BY TIMOTHY AGBOR, OSOGBO
The Director of Operations, All Progressives Congress in Osun State, Sunday Akere has admitted that the immediate past governor of the state, Gboyega Oyetola, former deputy governor, Benedict Alabi, members of the cabinet and other appointees of the administration took away their official vehicles after getting approvals from Oyetola.
Justifying the act on Thursday, Akere who served as Special Adviser on Political Matters to Oyetola, said it has become a tradition in the state that governors and their appointees leave offices with their official vehicles, saying that the governments of former governors Bisi Akande, Olagunsoye Oyinlola, and Rauf Aregbesola also engaged in driving away official vehicles.
Akere said this on a radio programme monitored by The Point in Osogbo while reacting to the directive issued by the new Osun State Governor, Ademola Adeleke to the immediate past appointed officials to return government vehicles and properties in their possession within 48 hours.
The governor had revealed that two third of appointed officials during Oyetola’s administration carted away vehicles attached to their offices. Adeleke, who had set up a committee to recover the assets, also revealed that the former government officials removed computers and pillaged their official residences even to lamp fitting.
In his revelations, the new deputy governor, Kola Adewusi, said that when he got to his official quarters, it was left empty by his predecessor, Benedict Alabi, as building fittings down to kitchen utensils were carted away.
Some documents obtained by The Point also revealed that some principal officer of Osun State College of Education, Ila-Oragun, were given their official vehicles after a sum of N20,000 “depreciation value” was paid.
In the same vein, Ministry of Local Government and Chieftaincy Affairs released some government vehicles to some local government officials after approval was gotten from former governor Oyetola, according to a document.
But, Akere maintained that it has become a norm in the government circle for officials to take away their official vehicles in as much such gifts were approved by the state governor.
He said that’s the practice in the state and other states even to the National Assembly.
“The former governor (Oyetola) approved that the appointed officials should go away with their vehicles. There was an official approval and letters were given to individuals. When I was to leave in my office in 2014 November, the governor (Rauf Aregbesola) signed letter authorising that I should go away with my car. The same thing the former governor (Oyetola) did now. Nobody will go away with something that is not authorised. It’s never done.
“It’s not a strange thing, it’s not new and this is not the first time it’s happening. I am using my own situation as an example, I left office in 2014 and the official vehicle I was using is still in my compound and it was authorised and given to me by my governor then, Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola. So, if Alhaji Gboyega Oyetola now asked his Commissioners to go with their official vehicles, it’s not a strange thing. For goodness sake, the PDP should know that Alhaji Oyetola had the mandate of the people until midnight of 26th of November, and any action he takes from that July 17 that they (PDP) are now shouting about till November 26, they are legal and covered by the law of the land.
“It’s not only peculiar to Osun here, let them go to other states, neighbouring states, Oyo, Ekiti, Ondo, Lagos, that’s the tradition. Even when some commissioners were serving under Asiwaju Tinubu for first and second terms, by the time they were going, their official quarters were given to them, not even vehicles. They are just behaving as if what happened here is strange. They know it, when Governor Oyinlola left office, nobody asked him about official vehicles. So, they should know that government is a continuum, wether asset or liability.
“If you have a backup car and the governor did not say take it away, definitely, you must return it to the coffers of government. I don’t support illegality. I was never given any official car when I served with Oyetola and I didn’t go with any car,” he said.
On the removal of building fittings and other items from government official residences, Akere contended that such action was also right because those building items were brought to the place, though with government money, but through personal names of their occupants. He added that the official quarters were met bare when the administration of Oyetola took over power from Aregbesola, adding that it was justifiable for the immediate past occupants to have removed what they acquired in the buildings.
He said, “If I used the money given to me to furnish my apartment, when I am leaving, I will leave it the way I met it. That’s the situation. The money given to individuals of government to furnish and make their quarters habitable is their personal entitlements and the civil servants that are there are to guide the new government if they don’t have experience about issues like that. For them to come and be saying that they emptied government quarters and took official cars, I know nobody will take away what is not authorised.
“For the governor (Oyetola) one or two vehicles were given as entitlements, for the deputy and other cabinet members, their official vehicles. I have heard some people talking about back-up vehicles, when I was leaving office, the back-up vehicle, I left it in the ministry and I know that majority of the people that were given official vehicles and they have back-up, they withdrew the same. So, for them now to come and be making issues out of a non-issue, I think they should be advised to face the issue of governance instead of running administration on newspapers.
“I can’t speak for the local government Chairmen but for the official quarters of those that served in government. When you take over quarters, I know and they know that there will be nothing inside the quarters. When we came in 2011, I was given official quarters, the entire place was empty, and it was after you take over that the governor will say go and refurbish your quarters. If I am given N10 to put my quarters in place and I said I am okay with it and that I want to be sleeping on the floor, I can take my N10 away. Nobody is going to query me but if I use the N10 to do this and that, you don’t expect me to leave them. I cannot speak for the office of the deputy governor because I didn’t know what he inherited and what he took over or met there, but one thing they should know is that the deputy governor cannot descend to the level of taking away cutleries and all the things that they are shooting in the kitchen.
“I don’t want to be seen as being defamatory or apportioning blames but one thing I know is that even the moment you say you hand over the keys of this place (official quarters), the people that are around there may decide to take what pleases them there. It’s only what you use your money to buy that you can take. They (official apartments items) were bought in individual names because the money is personally given to you in your name. It’s your entitlement as an official of government, that’s the situation everywhere. It’s the tradition even up to the National Assembly. It was also like that during the time of Bisi Akande,” he noted.
Asked if the former government functionaries don’t feel disturbed by Adeleke’s threat to make them face the wrath of the law should they fail to return government properties in their possessions, Akere said, “I am not worried a bit because I know that this will not end there, they can decide to go to court to challenge legality of such an action. The official cars were given to them by the governor they served with, they didn’t take it on their own volition and nobody can take it away from them arbitrarily. They cannot say the governor doesn’t have the right to take decision until his last stay in office that he did. If they arrest anybody, it can lead to breach of law and order, this is not a banana republic. A government must be run as a government, liabilities and assets are inherited, so, they should accept that fact.”
Meanwhile, a group, Good Governance Globally, has asked Akere to tender apology to the state on his admittance that the former government officials made away with government properties, adding that they should return all the assets back to government.
In a statement, Goke Omigbodun, the convener of the group, said he served in two different past administrations and that neither the governors at that time nor their appointees took away their official vehicles.
“Our attention has been drawn to the fact of vehicles and other movable assets of Osun State, being misappropriated now by high political office holders of the immediate past APC administration of Alhaji Gboyega Oyetola.
“It is grossly misleading of Chief Sunday Akere, an APC chieftain and Political Adviser to the just replaced government, to claim on a radio program, today (Thursday) 1st December 2022, that it has been the tradition for official cars and other movable assets to be taken away as gifts by officials of outgoing administrations in Osun State.
“Chief Akere should in fact apologize for mentioning the government of Prince Olagunsoye Oyinlola, in which I served as Special Adviser. We all returned our official cars, and some of my colleagues were even hounded for what was not.
“I also served in the Papa Bisi Akande’s administration and returned all my official vehicles. It is almost certain that the official cars of the then Honorable Commissioner for Education, whom Chief Sunday Akere served as Personal Assistant were also returned.
“In fact, members of the then PDP as constituted, the political party that was to take over from the then Alliance for Democracy, were stopping officials of the Papa Bisi Akande-led administration on the bridge along the Gbongan Road leading to the State Secretariat, and elsewhere, stripping all of their official vehicles. That was immediately after election results were declared and long before Prince Oyinlola was sworn in.
“The said tradition is new and confined to the APC administrations. It is an unbearable tradition of “a heavy knee on the neck” of Osun State lean wallet.
“If the act of taking state vehicles and other movable assets as personal gifts is according to any extant law, Osun Government of the day and the good people of Osun should overlook the acts, prevail on the next Osun State House of Assembly to enact an appropriate Transition of Osun State Administrations Law, for future purposes, and let’s move on.
“If there was such a Transition Law, and the immediate past government of Alhaji Gboyega Oyetola was compelled by an Act of Parliament to cooperate with the Transition Committee set up by the then Governor-Elect, now inaugurated Governor Ademola Adeleke, no office or official residence would have been stripped bare even of cutleries, doors and windows, as claimed now by the new administration,” Omigbodun, a former governorship aspirant in the state said.
