Osun State Governor, Mr. Rauf
Aregbesola, says Osun State received only
N55m from the Federation Account for
the month of September, 2015. He said
the money could not even settle the
electricity bill of the government
secretariat.
The governor said the development was
evidence that Nigeria was experiencing an
economic meltdown. He, therefore, called
on residents of the state to return to
agriculture as oil could no longer sustain
the nation’s economy.
The governor said this during the
inauguration of the new Ife/Orile-Owu
33KV feeder line at Orile-Owu in
Ayedaade Local Government Area of the
state, according to a statement on
Sunday.
The governor said that apart from the
price issue, crude oil was no longer selling
as fast as it used to, adding that Nigeria
must seek other sources of revenue.
He said, “We must at this point tell
ourselves the truth; there is no money
coming from the Federation Account, 34
million barrels of Nigeria’s crude oil are on
the sea without buyers.
“Money coming from the Federation
Account has reduced seriously and our
hope of survival is in our hands, what our
forefathers lived on was agriculture.
“We must now go back to the farms and
work. We also need to pay our taxes so
that the government can meet its
responsibilities. For September, our state
got N55.8 million. The money we
received cannot pay for the power supply
by IBEDC that we use at the state
secretariat monthly.
“I want to use this opportunity to
admonish us to return to the farms, what
we used to rely on as a country and state
is no longer there. Oil prices have now
dropped seriously, even at about $41 per
barrel from a price of over$ 100; Nigeria
still cannot sell her oil in the international
market.”
The governor said his administration
recently gave hectares of land to the
International Institute of Tropical
Agriculture for farming and with the
electrification of Orile-Owu and other
farm settlements, there would be a boost
in agriculture around these areas.
He urged the people of the state to pay
their taxes to the government to
discharge its duties.
However, the Peoples Democratic Party
said the receipt of a paltry N55m by Osun
State as the allocation from the
Federation Account for the month of
September was a confirmation that the
state was highly indebted.
The spokesperson for the PDP in Osun
State, Mr. Diran Odeyemi, who said this
in a statement on Sunday, stated that the
allocation remained N55m after
deductions of over N1bn to service its
debts were made from the source.
The PDP stated that the people of the
state should know why Osun State got a
paltry N55m while those in the same
category with it got about N2bn.
The statement read, “We have been
saying it long before now that Osun State
has been slaughtered and eaten up by a
gluttonous administration that has been
in power in the last five years. The
gimmick early this year was ‘Jonathan
didn’t give Osun money’ but now, that
cannot sell again, hence the confession.
“Before the confession by Ogbeni
Aregbesola, three Nigerian newspapers on
Friday, November 20, published an
allocation table and Osun got N55m, after
all deductions, and came last. The next
state to Osun among the least earners
got N1.5bn.
“What other signs do we need to see that
Osun has completely fallen into a
recession? But the people of Osun
deserve to know from their leader how
the state got into this quagmire. This
leads us to the question of how much
Osun owes. Mr. Governor said the state
owes N88bn. But we insist the amount is
far more than this.”
The party warned the governor against
slamming high taxes on the people of the
state, adding that the administration had
already impoverished the people with its
policies.
In a separate statement, the Civil Society
Coalition for the Emancipation of Osun
State also said that Aregbesola’s
administration had no right to collect any
taxes from the people of the state
because of its failure to comply with the
sections of the constitution which
stipulates conditions for the collection of
taxes.
The chairman of the group, Mr. Sulaiman
Adeniyi, said this in a statement made
available to our correspondent on
Sunday.
He said the policies of the government
had led to the total collapse of the
economy of the state and accused the
administration of massive corruption and
failure to perform its duties to the
people.
