The Osun State chapter of the All Progressives Congress (APC) has accused the state Governor Ademola Adeleke of using lies and diversionary tactics to run the affairs of the state.
It further said that what is currently going on in the state is a pointer to the fact that the state government workers appear to have been unwittingly sweet-talked by Adeleke of the Peoples Democratic Party’s (PDP) extraction into believing in his leadership.
It would be recalled that Adeleke had blamed miscalculation by salary officers for the failure of his administration to pay, with the March salaries, the cashbacking of the promotions arrears of the government workers effected by his predecessor, Mr Gboyega Oyetola, as earlier promised by the governor.
In his response, the Osun State Acting Chairman of the APC, Sooko Tajudeen Lawal, in a statement issued by the party’s Director of Media and Information, Chief Kola Olabisi, in Osogbo, today, stated that the excuse given by Adeleke for his inability to implement the cashbacking of the workers’ promotion arrears was not genuine as it was a mere diversionary tactics to further deceive the labour.
According to Lawal, “as a responsible and responsive opposition party, we make bold to say that it was not true that there were miscalculations by salary officers.
“The fact remains that the prodigal administration of Adeleke has exhausted everything in the kitty. The workers have entered a proverbial one chance vehicle.
“It was reliably gathered that the computation was done and correctly done. When it was collated with the March salaries, the governor discovered that they had less fund to underwrite it.
“Hence, Adeleke directed that it should be put on hold till the next allocation. In order to cover the shame, the bureaucrats were asked to divert the attention of the public by putting the blame of commision of errors in computation on salary officers. That was not the truth. It was a diversion.
“It is saddening that the Adeleke administration could be fabricating lies about the livelihood of the people in the month of Ramadan and Lenten season without any iota of sympathy for the expectant workers.
“It is now a public knowledge that the pensioners on contributory pensions who have been promised monthly payment of their arrears of half salaries that are yet to be paid for the month of March have started brooding to the extent that some of them have been sending weird messages to Chief (Mrs) Dupe Adeleke-Sanni, to call his brother, Ademola, to order.
“It was disgusting to learn that the pensioners who relied on their half salaries for the celebration of Easter festivity were utterly and sorely disappointed.
“Some of the leaders of the disappointed and disenchanted pensioners are already regretting their blind support for the Adelekes.
“If the state treasury could be emptied by Governor Adeleke and his co-travellers barely under four months of his government, a worthy medal should be presented to Oyetola who diligently and frugally managed the finances of the state for four years without any hindrance despite the obvious paucity of funds.
“We want to also make it abundantly clear that the N1.5 billion bond extended to the Contributory pensioners by the Adeleke administration was only made possible because of Oyetola’s decision not to tamper with the remittances of the pensioners. If he had not ensured steady remittances, there was no way the extravagant Adeleke’s administration could have saved N1.5billion under three months,” Lawal disclosed.