• Cautions Him On Attempt To Convert O’YES To Family Enterprise
Governor Ademola Adeleke has been chided over his recent sack of about 10,000 cadets of the Osun Youth Empowerment Scheme (O’YES) and the personification of the scheme.
Commenting on the development, the Acting Chairman of the APC in Osun State, Sooko Tajudeen Lawal, in a statement issued by the party’s Director of Media and Information, Chief Kola Olabisi, in Osogbo, the state capital, Friday, said the change of the state government scheme to Adeleke’s campaign slogan was, vindictive, primitive, unpopular and self-serving.
Lawal stated that since January 27 when the Governorship Election Petition Tribunal descended heavily on Adeleke for rigging the July 16 election, the distraught governor has been operating like a bull in a China shop, in a manner suggestive of the fact that he doesn’t want to go down alone.
“The sack of the 9,847 O’YES cadets and personification of the scheme by Adeleke is an indication that the sacked governor is wicked, vindictive, inconsiderate and non-sympathetic towards the feelings of fellow human beings, ” the APC chieftain explained.
He hinted that the sack of the cadets through the social media was annoying and highly condemnable as the affected cadets are still being owed three months’ salaries (December 2022 to February 2023 by the Adeleke administration.)
Lawal disclosed that the intention of Adeleke and his co-travellers is to turn the Imole Youths Corps into an arm of his political support group and family enterprise where names of the PDP hangers-on and members of staff of his family companies would find their way into the salary payment vouchers of the state.
The Acting State APC chairman warned Adeleke to be circumspect in his manner of reckless spending of the money belonging to the state as he would cough out whatever he might have spent without due process on the day of reckoning.
In his words: “Why must a political leader worth his salt dissipate his energy on converting into a family affair a scheme as important as O’YES? Why changing the name of the scheme which has benefitted several thousands of the youths of the state since its inception?
“Must Adeleke and his co-travellers play politics with the lives and welfare of the people of the state?
“The noblest thing for Adeleke is to rescind the decision of his government to sack the innocent 9,847 O’YES cadets and the unjustifiable renaming of the scheme as it doesn’t belong to the Adeleke family but the entire people of the state.
“Adeleke, again, should put machinery in place for the payment of the accumulated three months’ salaries of the victimised cadets,” Lawal counselled.
The state acting APC chairman, however, charged the OYES cadets to arm themselves with their permanent voters cards and vote for the APC presidential candidate, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, in the February 25, 2023 elections and other APC candidates in the general elections so that their current challenge will be a story of the past.