The Peoples Democratic Party has accused Osun State governor, Rauf Aregbesola of storing the bailout fund released by the Central Bank of Nigeria in a commercial bank.
Governor Rauf Aregbesola
The Osun state chapter of the Peoples Democratic Party has accused Governor Rauf Aregbesola of allegedly transfering and keeping the sum of N34.988 billion bailout package received from Central Bank of Nigeria in an unspecified commercial bank.
This accusation was contained in a statement issued in Osogbo, the state capital on Monday, September 7, by the state spokesman of the party, Diran Odeyemi, where he claimed that the governor decided to lodge the fund in order for it to yield interest.
The statement read in part: “Only paper work was completed last week. But since the arrival of the money exactly 14 days ago, Mr. Aregbesola in his usual ‘I don’t care nature’ instead of commencing payments of workers dues, lodged the N35bn given to the state."
“According to our findings, the bank that agreed to give Mr. Aregbesola the biggest interest running into several millions of naira was given the money to fix.
“The governor is buying time, for over two weeks now, he had been hiding behind staff screening to fish out ghost workers and the exercise is designed to last for another eight weeks.”
The party expressed worries over the continued suffering of the state workers and pensioners who have to go through hardship due to non-payment of what is due to them.
However, the media aide to the governor, Semiu Okanlawon, reacting to the statement, dismissed the claim of the main opposition party, saying there is no trace of truth in the statement.
Okanlawon noted that the said fund was only released by CBN to the state government last week.