Conspiracy against Aregbesola will fail, says Reps member

Lawmaker representing Odo-Otin/ Ifelodun/ Boripe Federal Constituency, Osun State, Adeyinka Ajayi has dismissed allegations by some critics that Governor Rauf Aregbesola lied over the state of economy of Osun.

Ajayi yesterday in a media chat with newsmen said those who claimed Aregbesola distorted allocation figures of Osun “are uninformed and that they were merely looking for unconstitutional means to get the mandate, which they could not get through normal election.”

He wondered how it would have been possible for a governor to distort monthly allocation figures of his state “when the figures disbursed to each state are usually published by the Federal Government.”

According to Ajayi, “The governor deserves more commendation than being vilified. In 2010 when we took over government, the allocation for pension was N150 million but the governor, against all odds and criticisms, increased the pension allocation to N600 million, by then the pensioners were clapping. At that time, the pensioners were celebrating but it is the same pensioners that are now on the street castigating the governor.

“Secondly, when we got into government, the wage bill was less than N2 billion in 2010 as at 2012 the wage bill shut up to over N3 billion, we increased our IGR generation by approximately the same amount and so from a wage bill of less than N2 billion to a wage bill somehow N3.6 billion and N3.4 billion per month, what is our federal allocation the peak of the allocation we get is 4.4 billion, the highest that has ever come to the state and at a time that we has highest left over we have N1.1 billion after paying salaries.

“The governor set up a sinking fund and we have fund in excess of N12 billion in that fund for the rainy day, the governor pays salaries on the 24 or 26 of every month since he took over government until July 2013 when the setback started.”
Still speaking on the petition against Aregbesola before the Economic and Financial Crime Commission (EFCC) alleging financial misconduct, Ajayi said, “The people planning or writing the petition would have to prove whatever they claimed in the petition before the EFCC and we are waiting for them.

“The state we found ourselves in Osun at present is quiet unfortunate in the sense that what the government did was with the best of intentions in terms of planning and forward looking mechanisms but we found ourselves not being in control of those parameters that determines whether you are growing or not and this is not peculiar to Osun, it is a general phenomenon “the economic crisis affecting the state is a general crisis affecting the federation.”

To him, “Why the situation of Osun attracted much criticisms is because some certain political elements or gladiators wanted to use some unconstitutional and illegitimate means of getting what the Osun people did not want to give them, which is the mandate of government.

He implored the people of the state to see the positive side of Aregbesola’s administration and some of the lofty programmes he has initiated.