Osun: Unraveling Governor Adeleke’s deceptive style of governance

By Waheed Adekunle

Lies, they say, run faster and is more contagious than the truth. And there is a Yoruba Adage that says ‘two people can’t be fooled with lies; if the person lied to doesn’t know he’s being fooled, the person lying knows he is lying.’

A lie, in whatever coloration, be it white or black, is always sarcastic.

This is a perfect aphorism to describe the blatant lies that characterised the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP)-led government in Osun State under the leadership of Senator Ademola Adeleke, since assuming office in the last one year.

Assuming office with a vengeful mission, the government had left no one in doubt of its penchant for lies, which has become a norm among the political gladiators and members of the ruling class.

As ‘hypocrisy is said to be the highest compliment to virtue, the art of lying is the strongest acknowledgment of the force of truth,’ hence the need to unravel the hypocritical style of governance in the ‘State of the Living Spring’ in the last few months.

Since a lie told often is enough to become the truth, it is also imperative to expose to the world some of those lies that the incumbent government had told to brainwash, deceive and hoodwink unsuspecting citizens.

A dispassionate assessment of the happenings around the government shows clearly that, the administration of Governor Ademola Adeleke, has been thriving on propaganda, deceit and unchecked impunity since the inception, as one could deduce infractions in the art of governance.

The Adeleke government’s penchant for lies and engrained fraudulent claims on nonexistent performance being used to sustain its dubious nature in governance had become a monster to the wheel of progress of the state in the last one year.

Too many to mention, but for the purpose of necessity, and for those that have been practically deceived by inherent treachery, sophistry and political demagoguery that engulfed and permeated every stratum of the government in the state, I will strive to mention but a few.

If we could remember vividly, the Adeleke-led government, on the assumption of office, promised to right the self-acclaimed wrongs of the past and set the state on the path of growth, development and sustainability, alas! the same government has been wallowing in its self-afflicted retrogressive backwardness gradually consuming the state and running it aground.

The instrumentality of the Adeleke government’s ‘Executive Order’ which was built on the pillar of lies had become the stumbling block to the fortunes of the state judging from its adverse effects, particularly on the collective fates of the harmless and innocent revered traditional rulers that were unjustly suspended from the thrones of their forebears.

The lie told by the Adeleke’s government was about the assurance given, to unravel what culminated into the appointment of the monarchs vis-a-vis the need to make public, the report of the review committee within six months of being constituted, alas, neither the government, nor the said review committee had come up with a white, black or any paper for that matter up until now.

The most unfortunate part of the ugly occurrence, remains that, the victims who were arbitrarily suspended due to palpable ineptness and malfeasance on the part of Governor Adeleke led-government did not know their fates up until now as they have been subjected to ridicule having patiently waited all along for the outcomes of the acclaimed review committee over a year.

Similarly, Adeleke’s government had practically failed in its responsibility to make official up until now, the reports of the Ad-hoc Review Committees on Ilesa University and the fathom recommendations that informed the government’s decision to appoint the new Governing Council and Pioneer Vice Chancellor for the institution.

In spite of the Adeleke’s government empty promise to unravel the perceived self-serving mystery leading to the appointment of 30 Permanent Secretaries by his predecessor – Adegboyega Oyetola, it had yet to make public the reason for the sack of the bureaucrats up until now, neither was it able to fulfill its promise on them.

The reasons for sacking 20,000 volunteers of the Osun Youth Empowerment Scheme (OYES) still remains a puzzle to discerning citizens who have been patiently waiting for the government to make public ‘white paper’ justifying the government’s action.

We can as well recall that no report has been made public as promised by Governor Adeleke on the arbitrary sack of the close to 3,000 food vendors inaugurated for home-grown school feeding by the erstwhile administration, ditto the case of the recruited health workers, among other state government employees in the last one year.

Governor Adeleke who dashed the hopes of the suspended Executive Secretary of the Osun State Health Insurance Scheme ‘OHIS,’ Osun State Primary Health Management Board; Rector Osun State Polytechnic; State Chairman of the Osun State Independence Electoral Commission; Chairmen and members of the State Statutory Commissions, among other through his obnoxious Executive Order, is yet to make public, the report of the review committees as falsely promised.

The peak of the lie of Adeleke’s government was in the recent disclosure made by the Governor’s spokesperson, Mr. Olawale Rasheed, that his principal traveled overseas to engage foreign investors on the need to invest massively in the state. An assertion that is just a figment of their imagination.

It would be recalled that, Rasheed in the statement, noted that the Governor had embarked on a Working Vacation to Europe and Asia as part of effort to advance the cause of the state in multinational corporations.

The statement which was issued on 25th of November, 2023, quoted the Governor to have said the Working Vacation was aimed to finalise partnership deals with investors and development partners.

According to the Governor, “This is democracy. My masters are Osun people who elected me into office and to whom I am surely accountable. My trip is however a working one as I will be meeting foreign partners who are eager to join several sectors of our state economy.”

However, going by Mr Governor’s assertions, one would have thought that the state will be on the verge of total socioeconomic turnaround, but quite unfortunate, the whole scenario appears to be a ruse and blatant lie sold to the public.

Since the Governor’s departure, neither himself, nor the government, has shown any evidence of what the governor went overseas to do, as there was no picture of any business partnership or multilateral ties between the state and any of the much-talked investors, up until now.

While it is understandable that the Governor can embark on a vacation for obvious reasons, it is also incumbent on him to oblige the citizens his whereabouts with genuine reason not by fallacy.

For a government that claims to be transparent and prudent, one would wonder why the public are still kept in the dark of who-and-who are on the list of the governor’s entourage to Europe and Asia as painted up until now.

Since the trip is made possible on the treasury of the state, the citizens deserve to know what, worth and cost to be incurred, if truly and indeed, the Adeleke’s government is sincere with its self-acclaimed accountability and transparency.

Up until now, no one knows the number of the government officials on the governor’s entourage and the cost implication of same on the commonwealth of the state in the last few days since the trip was announced.

The general concern of the discerning citizens at the moment, is that the meagre resources of the state are being wasted on unprofitable voyage.

It is therefore not out of place to infer and conclude that the Adeleke government has been thriving on lies forgetting that it takes someone to tell 101 lies to cover-up a lie.

Though the opposition party had earlier busted the purported Governor’s Working Vacation claims, challenging him to tell the citizens the truth of his trip abroad rather than lumping it to business partnerships.

Some of the questions agitating the minds are; why has the Adeleke government chosen lies as fundamental in all it does? Why has the current administration been ridiculing the state by its imminent expeditions riddled with lies and propaganda? Must Adeleke’s government lie? What is the essence of the trip to Asia and Europe that the governor claimed to have embarked on, especially on the economy of the state? How many foreign investors have come from the same continents to bid business relations with Osun in the last one year of Adeleke’s administration? What does the state stand to gain from the fruitless trip? These and many more are thirsty for responses.

Anyway, the government should be reminded that ‘a building plastered with saliva will disintegrate under the morning dew.’

It is high time for the concerned citizens, particularly the stakeholders, to rise to the occasion which if not averted could drift our beloved state to the path of destruction. While it is also sine qua non for the elders to further show interest in the way and manner the affair of the state is being run under the current administration, so also, it is imperative to checkmate the unchecked impunity, profligacy, malfeasance and frivolity that thriving in the state in the last one year of Governor Adeleke’s government.

As we are curiously waiting for the day the foreign investors would be unveiled, it is pertinent to implore the state government to stop telling lies and return to the path of truthfulness, transparency, accountability, decency, honesty and probity bequeathed unto it by the immediate past administration of former Governor Adegboyega Oyetola.

No matter the acceleration and speedy pace of a lie, even if it travels for a thousand years, truth will definitely catch up with it in just a day!

May God bless our dear State!