The Minister of Marine and Blue Economy, Adegboyega Oyetola and Governor Ademola Adeleke have continued to trade accusations over administration of local government in the state.
While Oyetola is accusing the Governor Ademola Adeleke of spreading propaganda and falsehoods to mask what he described as administrative failure and disregard for court rulings.
In a statement issued on Wednesday by Dr. Bolaji Akinola, Special Adviser to Minister, said Adeleke’s recent claims over alleged withholding of local government funds were a “desperate attempt to deflect attention from glaring incompetence and serial abuse of the judicial process.”
He dismissed the governor’s allegation that Minister Oyetola was responsible for any disruption in local government financing, insisting that any delays stem from the Osun State Government’s legal actions.
According to him, the Adeleke administration had burdened the courts with “frivolous and ill-conceived lawsuits” in a failed bid to overturn settled judicial decisions.
“No serious government sabotages its own legal standing and then seeks scapegoats for the consequences,” Akinola said.
He further accused the governor of previously paralysing local government operations by instigating a prolonged strike by council workers, describing Adeleke’s current claim that councils remain inactive as “a blatant falsehood.”
“The local government secretariats are open and functioning. Services continue to run, workers are back to their posts, and council administrations are carrying out their statutory responsibilities. The narrative of paralysis exists only in the imagination of a governor using falsehood to seek public sympathy,” he added.
Akinola referenced a Court of Appeal judgement delivered on February 10, 2025, which he said reinstated elected local government chairmen in Osun State. He noted that the judgement was not appealed by the state government and therefore remains final and binding.
“The continued agitation by Governor Adeleke represents a deliberate refusal to accept judicial authority,” he stated.
Akinola also rejected claims that Minister Oyetola was influencing the Nigeria Police, describing the allegations as false and irresponsible.
“The police operate under established institutional command structures and cannot be privately controlled by any individual minister. Adeleke should stop misleading the public, stop manufacturing conspiracies, and stop whipping up sentiment to cover manifest ineptitude. Governance is not theatre, and Osun people deserve facts, not fiction,” he said.
He insisted that Osun’s local government administrations remain lawful, autonomous, functional, and protected by binding court judgements, arguing that “the only crisis confronting the system is a governor unwilling to accept legal reality.”
Reacting to the Minister’s claim, Adeleke in a statement by his Commissioner for Information and Public Enlightenment, Kolapo Alimi accused Oyetola of desperate attempt to reframe facts, stating that the crisis over Osun local governments did not arise from propaganda, incompetence or disregard for the judiciary by Governor Ademola Adeleke. It arose from a brazen effort by unelected individuals, backed by partisan federal actors, to forcefully occupy local government secretariats after their sack by courts of law.
The claim that local government chairmen were “reinstated” and are lawfully in office is a gross distortion. The court judgments are public documents for anyone to read. There was no reinstatement. Even if there was a reinstatement, tenure is a matter of law, not sentiment. Once tenure expires, no court order can resurrect it. Going to court does not confer the right to remain in office. This elementary principle of constitutional democracy appears lost on Oyetola and all those now hiding behind selective judicial references.
Equally troubling is the attempt to weaponise the July 11, 2024 Supreme Court judgment on local government autonomy. That landmark decision was meant to free councils from state executive strangulation, not to legitimise illegal tenure elongation, self-help or the continued occupation of office without a fresh electoral mandate.
Autonomy does not translate to anarchy.
More alarming is the growing perception of federal complicity. The continued freezing of Osun local government funds, despite clear legal advice and moral obligation, raises serious questions about political interference at the highest levels. This is no longer an Osun issue; it is a test case for Nigeria’s federalism, constitutional order and the credibility of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s commitment to the rule of law.
President Tinubu must urgently call Minister Adegboyega Oyetola to order.
He cannot continue to use federal power to punish a state for partisan reasons, nor should federal institutions be dragged into local political vendettas. Nigeria is not a fiefdom, and Osun State is not a conquered territory.
The Osun State Government remains committed to the rule of law, peaceful governance and the protection of grassroots democracy. What it will not accept is federal intimidation, historical revisionism or the conversion of expired mandates into perpetual entitlements.
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