Osun State House of Assembly has asked the state governor, Mr Rauf Aregbesola to forward his response on the allegations raised by Justice Oloyede Folahanmi of Osun State High Court, accusing the governor of mismanaging the state’s resources.
Similarly, barely 24 hours after the state House of Assembly received the petition the house also received yet another letter from a human rights group demanding that the governor be probed.
Receiving the letter from members of Centre for Human Rights and Social Justice ,CHRSJ, a rights group yesterday, deputy chief whip of the assembly, Adeyemi Taiwo, said the letter will be passed to the Speaker, Mr. Najeem Salaam.
The speaker had earlier admitted that a copy of the petition by Justice Folahanmi. Oloyede had been made available to him on Wednesday through his office.
In the letter attached to the petition sent to the governor, the parliament demanded comments on the content of petition without delay.
He said, “the onus of proof lies on the petitioner who has expressed her readiness to defend her allegations before the parliamentarians, while Governor Aregbesola’s response would also be awaited for the sake of fair hearing.
Salaam noted that the legislature has elected to give Justice Oloyede’s petition a critical attention, “because she is a serving judge In the state, and justice demands that her allegations be given a look, for she holds a prime position in the judiciary, an arm of government in the the state”.
The speaker then appealed to the opposition and critics of the government to always channel their grievances peacefully, saying the way and manner some people were blackmailing the state over the delayed salaries in the media did not speak well adding that “If the delayed salary matter is settled, the affliction of the false image would still be there”.
He said that the state parliament was more than ready to interface between the people and the government at all time without compromising the independence of the legislature as guaranteed by the constitution of the federal republic.
However, Salaam asserted that the parliament under his watch would not be stampeded on any issue before it, reiterating that thoroughness would be deployed into the facts presented without prejudice, for House of Assembly is a Shrine of democracy, where democratic value and ethos must be upheld.
Another letter demands gov’s probe
Osun State House of Assembly, yesterday received yet another letter demanding probe of Governor Aregbesola.
This is coming barely 24 hours after the house had received the petition from a serving judge in the state judiciary, Justice Oloyede demanding probe of Aregbesola
Receiving the letter from members of Centre for Human Rights and Social Justice, CHRSJ, a rights group, deputy chief whip of the assembly, Adeyemi Taiwo, said the letter will be passed to the Speaker, Mr. Najeem Salaam.
He said the lawmakers are also feeling the pains of the workers over the issue of unpaid salaries and assured that measures are being taken to resolve the matter.
– See more at: http://www.vanguardngr.com/2015/06/osun-assembly-asks-aregbesola-to-respond-to-judges-petition/#sthash.9PQDNs9W.dpuf
The last paragraph of this report says the ‘legislators are also feeling the pains of the unpaid salaries of workers’. How and where they are feeling the pain of the masses is what I don’t know and would like to know. Are the legislators, many of whom served in the last democratic dispensation, the very same period the issue of unpaid salaries started from, not collected their own salaries, allowances and allocations? Is the same not applicable to Gov. Rauf Aregbesola and other members of the executive arms of government as regards their own settlement of salaries, allocations and allowances? The Speaker and other legislators in the House of Assembly together with the Governor and his commissioners plus arrays of political appointees must come out in plain terms and simple truth that just like the public servants in the state civil service had not be paid for upward of 7months, the same circumstances apply to them. Until and unless that is done and seen to be the truth, it is only then that the Government of Aregbesola can to a certain extent curry the sympathy of the masses, the media and critics alike. I beg to ask Gov. Rauf Aregbesola, what happened to the Security Vote that accrued to you/your state within the period under review? Let it be stated that if Rauf and other political bigots and religious zealots in his government can fool some, they definitely cannot fool all. Suffice to note that in this era of strong advocacy for lean government at federal level, Nigerians also demand very thin government at the State levels. In fact, searchlight should be beam on APC control states of the southwest where it appears that everything and anything goes particularly in the ways state funds, federal allocations and IGR are principally expended by the Governors under the remote control of their principal benefactor downtown in Bourdillon.