The Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, Osun state chapter has accused the Osun State Governor, Rauf Aregbesola, of fixing the N34.988bn bailout received from the Central Bank of Nigeria for two months with a commercial bank.
Its spokesman, Diran Odeyemi, in a statement in Osogbo on Monday said Osun received the fund about two weeks ago but that the governor decided to lodge it in a fixed deposit in order to attract interest.
The statement partly read, “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 PDP said the party was concerned by the suffering the workers and pensioners were going through due to the delay in payment of their salaries and pensions.
But reacting, Semiu Okanlawon, the governor’s media aide said the PDP fabricated the date, insisting that the fund was received even when the CBN said the money was released last week.
He said, “The verification exercise which the party claims is the subterfuge for this alleged lodgement in a fixed deposit account for personal gains is being handled with active involvement of civil servants.
“Does the PDP expect the workers themselves to delay the verification for its imagined interests on the funds to materialise?
“Its claim that bailout was paid two weeks ago further confirms its dubious intention because even the Central Bank of Nigeria still confirmed the list of states that first received their shares while the same CBN said other states would get theirs on or before the end of last week.
“The PDP would do well to tell the world where it got its own information on the date of the bailout release to Osun as well as provide evidence of the alleged lodgement.”
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