The Osun State government, on Sunday slammed the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, over its comment on the 2019 appropriation presented on Thursday by Governor Gboyega Oyetola, entitled ‘Budget of Hope’.
DAILY POST reports that the Chairman of PDP, Hon. Soji Adagunodo, had in a statement on Friday, described the appellation of the budget as a conscious admittance of ‘hopeless administration of the Aregbesola led administration in the state,’ saying Oyetola should be highly commended for saying the truth.
In a swift reaction, therefore, Mr Adelani Baderinwa, who held sway as Commissioner for Information in the last administration, and now the newly appointed Supervisor in the Ministry through a statement he made available to newsmen in Osogbo, the Osun State capital, said members of the opposition PDP were suffering from serious intellectual laziness.
He opined that only paucity of knowledge and competence of governance could make the main opposition party to criticise a budget based on its christening and failed woefully to critically address the content of the budget as a whole, adding that “no critical minded opposition will embark on wild goose chase as PDP has done on the budget.
“It is this regular demonstration of sheer self denial of the substantial success of former Governor Rauf Aregbesola’s administration that will eventually put PDP to permanent displacement in the annals of Osun political history as their obvious lack of depth and capacity to admit some good deeds when seen as strength in the opposition business in a democracy.
“While we acknowledge the role of opposition to include critiquing policies, programmes and projects of government for the overall benefit of the general society, we take exception to criticism which tends to be fallacious in nature and without benefit of any kind to our people. How will anybody continue to argue with scientific facts as provided by credible world organisations upon which the Aregbesola administration had been consistently rated against the remaining 35 states in Nigeria.
“It will take only a PDP with serious short-sightedness, lack of clear thinking, knowledge and capacity to decipher the good from the bad to continue to refuse to acknowledge the prodigious achievements of Aregbesola.
“This embarrassing and primitive attitude of PDP is unbecoming of a civilized opposition party in a democracy and it rather shows the level of their desperation in discrediting the legitimately constituted government of Oyetola by all crooked means possible”, the statement read in part.
It further stressed that despite the level of economic predicament ‘occasioned by PDP-led Federal Government’, the state was rated the best in terms of tax payment, least poverty stricken state , the state with least misery index, and the state with least number of unemployment in the country.
“In terms of good governance, Osun ranked among the best in Nigeria, and was declared the lowest state in ‘Incidence of Poverty’ in Nigeria by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in the report released by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) in October this year. In the overall, Osun earned the title of the most peaceful state among its peers in 2018.
“It is absurd that PDP failed to congratulate Osun as an entity for these accolades even if their politics of bitterness will not allow them to see the many achievements made possible by the Aregbesola led APC government. May we note with utmost pride that we were not that moribund to truth when we were in their shoes as opposition to their lackluster government before us.
“The Budget of Hope as presented by Governor Oyetola is in clear understanding of people without mischief that it is life more abundant for the sons and daughters of Osun, it’s residents and a tactical invitation to others to be part of our movement towards prosperity, which started eight years ago and gradually manifesting and which will gain greater fillip with a sound and clear mind like Governor Oyetola behind the wheel of our progress and not one clueless person without any serious education.
“Governor Oyetola is not in any doubt that it is not yet Uhuru in terms of having basic needs for the people of Osun in spite of the tremendous improvement achieved in the last eight years. He is also convinced that Osun has not gotten to the level wished by the founding fathers, hence his determination to offer renewed hope to the people who have begun to enjoy some measures of good governance with serious determination.”
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