The Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, in Osun State has called out Governor Rauf Aregbesola, describing his eight years tenure as a monumental failure.
The party said that the governor will go down in history of the state as the worst since the return of democratic rule in 1999. PDP said contrary to what the governor was making people believe as ‘achievement in infrastructure and human capital’, “Aregbesola is leaving the state worse than how he met it in 2010”.
The Chairman of PDP in the state, Hon. Soji Adagunodo stated this on Sunday through a statement he signed and made available to newsmen in Osogbo, the Osun State capital. Speaking on where he scored himself high during an all night interaction tagged “Ogbeni Till Day Break” on Friday, PDP said such self glorification was childish and a total farce.
According to the party, “There is no better indication of the governor’s failure than the dysfunctional educational system, comatose healthcare, gargantuan debt, deplorable road, abysmal water infrastructure and several other negatives which the governor is bequeathing to his successor.
It is already on record that it is during the tenure of Ogbeni Aregbesola that Osun was ranked by BUDGIT as one of the four most indebted States and the least fiscally responsible state in Nigeria. It was during these same years that the state found itself on the lowest rung of performance of students in public examinations; a situation which made us a laughing stock even among states hitherto considered educationally disadvantaged in Nigeria.
Human life and development had never been this compromised as Medical doctors, health workers, lecturers, and civil servants embarked on strikes for a cumulative period of not less than 3 and a half years during Aregbesola’s administration.”
PDP also took on Aregbesola over his claim that he had built more roads than previous governors, saying there were more death traps than motorable roads, as it cited township roads in Ejigbo, Iwo, Ede, Ikirun, Ila Orangun, Ilobu among others. The party added that the roads from Osogbo to Ila-Odo, Akoda-Gbongan, Orile Owu to Ijebu-Igbo, Iwo to Ejigbo and several others which it said the governor used as cover to obtain various huge loans have been abandoned at stages ranging between 15 and 40 percent completion.
“The road from Osogbo through Iwo to Ibadan which the governor boasted would be rehabilitated by Julius Berger in 2012 was never started and must today rank among the worst roads in Nigeria. It is similarly on record that a recent survey by an international organisation ranked Osun as one of the 3 dirtiest states in Nigeria.
This is in spite of the billions of Naira siphoned by Local and State government officials in the guise of environmental sanitation. Our party notes that while Osun is very happy that the reign of Ogbeni Aregbesola is coming to an end, the people are rather sad at the legacy of impunity and fraud that Mr Governor and his party introduced to our political landscape as exemplified in the September 22nd and 27th governorship election in Osun State.
It is one ugly legacy which has put the name of our dear state on the dark spot of political discourse within and outside Nigeria. However, our hope is in the judiciary to do justice and restore the mandate freely given to Senator Nurudeen Ademola Adeleke as the rightful successor to Ogbeni Aregbesola; the PDP hereby joins the people of Osun State to keep on praying that the inglorious reign of the APC would soon be terminated and a new lease of prosperous life be injected into the State of the living spring”, the statement said