Stop Hiding Your Weakness Under Bola Ige’s Death, Group Tells Aregbesola

The controversy between organised labour and the Osun state government has continued unabated.

A group called the Civil Societies Coalition for the Emancipation of Osun State (CSCEO) has cautioned Governor Rauf Adesoji Aregbesola to stop using the death of the late Cicero of Esa-Oke, Chief Bola Ige, as bait for attracting public sympathy over his government’s inability to pay a backlog of salaries to workers and retirees for about seven to eight months now.

The group, while reacting to media reports on Friday, September 11, lambasted the governor for drawing the spirit of the late Ige into his failure to perform the simple constitutional role of a governor by paying workers and retirees when due.

The group insisted that the spirit of good government which the late attorney-general represented while alive would continue haunt Aregbesola till the end of his deceitful tenure for subjecting the workers and retirees and their families to untold hardship.

Comrade Sulaiman further called on President Muhammadu Buhari to immediately take over the payment of salaries of workers and retirees in the state, alleging that Aregbesola refused to pay the backlogs of workers even after the federal government, through the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), released the sum of N34 billion as a bailout to the state governments for the settlement of outstanding salaries.

The CSCEO also supported the NLC’s argument that non-payment of salaries to workers was an act of corruption by the state governors, especially Governor Aregbesola.

Suleiman said: “It is a very unfortunate on the part of the Osun state governor, Mr. Rauf Adesoji Aregbesola for dragging the good name of Chief Bola Ige into his poor performance in office by criminally and recklessly mismanaging the resources accrued to the state from the federation account and as well subjecting the state to bankruptcy.

“Aregbesola is a serial and pathological liar ruling the state since November 2010 till date, with deceit where all sectors of the state are nothing to write home about.

“Mr. Governor has raised the morale of the workers and retirees in many fora that whenever the federal government through CBN release their promised bailout fund to the state, the government of Osun will not waste time to pay the outstanding salaries of workers and retirees alike.

“But to our dismay today, payment of outstanding salaries from bailout fund still turned into crisis between workers and the state government. What a shame and deceitful government?.

He continued: “Mr. Arebesola has shown that he does not have mental and physical capability to govern the state again because he cannot perform the simple duty of a state governor by payment of salaries.

“We are using this medium to reiterate our call that the federal government should come and help Aregbesola on the payment of salaries to the state workforce and retirees.

“Those who were making jest of us when we were pronouncing that Aregbesola hates workers and retirees with passion and also insensitive to their plight, would now see reasons in our earlier call.

“We believe that the spirit of Bola Ige’s good governance will continue to haunt Mr. Rauf Aregbesola till the end of his deceitful government in the state.”