OSUN APC TO ADELEKE: You Do Not Merit Vanguard's Good Governance Award ...Says, 'Award Should Be Withdrawn'

The Osun State chapter of the All Progressives Congress (APC) has faulted the conferment of a 'Good Governance and Governor of The Year Award On Infrastructure' by *The Vanguard Newspaper* on the state Governor Ademola Adeleke, describing it as a bizarre glorification of mediocrity in the corridor of power.

According to the Osun State APC chairman, Sooko Tajudeen Lawal, in a statement issued by the party's Director of Media and Information, Chief Kola Olabisi, on Sunday, there is nothing on ground in the state that qualifies the governor for the conferment of such award on him.

Lawal stated that in a saner clime, Governor Adeleke should have been singled out for an award of *"Fantastic Failure of the Year"* given his steeply malodorous performance in office since inauguration.

 The state APC chairman explained that an award of excellence in any endeavour for Governor Adeleke could be likened to kitting up a pig with expensive dresses, a venture questionable, aberrant and designed for mere amusement.

He stated further that the controversial award for Adeleke puts to question the value of the said award as it's largely unmerited by the awardee whose gross incompetence in government within the past 17 months of his occupation of the Bola Ige House, Abere, has returned the state to the Stone Age where life was antiquated, nasty and brutish.

Lawal noted further that such an undeserving award for Governor Adeleke could only have a tangible meaning if there is another state called "Osun" in the imagination of the awarding corporate body but definitely not the real Osun State which its statutory Chief Driver has run aground through its informal concession to his siblings and other allies.

The state APC chairman wondered how a governor who has crippled the local government administration in the state by cornering their monthly federal allocations and spending same on frivolities could be found suitable for an award for good governance?

In Lawal's words: "I am still finding it difficult to believe that a governor who could not properly account for the accrued N200 billion Federal Government's allocations to the state since November 2022 could be found worthy of being awarded with the good governance award.

"Is it not strange that Governor Adeleke, who has been warehousing the Federal Government's fuel subsidy removal palliatives in cash and food items meant for the people of the state, should be deemed fit for such a controversial award?

"Would it be right to honour a governor whose only achievement in the local government areas is award of 1.5km road construction, even despite hijacking over N111bn federal allocation due to the third tier of government in 17 months?

"Whose decision was it to consider for an award  a governor who, for pecuniary gains and desperation to corner money for 2026 re-election bid, contracted multi-billion road projects to fertilizers suppliers, cyber cafe operators and other incompetent cronies and political lapdogs?

"Who thought it right to give an award of excellence in the office to an entity who only repainted the Government House and the Presidential Lodge therein without making known to the public the amount of money the said contracts gulped?

"Would it be right to honour a governor who has been rubbishing the Obaship institution in the state by needlessly sacking some of them without recourse  to the rule of law and made a futile attempt to drag the state judiciary in the mud by going for the jugular of the State Chief Judge who was eventually saved by the Nigerian Judicial Council(NJC)?

"Based on the foregoing and other verifiable reasons, I am making bold to say that the Osun State Governor Ademola Adeleke does not merit any award as there is nothing on ground to show that he is ready for governance; the award should be withdrawn without further delay.

"Conferment of the Governor of the Year Award on Senator Adeleke, who hardly stays in Osun State but has been blowing the state fund on parties and merry-making with his co-travellers at Lagos hotels and night clubs with women of easy virtues, is a misnomer which would not be celebrated in the court of the public as it is a packaged scam", the APC chairman stated.

e-SIGNED:

Sooko TAJUDEEN LAWAL,        Chairman, Osun State APC.