OSUN: APC CHALLENGES ADELEKE TO DISCLOSE TRUE FINANCIAL SITUATION. (PHOTO).

 Osun: APC challenges Adeleke to disclose true financial situation

The Osun State Chapter of the All Progressives Congress, APC, has challenged Governor Ademola Adeleke to disclose the true financial records of the state.

The APC said such disclosure is in the interest of the state’s ‘suffering masses” whose resources were allegedly siphoned for personal aggrandisement.

This is as the opposition party also condemned the prerogative of mercy issued recently by Adeleke on a police officer, Amien George, who it was gathered, is still standing trial, and other 52 convicts.

The party described the motive as ‘self-serving and ulterior’ to further criminalise the state and legitimitise criminality in the state towards the 2026 gubernatorial election.

Addressing journalists during an end-of-the-year press conference in Osogbo on Monday, the APC Director of Media and Information, Kola Olabisi accused the state government of secretly signing and obtaining a combined foreign loan of $51 million, N81.6 billion equivalent, using an exchange rate of N1,600 to 1$USD.

Olabisi maintained that the current administration is on the verge of putting the future of the state into a deep financial mess, hence the need for the people of the state to rise to the occasion and hold Adeleke accountable for financial recklessness.

According to APC, the impression that the Adeleke’s administration has not obtained any loans since inception is a lie, as part of the state’s 2024 budget is being financed from the NG-CARES facility.

“In our previous addresses, we maintained that the Senator Ademola Adeleke-led government, in 2023, secretly obtained loans in the region of N10 billion. The 2023 audited financial statement attested to that fact in pages 60 and 61 of the document as it reveals the domestic debt profile of the state increased to N55.3 billion in 2023 from N46.8 billion the current administration met it in 2022.

“Information obtained from the Federal Ministry of Finance indicates that Osun State has accessed the sum of $20 million of N-CARES, equivalent of N32 billion.

“Ordinarily, the first phase of the NG-CARES ended in June 2024, however, the Osun State governor, we are aware, has been misled to go for the second phase of the programme. Therefore, the state has signed all relevant documents to signify her intention to participate in the second phase of the NG-CARES programme. It is called NG-CARES additional financing. The Naira equivalent of the loan is N24 billion and the disbursement of this facility is scheduled for any moment from now. In total, the state will obtain the sum of $35 million (equivalent of N56 billion) on the NG -CARES facility.

“Someone will feel sorry for Osun when realizing how the first batch of the NG-CARES loan is being expended by the state government. The impression that the administration has not obtained any loans since inception is a lie from the pit of hell. Part of the state’s 2024 budget is being financed from the NG-CARES facility.

“The people of Osun, particularly the intelligentsia, must task the government to disclose the true financial situation of the state. The people should not be kept in the dark while the government ram them into eternal debt.”