By Ismail Azeez, Osogbo
The All Progressives Congress (APC), Osun State chapter and the Spokesperson to the Governor Ademola Adeleke, Mallam Olawale Rasheed have traded words on the failure of the State government to hold an exco meeting 54 days after inauguration of Commissioners and Special Advisers.
The All Progressives Congress (APC), Osun State chapter had accused the Peoples Democratic Party’s administrations in the state of ineptitude over failure of Governor Ademola Adeleke to hold the state executive council meeting after 54 days after the inauguration.
The State chairman of the APC, Sooko Tajudeen Lawal, in a statement issued on Monday, by the party’s Director of Media and Information, Chief Kola Olabisi.
The party sensitised the stakeholders in the state project not to treat the issue at hand with levity as it is strange for a democratic state government to refuse to hold executive meetings for about two months.
Lawal observed that the laissez-faire approach of Governor Adeleke to governance is a confirmation that he is only attracted to the glamour of the office without having any tangible programme for the development of the state.
The state APC chairman wondered how Adeleke has been appropriating funds for the running of the state without holding the state executive meetings.
He also stated that it was an absurdity for the governor to have relocated the Governor’s Office and the Government House to his sister’s residence in Ede where he resides ten months after the inauguration of his administration.
Lawal explained further that the kick-and-start Governor Adeleke has proven to be a misfit in the administration of a complex state like Osun State as his government is full of failed promises since its inception.
The State APC chairman recalled how Adeleke promised to release White Papers, on some of his hasty decisions through his obnoxious Executive Orders, without anything to that effect to date.
In Lawal’s words, “What is delaying the release of the White Paper on the obaship installation in the three ancient towns in the state, among others, which the governor needlessly meddled into for personal and political reasons?
“How about the monthly feedback briefing of the Adeleke administration that the governor promised would start in June? This is the third quarter of September and nothing is in sight. Is Governor Adeleke operating a different calendar?
“The Governor should sit up and stop being a metaphorical rolling stone to enable him perform his statutory duty to the citizenry as there is no gain to accrue to the state on account of his mindless trips to Rwanda, United States and Germany where he has been frolicking with his co-travellers under the guise of shopping for foreign investors.
“A situation under the administration of Governor Adeleke where nearly all the members of his party have become Special Advisers goes a long way to show that he is clueless to the extent that he has cheapened and bastardised the position of an SA in the government because of his irredeemable ignorance.
“It would be recalled that the governor had earlier announced the appointment of 30 Special Advisers, Board Chairmen, and Vice-Chairmen for the inauguration before adding 27 more on Wednesday morning before the function.
“A fact check showed that so many other Special Advisers had been appointed by the governor under the table while all the board chairmen appointed are without members which automatically make the board members the sole administrators of their parastatals except for one or two where there are vice-chairmen.
“The earlier Governor Adeleke stops covering his inadequacies with dancing, under the guise of praising God for making him the governor of the state, the better it will be for him.
“I can’t understand why Adeleke is doing little but his employment and adoption of deceit and propaganda to run his government is giving a false impression to the people living outside the state.
“In order to show that the Adeleke is grossly lacking in the act of qualitative governance, it was funny that his commissioner for information, Barr Kolapo Alimi, last Saturday stated in his rejoinder that ‘Adeleke is carefully thinking through the utilisation of the fund’ when he was defending the delay of the PDP administration in effecting the distribution of the Federal Government N2 billion fuel subsidy removal palliative for the people of the state.
“For God’s sake, how can a serious-minded and focused government still be thinking for over one month on how to disburse the N2 billion Federal Government fuel subsidy palliative when it didn’t take the source of the money for so long?” Lawal queried.
Reacting, the Spokesperson to the State Governor, Mallam Olawale Rasheed said that the administration under former Governor Gboyega Oyetola held his maiden state executive council almost a year after the 2018 governorship election.
He said, “Osun state All Progressive Congress is reminded that former Governor Gboyega Oyetola held his maiden state executive council meeting on November 4 , 2019, almost a year after the 2018 governorship election.
“It is therefore a probable loss of memory for the state APC to accuse the current administration of either not holding or not announcing to the public the meetings of the state executive council meeting.
“As much as we are not using the abysmal record of the previous government as a yardstick, we pointed out this obvious deceit and memory loss to further help the public to see the falsity in the badly split state APC and the incorrigibleness of the state party leadership.
“Members of the public are assured that their Governor and his cabinet are working round the clock to expand delivery of democratic dividends and correct the big mess of the recent past.
“The cabinet members are for the past three weeks deepening the state sectoral agenda through rigorous brainstorming sessions with the establishment in preparation for an elaborate and expanded state executive council meeting.
“We advise the APC to read through its years of locust in state governance before spewing further falsehood and misinformation into public space,” he said.