- Safiu Kehinde
The All Progressive Congress (APC) Osun State Chapter, has accused the state’s governor, Ademola Adeleke, of demanding resignation letters from chairmanship candidates of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) ahead of the state’s local government elections.
This was disclosed in a statement issued in Friday by the Osun APC Director of Media and Information, Kola Olabisi.
According the statement, it was reliably gathered that all the local government chairmanship candidates under the auspices of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in Osun State were allegedly summoned by the state’s Chief of Staff to come forward and sign a prepared undated resignation letter each which can be used to ease them out of office at will if they contradict the state government’s plan on the LG financial allocation.
According to Olabisi, the PDP chairmanship candidates have been subjected to monthly remittance from the allocations give to the councils from the Federal purse on assumption of office.
The APC further alleged that the PDP local government council chairmanship candidates in the state were cajoled into the agreement by the office of the Chief of Staff and the state PDP chairman that the state government as part of the requirements for their candidacy.
PDP allegedly demanded unfettered access to their monthly allocations in order to get going its various stagnated white elephant multi-billion naira infra-projects in some towns in the state.
The statement further disclosed that the state government has informed the PDP local government council chairmanship candidates that it is the signing of the resignation letters in advance by them that would be predicated on how the state government support would be extended to them in order to win the elections and will also be used to determine the level of their loyalty to the party and the ruling government.
Commenting on the development, the APC noted, in the statement issued by Kola Olabisi, that it was grossly illegal for any level of government within the federation to find a way to circumvent any of the judgements of the, highest court in the land.
The statement read in part; “It is not an overstatement that any arm or level of government which is trying to disregard the rule of law is romancing a brazen illegality and should be prepared to face the consequences of their illegal actions and inactions.
“It would be recalled that we as a political party, demanded from the current administration in the state its expected source of funding of the five multi-billion naira flyovers in such an economically-disadvantaged state like Osun which its source of income is basically from the Federal allocations but without the state government coming up with a plausible response.
“What is happening to the Osun State Government is an express manifestation of greed by an ineptitude government without a clear-cut focus and mission which is desirous to fraudulently impress the citizenry that it is having many projects to its credit without having a genuine wherewithal to execute the white elephant projects.
” It is fraudulent, duplicitous and lack of empathy for a state government to be spending the fund statutorily meant for the development of the grassroots on frivolities by the state government.
“It is absurd that the state government that started the recruitment process of teachers about six months ago without luck after it had unjustifiably sacked the 1,500 teachers and several thousands of health workers recruited by its predecessor, Alhaji Gboyega Oyetola’s administration, could shamelessly descend so low to be working in order to circumvent the judgement of the Supreme Court of the land.
“It should be a source of concern for the discerning members of the society how the current administration led by Governor Ademola Adeleke is still dilly-dallying on a pronouncement on the minimum wage for its workers after which several states have announced between N70,000.00K and N85,000.00K as their own minimum wages.
“There is indeed a fire on the mountain for the reigning government in the state as there cannot be a deserving peace for a person who metaphorically swallowed a pestle.
“It is criminal for a set of unpatriotic political gangsters to be demanding for undated post-written resignation letters from either elected or appointed political functionaries with a view to whipping them into the control of the state government in order to loot the state treasury through the local governments.
“We make it abundantly clear that the repugnant and bizarre invention of the writing of undated resignation letters in advance by the PDP chairmanship candidates is an iron cast indication that the Adeleke-led administration is desperate to rig the forthcoming local government council elections which we shall resist by the instrumentality of the law of the land.
“We are making a clarion call to the Osun State residents to open their eyes wide and refuse to vote for the PDP candidates in the forthcoming local government council elections as the intention of the ruling government is to continue the brazen depletion of the economy of the state through illegal cornering of the local government allocations from Abuja.”