Since his election as the governor of Osun State, Engr. Rauf Aregbesola has been having a running battle with the dethroned Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the state. SEFIU AYANBIMPE reports the latest effort of the PDP to impeach the governor.
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Barely 10 months in government house, Oke-fia, Osogbo, the Osun State capital, Governor Rauf Aregbesola, is perhaps experiencing his first baptism of fire.
The state’s chapter of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) through its chairman, Barrister Sunday Ojo-Williams, recently wrote a two – page petition to the Osun State House of Assembly. Ojo-Williams asked for the commencement of the impeachment process against Aregbesola popularly called Ogbeni. ?When news of the petition became public knowledge, people began to react on the subject matter, particularly among members of the ruling Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN ).?
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While the ACN believed that the eight point impeachable alleged offence listed by the opposition party was aimed at instigating the assembly members against the administration of Aregbesola, the PDP opined that the move will save the state from further harm. When the impeachment move was raised by the PDP, the governor was in Saudi Arabia performing this year’s lesser Hajj (Umurah).
The letter by the PDP read in part: “We write with greatest sense of responsibility on the need for the Honorable House of Assembly of Osun State to intervene very quickly in the dangerous drift of our dear state to total failure in the light of the paralysis that has attended all segments of the state’s social, political and economic life. We request that you, within one week, commence processes to replace ?Aregbesola and swear-in his deputy as governor for effective leadership,
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?“We know that you are alarmed and worried as we are that our dear Osun State has had the misfortune of being a state where all government hospitals have not functioned since January 16, 2011 when doctors went on strike with other health workers joining them six months later after ?Aregbesola refused to meet them even for once to listen to their demands.
“We have also noted that all academic and non academic staff of the state’s two Polytechnics and two Colleges of Education have been on strike for over three months after Aregbesola again spurned all efforts by their unions to meet him and table their grievances before his government for resolution.
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“Equally alarming is the reported declaration by Aregbesola that he liked strikes by workers as long as it would not disturb disbursement of funds. It was this mindset of ?Aregbesola that has made him to refuse to pay the academic and health workers which his party, the ACN went on air months ago to endorse,’’ the statement read.?
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They also alleged that ?Aregbesola traveled out of the country when the entire workforce was on strike. ‘‘You will recollect that in the month of June, he was in Osun State for only three days and in July for less than a week. He was not around in the state again for the remaining days of August. The PDP also notes with consternation the on-going massive destruction of the forest reserve at Orile Owu in Ayedaade local government area of the state on the orders of ?the governor who is said to be planning to cultivate maize in that unsuitable area without minding the cost to our environment and even to history because that forest reserve was established by Chief Obafemi Awolowo and nurtured by all successive administrations till date.’’
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?The PDP also lambasted the ACN government for the on-going demolitions of school buildings across the state, three weeks to the commencement of the next school calendar. While insisting that Aregbesola has consistently flouted ?the constitution which he swore to uphold by refusing to ensure that local governments in the state are democratically governed, the opposition stressed that the governor reluctantly constituted his cabinet after the public cried blue murder.
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“Flouting of the state law and order of the State House of Assembly which directed him to appoint seven member caretaker committees for the local governments, he instead appointed 17 per local government. Mr. Speaker, you will recollect that it took an outcry across the world before ?Aregbesola agreed to set up his cabinet which he did nine months after he took over the governance of the state. We observed that given his disposition to governance issues, and his endless trip abroad ostensibly on health grounds, Aregbesola lacks the mental and physical capacities to continue to govern the state,’’ ?the PDP further thundered.
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The PDP maintained that Aregbesola’s decisions have abnormally affected the fortunes of the State noting that Osun state is in total paralysis as market men and women can no longer sell, transporters no longer have passengers to carry, artisans no longer ply their trade and students have no school to attend. Government offices according to the party are all shut because of the strange behavior of the governor who has refused to disclose to the people the problem he has but chose to jet out in the midst of chaos.
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The PDP stated that ‘‘we have chosen not to keep quiet and we will act to save our state and its people because we do not have any other place to run to. Virtually every person in Osun state is worried at the strange actions emanating from ?Aregbesola’s office hence the decision to invite the House of Assembly to save the state from further harm by relieving ?Aregbesola of the burden of leadership which appears too much for his mental and physical capacity to bear.’’
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While noting that all members of the House of Assembly are of the same ACN with ?Aregbesola they however appealed the speaker to remember that his oath of office was not to be loyal to any individual but to serve and protect the interest of the people of Osun State at all times. As opposition party in Osun state, the PDP they claimed is prepared to join forces with the electorate to invoke the relevant provisions of the constitution to recall all members of the House if the speaker fails in his duty to commence the process to relieve Aregbesola of governance.
Reacting to the impeachable offences leveled against Aregbesola, the commissioner for Information and Strategy, Mr. Sunday Akere asked whether workers’ strike was an impeachable offence.
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‘’ The problem we have in Nigeria is that we have unlearned people calling themselves learned. The writer of the petition who I supposed called himself a lawyer and I expect should be conversant with the constitution of Nigeria can point to nowhere in the constitution where workers do not have the right to make a legitimate demand for what they deserve, and where they are making legitimate demand becomes an offence for which a governor or the person in authority must be removed, so it is a non issue. I personally feel it does not worth reacting to because they are looking for relevance. ?PDP is dead in Osun and what they are doing is to accord themselves some measure of relevance when we start taking them up on issues that does not even exist,” the commissioner stated.
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On the destruction of forest reserve at Orile Owu, Akere said, “PDP are frivolous with their allegations. During their seven and half years of misrule in Osun, they know themselves that they virtually finished everything we had in the government reserves and it is where they have cut all the trees that government is allotting out to farmers under the OREAP programme.’’
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Akeere stated that what the government intended doing is transforming Osun to a state that will be self sustainable. In the old western region when Awolowo held sway, nothing like oil well was there and the region relied solely on agriculture. At this period, Akeere said there was sufficient money realized from agriculture to cater for the people of the region. The commissioner said the problem with PDP is that their government and their party was a failure. ‘‘They do not like seeing achievers and they know that by the time Aregbesola’s administration comes on board fully with the OREAP agriculture revolution, people in Osun will turn around and stone them for being a failure.
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Let me ask if it is wrong for government to empower people to be engaged in agriculture? Is it wrong for government to show to its citizens how to be self sustained, to maintain themselves to get sufficient money to run whatever they want to do? That is what the government is doing through the OREAP and there is no amount of criticism or propaganda that will deter us from what we want to do,’’ the commissioner assured. On the allegations of demolishing schools across the state, the commissioner described such allegation by the present administration as imaginations of a warped mind. ‘‘The PDP knew that they were a failure, what we experienced during their reign was that they will build dilapidated structures and print the name of their governor on it. What Aregbesola’s administration is doing now is to reorder our educational sector, we want to make it better and in so doing we are going to reconstruct the buildings we have in all our primary schools,’’ Akeere stressed.
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He added that the government has the intention of building classrooms for each primary school that will sufficiently take 900 pupils in each of the primary schools. ?Whilr assuring that government would build 10,000 of such structures across the state in the next three and half years, he said government was not demolishing schools indiscriminately.
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His words: ‘’He claimed that we have been demolishing schools across the state; it is nothing other than a white lie. The only school which the government intended to use as a model for every other school was demolished and the first of such structure is what we want to build on the land, so that the contractors that are going to be given the contract will see the model the government want. What we have been doing is that if the communities in which we want to build the schools are ready to give us land that is big enough to accommodate the project without necessarily demolishing the whole structure, we are going to do it.
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‘‘And on the issue that the pupil are about to resume, is it their joy to see students sitting down, or sitting under the tree receiving lessons? Aregbesola’s administration is a people caring government and we will never, because of some group of disgruntled persons who do not want to see us advance, abandon our commitment to the people.’’?
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On the local government, the commissioner stressed that there was no time the governor flouted the laws governing the councils. ?‘‘The only law passed by the House of Assembly which I am aware of is the law with which the caretaker committee of seven was approved for each local government. When PDP was in government, they were the one that even passed the law that each local government must have 25 executive assistants. So if the executive council in the local government feels that some people should assist them in doing their job, the 17 they even quoted is not up to 25 which they approved for each local government when their party was in office. They are the people that do not have focus and they should point out the executive council that is running the local government with 17 executive assistants across the state. There is no local government that has more than 7 executive members and that is what is in place today in Osun,’’ Akere said.
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And ?contrary to the PDP insinuation that the governor was not fit and healthy to rule, the Commissioner calls on the people to discard the insinuation. “The statement was nothing but a ranting of the mind. Aregbesola for once never travelled out of the country on medical ground. Even before he aspired to become the governor, had made it mandatory to attend the usual Umrah. So it is strange and absurd that the PDP can now come around and say he travelled for medical check-up. My own disposition is that people should just neglect this lousy write- ups because there is no substance in everything they are saying and I know the intelligent members of the House of Assembly will never take them seriously.’’
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Reacting to the impeachment notice, a human rights group, the Committee for Democracy and Rights of the People (CDRP) has urged the state House of Assembly to ignore PDP on their call for Aregbesola’s removal.
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In a chat with the group’s leader, Comrade Kamorudeen Adeoti, CDRP stated that the PDP is crying wolf where there is none, warning the lawmakers not to get involved in anything that would trigger crisis in the state. The CDRP boss also maintained that information at its disposal has it that the state chapter of PDP with its leaders and members, have been holding secret meetings across the state, including at the palaces of some monarchs to cause mayhem that would lead to the declaration of ?the state of emergency in the state.
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‘‘Since November 26, 2010 that the Justice Binta Ogunbiyi led Court of Appeal, sitting in Ibadan put an end to the satanic ruling of PDP in the State, the party has been looking for ways to cause crisis for Aregbesola’s government in order make the federal government declare state of emergency in the Osun State. While calling on the people of the state to fervently pray for the governor, CDRP believes Aregbesola has been trying his best to bring back the lost glory of the state through his bold steps and initiative since his assumption of office.
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‘‘Brigadier General Olagunsoye Oyinlola’s PDP administration destroyed all the systems of the state for ? seven and half years and his government was characterized by misappropriation of state resources, embezzlement, maiming and all evils known to human society. The people should know that before Aregbesola came on board, Osun State was in a state of doom and it will require a serious task to right the wrong…’’ Adeoti said. Adeoti also called on the 26 members of the legislature to see the PDP call for the governor’s impeachment as thrash, evil, baseless, barbaric and unconstitutional. He said the move came at a period when Aregbesola was trying to resurrect the state to prosperity, stressing that PDP government left the state in huge debts.
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As at the time of filling this report, the State’s workers had called off their five month old strike while the academic and non-academic staff of the state – owned Polytechnic and Colleges of Education and health workers have refused to down tool. From all indications, the PDP is bent on mounting stiff opposition to the ACN government in Osun State but the reality on ground is that Aregbesola can only be impeached if the camel passes through the eye of the needle more so that the House is peopled by ACN lawmakers. The governor currently thrives on popular support of the masses.
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