The Osun State chapter of the All Progressives Congress (APC) has described as deceptive the claim of commitment of Governor Ademola Adeleke to the rule of law.
In a statement by the party’s director of Media and Information, Chief Kola Olabisi, the party state chairman, Sooko Tajudeen Lawal in Osogbo, the state capital, warned Adeleke, to stop arrogating to himself the virtues he does not possess.
The party said Adeleke was dressing himself in a borrowed robe over the statement he made at a three-day executive retreat organised by the African Office of the United Nations Development Programme in Kigali, the capital of Rwanda.
Adeleke was reported to have said, among other things, that: African leaders must allow free and fair elections for democratic survival, adding that democracy can only survive in Africa when leaders allow free and fair elections and elected leaders serve the interest of the citizenry.
“Governor Adeleke was also quoted to have stated that: “I try to practice (sic) what I preach in Osun State. I govern with an eye on the rule of law and due process” during a three-day executive retreat organized by the African Office of the United Nations Development Programme in Kigali, the capital of Rwanda”.
The party however alleged Adeleke of not allowing for free and fair electoral processes, suspension of the Rector of the Osun State Polytechnic, Dr Tajudeen Odetayo, and querying him eleven days after his purported suspension, being selective in payment of retirees’ emoluments among others.
Lawal’s words: “A governor who is committed to the finest principles of democracy and rule of law would rather officially resign the mandate entrusted in his care, when he is no longer mentally capable to govern the state than adopting a proxy and regent arrangement in governance as it is being witnessed in Osun State where his elder sister, who did not contest an election, has been the one running his government.
“An ardent doer and believer in the rule of law would neither have a history of bail-jumping nor have his administration bedevilled with pungent cases of nepotism, ethnocentrism, favouritism and victimization in public offices as it is being observed in the ongoing Edenization of the government in Osun State by the low-quality administration of Governor Adeleke” Lawal further alleged.
