The All Progressives Congress (APC) and the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in Osun state have continued to engage in heated words over APC’s call for a state of emergency in the state.
The APC has alleged that the PDP-led government is guilty of numerous infractions, including disobeying court judgments, conducting illegal elections, and sack of 1,500 teachers among others.
The PDP, on the other hand faulted all the reasons listed by the APC and affirmed that there is no breakdown of democratic governance from the judiciary to the State Assembly and the executive arm of the government.
The APC, in a statement signed by Kola Olabisi, the director of media and information said there was no infraction that the Similaye Fubara administration committed in the office that Governor Adeleke is not guilty of in several folds under the guise that he is the executive governor of the state.
He stated that as volatile as Rivers State was under Fubara, he did not remove the Chief Judge of the state or remove traditional rulers.
Olabisi also alleged that Adeleke has been running the government by proxy, with his siblings taking over the reins of power as well as a breakdown in governance at the local level, with council workers refusing to go about their lawful duties.
The statement partly reads: “Where else is the government being run by proxy as it is currently being witnessed in the state where the siblings of the governor have taken undue advantage of the challenges of their brother governor to take over the reign of government in the state to the consternation of the right-thinking members of the society?
“Those who are asking for the head of the national secretary of our party to honestly and holistically state his opinion for the desirability of a state of emergency in Osun State should avail us of the reason it is not an impeachable offence for a Governor to cripple the third tier of Government for his selfish and wicked motive as he has converted his Ede county home to the rendezvous of the recalcitrant top ranking council officials to frustrate the Court of Appeal judgement that reinstated the APC council chairmen and councillors.
Read also: Osun Govt urges Tinubu to reject APC’s emergency call
“There is currently no insecurity in the state, and the local government workers’ refusal to go about their lawful jobs is routed from the orchestrated illegality from the state government to stultify governance at the local level. There is no reason to refuse to go to work and a sign to the state of emergency declaring authority to infer a total collapse of government at all the local levels in the state.
“Students who need identification letters, proposed marriages, job seekers requiring local government identification letters and all other indigenes of the state having one thing or the other to do in the local government councils have been groaning due to the directive of Governor Adeleke to the council staff to stay off from work.”
Reacting, Sunday Bisi, chairman of PDP, in a statement signed and made available to newsmen in Osogbo described the APC as window shoppers for crisis, emphasizing that Rivers State, which the APC often compares to Osun, has a distinct situation.
His words: “We condemn the increasing desperation of APC against the people and government of Osun state. We urge the presidency and all lovers of democracy to ignore the whispering of these evil power seekers. Osun is not Rivers and there is no basis for any clamour for State of Emergency.
“On the issue of obedience to court judgment, the Adeleke administration has no record of disobeying court orders since assumption of office. On the contrary, it is the APC that has refused to accept the Court ruling which sacked its Yes/No local government chairmen. The best of legal minds have declared that the Court of Appeal ruling does not contain any reinstatement directive or orders as has been paraded by the Osun APC.
“On the issue of teachers recruitment, Governor Adeleke acted in the best interest of the state by sanitizing the state public service from illegal injection into the service, of thousands of APC sympathizers by Mr Gboyega Oyetola, a few weeks before he was to quit the office as the state governor. The former administration deliberately plotted an over-bloated public service whose salaries, the incoming Government will not be able to pay. The booby trap was dismantled by Governor Adeleke who ordered a reversal to due process in the recruitment of health and school teachers within the confined capacity to pay concern to the needs of the various sectors of the state economy.
“On strike action at the Local Government level, there is one thousand and one reasons why Local Government staff are not at work as they feared for their lives after six PDP members were killed and because the subject of local leadership is already subjudiced. No local government staff want to be an accomplice to crime as those who hijacked the council secretariats presently have been sacked by a competent court of law and the court judgement the APC is parading has no consequential orders nor contain any directive, reinstating the Yes/No chairmen.”
