“Aregbesola Has Financially Wrecked Osun State”

The Social Democratic Party, Osun State chapter has called on President Muhammadu Buhari to kick off his anti-corruption war in Osun by ordering a serious investigation into the financial activities of Governor Rauf Aregbesola’s administration.

The party gave the advice in a statement issued in Osogbo, the state capital, through its chairman, Ademola Ishola.

It said, “We did not find ourselves in this pitiable situation in Osun due to the dwindling revenue from the federal allocation alone, we are where we are today because of the reckless manners our finances had been handled in the last four years.

“Now that the new government is settling down for work, we want President Buhari whose party has been at the helms of affairs of this state since November 27, 2010 to help us look into how the over N350bn allocated to the state from the federation account had been spent.

“We must know how the over N436bn allocated to the 30 local governments in the state, the N61.7 bn excess crude oil funds and the N14.4 bn SURE-P fund were spent.

“Osun people need to know how the over N43.6 bn of Internally Generated Revenue, the over N400bn loans and the N60bn bond were used by Aregbesola’s government.

“If President Buhari is serious about his corruption campaign, then he must not spare anyone. He should help us to know how much had gone into several abandoned projects that littered the state and the reasons Aregbesola was unable to pay seven months salaries to the state workers.”

It accused the governor of awarding the contract at a very exorbitant price, saying all these contributed into putting the state into its current state of financial mess.

It said, “Morally, is it good for the governor to run the state as a family company? Where are the 150,000 Opon-Imo tablets Aregbesola said will be provided for all students of secondary schools in the state? We doubt if there are 2,000 Opon-Imo tablets in the state today.

“Mr. President, Aregbesola’s government spent about N4bn on his Dagbolu market but the place remains a jungle. The governor spent over N1.2bn on his Moshood Abiola International Airport but nothing was on ground till date apart from the fence.

“Most of the projects done by Aregbesola were at exorbitant rates; for example, the governor used between N750m and N1.1bn to build new schools but we discovered that it will take less than N250m to complete each of the buildings”