Osun State chapters of the All Progressives Congress and the Peoples Democratic Party on Sunday traded words over the recently unveiled plan by the administration of Governor Ademola Adeleke to spend a sum of N100 billion on infrastructural amenities across the state in the next 12 months.
Adeleke last Friday had listed projects that include five flyovers, 45-kilometer roads across the 30 local government areas, and rehabilitation of health centres and schools, in his one-year infrastructure plan for Osun.
But reacting to the plan, Osun APC Chairman, Mr. Tajudeen Lawal, described Adeleke’s plan as a “scam skilfully designed to enrich some economic buccaneers close to the government.”
Lawal said since Adeleke had declared that he would not borrow to finance the projects, the citizens deserve to know the source of the funding and the modality for its settlement.
The statement read in parts, “Adeleke should tell the world the economic importance of the proposed construction of a flyover at Owode Ede if not only to serve his personal ego as a native of Ede.
“Is there any justification for the construction of five flyovers at this time in the history of the state when the state government under Governor Adeleke is yet to come up with its planned succour for the people of the state when some other state governments have been dolling out the second or third tranche of their government’s support for the governed?
“What sense is therein, for a government which is yet to make a pronouncement on the acceptable minimum wage for its workers as initiated by the federal government, to toy with the plans to build five flyovers in the state at a time?
“All concerned stakeholders in the Osun project should raise up their voice with a view to condemning the seemingly gang-raping of the economy of the state by some disgruntled elements who are parading themselves as political leaders in the state.”
Responding Osun PDP chairman, Mr. Sunday Bisi, described APC’s position on Adeleke’s infrastructural plan as ill-intentioned one to a development agenda adjudged to be commendable, long overdue, sustainable for Osun’s economic revival.
On sources of funding for the projects, Bisi noted that the governor disclosed at the event that he created a project account into which savings from leakages, refunds, and infra-related interventions were being lodged.
The PDP chairman statement further read, “Reading through the APC statement, we see a party that is in bewilderment and severe pain at the ingenuity, innovation, and financial engineering of the Adeleke governorship.
“The PDP government inherited a state with over 95 infrastructural deficits as of November 2022. Our internal state infra audit when PDP took over revealed that the infrastructural decay cut across all sectors education, health, roads, and water among others. We then developed an initial emergency plan that led to the complete renovation of 31 schools, 45 kilometers of roads, 332 functioning boreholes, the commencement of rehabilitation of water works, rewarding intervention in the health sector, and major actions on such roads as Osogbo-Ikirun and the Osogbo ring road among others.
“We call on the APC to read the full speech of Mr. Governor in which he spelt out the strategies, the projects, the funding plans, and sources of such funding. The APC should get educated that not all Governors are interested in diverting public funds as was the practice when the opposition holds sway.”
