Osun Legislators Should Impeach Aregbesola
Everything is at a standstill in this failed State of Osun. Public institutions are as good as dead. Public hospitals and schools are in a mess due to non-payment of salaries and decaying infrastructure. Daily, civil servants die while waiting for salaries. They have lost about 100 of their colleagues so far. Apparently puzzled labour leaders in the state have launched an appeal for donation of foods to the traumatised workers. The response has been fairly okay. Wealthy Nigerians need to aid these public servants. The truth be told, Aregbesola has no business staying on as governor. He has clearly mismanaged the economy of the state. The Osun State Governor is always giving excuses for his failure. He was not elected to give excuses. He said he was capable of stirring the wheel of activities of the state. That was why he was elected. It is a shame that Aregbesola collected the state’s share of federally-collected for seven months from Abuja, yet civil servants have not been paid salaries for seven months. He has simply mortgaged the state to financial institutions. The debt incurred by Aregbesola is shrouded in misery. What the money was used for is also controversial. The Osun State Governor confirmed last week that the financial crisis of the state was beyond his ability. Yet, he has refused to resign. The Osun State House of Assembly should do the needful. He should be impeached. After his impeachment, he can go and work as consultant to Fuji music artistes, Saheed Osupa and Wasiu Ayinde Marshal. These two musicians must have made millions of Naira from Osun State’s purse in the last five years, thanks to Aregbesola.
I get very angry whenever the Osun Governor attributes his inability to pay civil servants to dwindling windfall from Abuja. Let’s look at it this way: If this country were to be implementing resource control, will Osun State be sharing in the oil revenue? It means non-oil producing states like Osun would have to run their states and pay their workers without oil money. Late Obafemi Awolowo successfully managed the defunct Western Region with funds from agriculture and industries. These days, governors are only interested in the monthly handouts from Abuja. It is so sad; so depressing. In the case of Aregbesola, he has allegedly even borrowed beyond the state’s capacity and had agreed that deductions be made at source for the lenders. So, his monthly handouts from Abuja are depleted further. How much exactly has Rauf Aregbesola borrowed in the last five years? How much is deducted monthly at source to service the debt? These are questions begging for answers.
Arebgesola has failed on all his promises to the distressed people of Osun State. Expectations were high when he emerged governor about five years ago. The hope was that the largely rural state would get a desired turn around. He stated that the turn-around would be anchored mainly on agriculture. I remember clearly that he said he would turn the state into the food basket of not only the South-West region, but the nation as a whole. He said Osun would tap into the estimated N3.5 billion worth of food in demand in the Lagos market alone. The plan was to edge out the northern states supplying the bulk of the food stuff in Lagos, by exploiting the proximity of Osun State to Lagos. Five years down the line, I am yet to see the impact of the money the Aregbesola government claimed to have invested in agriculture so as to actualize this dream. I can’t remember spotting a single tuber of yam entering the popular Mile-12 food market in Lagos from Osun State. Aregbesola’s talk about commercial agriculture has remained chiefly a mirage.
Osun State, like virtually all the states of the federation still depends largely on the monthly handouts from Abuja which has dwindled because of stumbling oil prices. Aregbesola, like many state governors have not shown ingenuity in terms of making their states viable. Osun State has great untapped agricultural potentials that could make the state viable, yet, it is struggling to survive. I am not sure if Aregbesola can point to just ten industries whose emergence he has motivated since he became governor. So, the industries are not there. Commercial agriculture is in comatose. How then does he intend to make the state viable?