The Civil Societies Coalition for the Emancipation of Osun State (CSCEO) has called on the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) to takeover the payment of workers’ salaries and pensioners from the remainder of the N34.988bn bailout released to the state.
The chairman of CSCEO, Mr. Sulaiman Adeniyi, stated this at a press conference in Osogbo on Wednesday.
The group stated the refusal of the state government to pay all the outstanding salaries and pension was an indication that the bailout fund might have been diverted for other purposes.
He said, “We also call on the Central Bank of Nigeria to withdraw the bailout from Osun State government and pay the balance of the outstanding salaries and pensions due to the affected workers and retirees’ bank account directly.
“This is in order to ameliorate the suffering of the people of the State since they are the ones who will be paying back the debt long after Aregbesola must have gone back to his Lagos State.”
The CSCEO stated that the refusal of the governor to pay lecturers in the four state owned tertiary institutions demonstrated that the governor did not care about the future of the students who had been idle as a result of the strike in their schools for the past four months.
He alleged that the governor had been running the state since January 2015 as if it had not received monthly allocation from the Federation Account.
Adeniyi stated previous administrations in the state relied on federal allocation to pay salaries and they were still able to initiate and complete development projects in the state.
Adeniyi also criticised Aregbesola for declaring war against journalists in the state, saying the governor should be held responsible incase anything untoward happened to any journalist in the state.
He added, “We are calling on President Mohammadu Buhari and all relevant security agencies in the state not to treat Aregbesola’s threat against members of the pen profession with kid-gloves.
“We want president Muhammadu Buhari led Federal Government of Nigeria to prove to the whole world that its anti-corruption war is for real and that there will be no sacred cows in its implementation.”