The media was infested with a virus on May 20, 2015 when Pastor Segun Akinwusi, a former Head of Service in Osun State, unintelligently canvassed that the state government, rather than the Federal Government, is to blame for its inability to settle arrears of workers’ salaries and pensioners’ allowances in the state. One wonders when Akinwusi became the Solicitor to the Minister for Finance and Coordinating Minister of the Economy, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, who has been queried by the Governors’ Forum and asked to account for over $20 billion accruable to the Excess Crude Account between June, 2013 and April,2015? The Minister is yet to respond to the query! This amount stands apart from the $12.5 billion unremitted to the Federation Account by Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation as cogently alleged by the then Central Bank of Nigeria Governor and now Emir of Kano, His Royal Majesty, Sanusi Lamido. If all these funds were in the Federation Account for proper distribution, the Osun State Government and other State Governments would not be in their current parlous financial drought.
On page 2 of The Punch of May 19, 2015, it was reported that the Federal Government has borrowed N5.04 trillion from the domestic debt market since the advent of Dr. Goodluck Jonathan as Nigeria’s President. Is this too Governor Aregbesola’s fault as Pastor (?) Akinwusi wants us to believe? Very recently, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala openly declared that a sum of N473 billion has been borrowed by the Federal Government to pay its workers’ salaries and settle other recurrent expenditure in the first quarter of fiscal 2015 Year! And this is the same Federal Government which, through the Central Bank of Nigeria, directed that banks should not give loans to all the State Governments!
In addition, the claim by the Federal Government that oil revenue nose-dived in 2012 due to oil theft is tantamount to self-indictment since it is the same Federal Government, not Governor Aregbesola’s State Government of Osun, which has the constitutional responsibility to prevent the pilferage of Nigerian crude oil through the instrumentality of the Navy, Air Force, Army and other relevant Security Agencies. Thomas Carlyle said: Until cant ceases, nothing else can begin. Mr. Akinwusi should purge himself of hypocrisy, malice afore-thought and cheap blackmail through his vile presentation of fiction as facts! His utterances are embarrassing to the entire Public service of the State of Osun, which he once headed, and incompatible with his status as a former Head of Service of a sophisticated and enlightened State like Osun! It is better to remain seated rather than get up and dance and take wrong, weird and humiliating dancing steps as Mr. Akinwusi is doing! Indeed, the hottest part of hell is reserved for those who profess to be men of God but choose to engage in deliberate calumny against other people predicated on utter falsehood.
Finally, for a former Head of Service of this State to indecently and brazenly assert that the decline in the State Government of Osun’s Federal Allocation receipts from N4.6billion in 2013 to less than N1billion in April, 2015 is immaterial in the running of government is mischievous, despicable and a calculated attempt to mislead the State of Osun citizenry and incite them against the government of the day. In closing, Mr. Akinwusi is apparently seeking attention again having scored a paltry 534 votes in his dirty and immoral bid to become the State’s Governor during the gubernatorial election of Saturday, 9th August, 2014. He should stop from his devious path to perdition and start a new journey of telling the truth in consonance with his self-acclaimed status of being a Minister at the Temple of God.
*Kolawole Lawon, a public affairs analyst, contributed this piece from 6, Akinsanya Street, Omole, Ikeja, Lagos State.
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