There is a palpable tension in Ilobu and Erin-Osun, the two main towns that constitute Irepodun local government in Osun State as people are grumbling over the influx of non-indigenes to fill the 1,000 slots of the local government in the ongoing Special Public Works Programme.
The SPW is a project of the federal government aimed at recruiting 1000 persons in each local government for a period of three months. It’s being supervised by the Minister of State for Labour and Productivity, Festus Keyamo.
As documentation commenced on Tuesday, people were at the local government secretariat in Ilobu, only found out that over six per cent of the slots have been allocated to people from other local governments and they were brought into the council for documentation.
InsightMedia gathered that some present raised alarm over the development, but the officials in charge said they have been given “standing order” from the State to allow those people.
READ ALSO: 2 Birthday party goers die in fatal auto crash in Osogbo
According to eyewitness, the situation degenerated into crisis that halted the process for some time on Thursday. Youths were said to be irked by the development.
A source said, “The Commissioner for Youths and Sports intentionally put all his cronies from every part of the state here. We have people from as far as Ife East, Irewole, Ila, Osogbo, Ilesha East, Ife South and other places here. This is unacceptable. We have more than 1,000 youths in the two communities that should benefit from this project”.
When asked if those mentioned are residents of the local government, the source said, “I’m from Ilobu, the faces I see here today are not from this community. If they are living with us, we would have known them. But they are strangers who are brought to benefit from what belong to Ilobu and Erin-Osun. We’re calling on the Minister of State for Labour to come to our aid, as good intentions of President Muhammadu Buhari will be thrown into gutter by these elements”. He said.
Another source who also witnessed the chaotic moment on Thursday accused the Commissioner for Youths, Mr Yemi Lawal of being the Brain behind the “cheating” of Irepodun people. He said the Personal Assistant to Mr Lawal had altercation with an official of the local government.
“What the APC government is doing is bad. How would you bring people from other LG to Irepodun to fill their slots? They always want to cheat us here. What has been Oyetola’s achievement here? Now they are trying to deprive our people of benefits from federal government again. We will resist this wholly. The youth may storm the LG secretariat on Monday.” He said.
It was also gathered that the Governor of the state, Mr Gboyega Oyetola has been briefed of the development in Ilobu.
The Commissioner for youths and sports, Yemi Lawal said he is not a member of the SPW, he directed our correspondent to Alhaja Latifat Giwa, the Commissioner for Governor’s Office. He however did not respond to the call by his aide to the Chairman of the LG.
He said, “I am not a meme we of the committee and not responsible for the SPW allocations.
Alhaja Giwa is the Govt representative in that committee, kindly direct all enquiries to her.”
All efforts to reach Alhaja Giwa failed as she neither picked calls to her mobile number nor respond text message sent by our correspondent.
