Buhari’s presidency will bring economic boom to Osun, says group

AS Osun State grapples with dwindling revenue from federation accounts and attendant heavy burden of wage responsibility, a Non-Governmental Organisation (NGO) has given assurance that the state would have better days with their overwhelming support for the emergence of General Muhammadu Buhari (rtd) as the President of Nigeria.

Speaking with The Guardian yesterday through its coordinator Ayo Akinola, the Osun Liberty Group (OLG) stated that a new lease of life would be the lot of Osun State under a Buhari Presidency, as the state would witness unprecedented human and infrastructural development.

Akinola stated that the state governor, Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola, is God’s gift to the sate after what he referred to as years of the locust represented by the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the state and in Nigeria.

He thanked the workers and other citizens for their patience and understanding, despite all orchestrated efforts by the opposition to use the unfortunate event of paucity of funds as a tool of political smear against the government of Osun.

He further explained that the government’s inability to pay workers’ salaries and allowances as at when due was as a result of declining federal allocation, which has political undertone stressing that, “our people need to appreciate the fact that the governor has everybody’s welfare at heart as demonstrated by huge infrastructural developments throughout the state as well as other welfare programmes.

“Imagine declining federal allocation to the tune of 40% since 2013. The Ogbeni has creatively managed the finances such that the effect was not immediately felt until the decline persisted.

“The government went ahead to accumulate a debt of N12 billion in its bid to ensure that salaries were paid and went on to inform us that he would not mind to borrow more just to ensure that workers were paid but the banks would not grant more loans”.

Akinola who disclosed that Osun is next to Lagos in the size of its public service said, “it would have been rational and economically logical to embark on staff rationalisation as advised by some concerned indigenes and economic experts but our Ogbeni would not listen to that due to his worker-oriented stance.

“When the suggestion of rationalisation was brought to his table, he refused to give it a thought because, according to Ogbeni, we cannot downsize now except the workers themselves sit down and advise us accordingly. That would have been the best option to take us out of the woods but he is not favourably disposed to it.

“Osun inherited about 50 per cent of all the workers in the old western state and more than 75 per cent in the old Oyo State.”

According to him, “the governor was meeting monthly wage bill of over N3.6 billion with N4.6 billion federal allocation until July, 2013 when the Federal Government announced a decline of about 40 per cent allocation to states.

“This reduced the state’s allocation from N4.6 billion with which the government was meeting its bills to N2.6 billion. Since then, Osun has had to augment salaries by sometimes N1 billion, sometimes N1.6 billion. The option left to Ogbeni was to either spend the state’s reserves on salaries or borrow money.

“Today, the state has a loan liability of N12 billion that went on salaries and the banks could no more listen to the governor again”

In the words of Akinola, “the administration of Aregbesola remained pro-workers in spite of the tight corner it had found itself, which was the result of booby-trap deliberately put on his path by agents of the opposition in the state. And there is every effort in ensuring that the salary arrears are paid as soon as the means was available”.

Akinola however thanked the people for overwhelmingly voting for the All Progressives Congress despite these challenges saying, “It only shows the understanding of the good people of Osun and their support for their government, despite bad politics of the PDP.”

He also urged the electorate to come out on Saturday to vote overwhelmingly for all the candidates of APC in the House of Assembly election, saying that this is the only way the good works of Ogbeni will be made easy.