleasure of greed.
“We put it to the birthday voodoo economists to rise beyond intoxication from the colloquium tokenism and ask their host for justifiable reasons behind non completion of all major projects pinned to the loans obtained on behalf of the state.
“Mr Bismark and governor El-rufai who specifically undertook the ‘Panel Beater’ job at the Colloquium should ask their host why Gbongan-Akoda Road Dualisation Project has till today, not gone beyond 20% completion despite awarding the 29km road for almost N29.5b (more than 1b/Km) to one construction company called RATCON and with a commensurate quantum of credit facility sourced and assessed for its timeous execution. We challenge Mr Rewane and Mr El-rufai to take a physical visit to the state and drive through this road on top speed savouring a road project of that magnitude, with any brand of car of their choice, perhaps they will return with their full body parts as guests of Aregbesola’s colloquium next year.
“The PDP also challenged the pleasure making theorists to discard the graphic handouts given to them on MKO Abiola international airport, Ido-Osun and stake their name, life and dignity to fly with the smallest of Choppers, torch down at the airport without extra aviation fuel to make a detour when landing becomes impossible. This the party believe, will summarily solve all mysteries surrounding completion of these projects without unnecessary waste of calories on technicalities of Naira or Dollar.
“18km Oba Adesoji Aderemi Osogbo East Bypass road was awarded in July 2013 for another whooping sum of N14.5b. The road scheduled for commissioning on June 2014 is yet to be completed till date even after sourcing and accessing the needed funds to execute same.
“Osogbo-Ila Odo road, the N8b instantly deceased Opon imo project; the phantom but multi billion naira igi-iye project, the resources sapping tree planting on Ife-Ibadan road, the failed flower planting/beautification project in Osogbo which cost several residents of the state capital their landed properties and other irreplaceable means of livelihood, and several other disguised conduits of 0s, all of which suffered premature extinction as they were only programmed for fraudulent intensions
“Of other specific importance, the PDP noted, is the O’Hub project for which billions of naira were sunk through Aregbesola’s man Friday, Bola Ilori ( he also incidentally happens to be his COS today as minister and is from Ondo town in Ondo state).
“Aregbesola sold a dummy to unsuspecting Osun citizens that their farm produce would be ferried to Lagos through Dagbolu which was meant to be the hub of his scam and also bring back finished products from Lagos. Alas, no single product passed through Dagbolu for the whole eight years for which he was in office. The site today is a conducive habitat for large snakes and other dangerous animals.
“It is is therefore painful enough that a state would continue to suffer consequences of massive corruption of some political expansionists. But it is more painful when some non-residents of the State who share no iota of pain and bear no burden imposed by fraudulent activities of their thieving friend, come out to spin narratives suggesting that the suffering populace of Osun should go and die from Aregbesola’s wilful inadequacies”.
“Unfortunately today, the government being led by Mr Aregbesola’s successor, his then chief of staff, Mr Gboyega Oyeyola is already dying in silence of financial incapacitation but cannot cry for obvious reasons of protecting the ass of their criminal in chief who happened to be their benefactor by way of acting the transmitter to the “remote control” of heinous violence ordered on the state by some blood sucking political buccaneers in Abuja to push through a defeated Oyetola through an infamous electoral rerun.
Osun PDP however warned incumbent Governor Gboyega Oyetola to learn to live by the unavoidable effects of their past transgressions and stop his current aggression at some members of the state workforce (civil servants) who are being threatened with sack letters after demanding simple explanations on their withheld cooperative deductions.
“The concerned workers currently facing transferred aggression from Mr Oyetola’s led administration, according to reliable sources, are leaders of departmental cooperative societies, whose deductions have not been remitted for the past 5 months. The PDP reminded the governor that the workers being vilified are sons and daughters of the state who are no less critical to the survival of the state than Mr governor himself.
The party urged Mr Oyetola to rather beckon on his predecessor for financial assistance instead of undue intimidation of innocent workers, saying, the unremitted deductions are part of economic support scheme, borne out of ingenious perseverance of the innocent workers to support themselves and cushion the biting effects of APC government’s trade of scam in the state.
“We wish to conclude by wishing Mr Aregbesola many more years of good health and sound mind on earth so as to witness factual prosperity of Osun state beyond ‘arrangee’ rhetorics of his ‘jollof rice’ economists and a known proponent of body bag electoral system. The party also prayed God to grant the former governor enough strength and stamina strong enough to support his frame when called upon to answer for his dubious reign in fullness of time.
