The Osun State chapter of the All Progressives Congress (APC) has carpeted Governor Ademola Adeleke over his issuance of a memo to order the payment of severance allowances to the Peoples Democratic Party’s (PDP) members who the Supreme Court in its 2010 ruling had declared as unlawful occupiers of political positions in the local government councils between 2008 and 2010.
A letter from the state ministry of local government and chieftaincy affairs with reference number CM.43/V111/14, signed by one Tajudeen Adelabu for the ministry’s Coordinating Director, dated May 11, 2023, requested all the Heads of Local Government Administration in the state to forward to the ministry all the outstanding allowances owed the former political officer(sic) holders who served between 2008 and 2010.
The Osun State Acting Chairman of the APC, Sooko Tajudeen Lawal, in a statement issued by the party’s Director of Media and Information, Chief Kola Olabisi, in Osogbo, the state capital today, Governor Adeleke was advised to resist all attempts by some kitchen members of his cabinet to mislead him to engage in any illegality which the payment for the sacked local government political functionaries constitutes.
Lawal stated that any attempt to pay the sacked local government political functionaries who served between 2008 and 2010 was an affront on the apex court of the land that had since dissolved them.
Sooko recalled that in its unanimous ruling on Friday, December 17th, 2010, the Supreme Court voided the December 14, 2007 elections conducted into the 30 local councils in Osun State by the state Independent Electoral Commission (OSSIEC) and consequently ordered the dissolution of the councils’ administration and immediate return to the purse of the government all emoluments received by the affected council chairmen and councilors while holding the positions illegally.
Lawal stated further that in the judgement read by Mariam Aloma Mukhtar(JSC), the apex court held that the Osun State electoral body contravened Section 31 of the Electoral Act 2006 when it relied on Section 10 of the Osun State Electoral Law 2002 to conduct the said council polls.
The chairman implored Adeleke not to engage in impunity under the cover of Immunity Clause because the Immunity that covers such perfidious actions has expiry date.
According to Lawal: “As a party and patriots, we are duty-bound to keep Governor Adeleke informed that it’s an height of Illegality paying such severance package to persons not known to law.
“If not now, such a flagrant disregard to the law of the land will hunt and haunt violators of such provisions. Immunity isn’t eternal. Immunity isn’t perpetual. It has a moment of expiration”, Lawal warned.
He decried the decision of the Adeleke-led administration to expend such humongous resources of the state to rehabilitate and settle his political associates and party members when several state programmes are awaiting immediate attention.
Lawal further said that: “Such an action of the state government is devoid of moral rectitude and commonsense. How could it be explained that a state governor who, under the guise of ‘no money and insufficient fund to pay salary,’ berserkly sacked 1,500 teachers and over 500 health workers employed by his predecessor, is now wallowing in the unethical conduct of using state fund to construct stomach infrastructure of his party men and women?
“It beats logic that the government of Senator Ademola Adeleke who recently began demotion and rightsizing of state workers on account of scarce resources is desperate to pay political patronage with the same ‘scarce resources'”.
Lawal counselled the state governor to quickly come to terms with the reality that he is not above the law, and that at an appointed time, he would account for all the illegalities perpetrated under his watch.
The APC heldsman hinted that whoever has been following the political development in the Osun PDP would not be reluctant to conclude that Adeleke has been held hostage by the sacked ALGON members of 2008 to 2010 who formed the highest number of his kitchen cabinet.
“Governor Adeleke definitely needs help in order to break loose from the 2008-2010 league of dissolved ALGON members who must be putting undue pressure on the governor to run foul of the law of the land.
