Osun Transformation: Dr Deji Adeleke is Proud of His Brother

By Mallam Olawale Rasheed

Intellectual pursuit and excellence are traditionally built on empirical facts. When facts are deliberately twisted to achieve partisan goals, the public, the citizenry, immediately identifies intellectual deceit and a prelude to a likely jaundiced academic thesis.

Applied to the public space and as facts are sacred, governance analysis from dispassionate analysts, uninjured commentators and unemotional observers convinced Dr Deji Adeleke, the patriarch of the Adeleke dynasty, that his brother, Governor Ademola Adeleke, is delivering to his expectations and that of the voting public. That same view is held by many Nigerians.

A reading of some articles including one by a journalist, Ismail Omipidan raises the imperative of fact checks. I will first submit that the writer’s justification for calling out Dr Deji Adeleke is flawed and based on false citations as all the four points raised are based on equally false narratives promoted by the opposition. And I will dissect the issues one by one.

First is the Akoda-Ede road which he claimed was awarded prior to the commencement of the multi-billion naira infra programme. We repeat with verifiable facts that this assertion is false. The Akoda road was only undergoing pothole patching under the 100 days programme before its inclusion in the infra programme. It must be stressed that the road was advertised in a Nigerian Tribune publication of August 2023, which clearly fault the jaundice postulation of Mr. Omipidan.

As for timing of project completion, the infra plan was unveiled in December, completion date is December 2024. And as for quality of work, the contractor has the next five months to complete its work. Hence any judgment on work quality is mere political propaganda, especially when it is coming from someone with no background in engineering to be able to make a technical assessment.

The writer and the opposition may want to know that Oke fia, Lameco and other infra projects are going ahead as planned under strict monitoring and evaluation and with the best of quality assurance.

Equally, a debunked lie now repeated with sugar coat is the allegation that the Governor budgeted Fifteen Billion Naira for his office and only three billion naira for the agriculture sector with only One Hundred and Eighty Million Naira disbursement. The public is fully aware that the Governor’s Office has several agencies including the service-wide general services office. Hence, the said fund is not in any way meant directly for Mr Governor. Even at that, the total allocation for that unit is less than half of what purveyors of lies are dishing out

Relatedly, the agricultural sector is receiving full attention than the opposition would want to acknowledge. Under the administration that the writer served, agriculture received the most embarrassing funding, to the point that less than N10m was spent in the entire sector outside payment of salary in one fiscal year.

Under the Adeleke administration, tractorization, access to fertilizers, agropreneurs’ Incubation programmes, food security sub-sectoral initiatives, revival of farm settlements, cashew and cocoa seedlings project among others are special programmes the administration is implementing within the agricultural sector. It is a lie that only N180 million has so far been released to the agricultural sector.

For the teachers’ recruitment and Imole Youth Corps, this administration is a government with a focus on programme sustainability and seamless delivery. With minimum wage matters being sorted out and with all budgetary questions resolved, the administration is fully ready for implementation. Governance is a process, a fact known to even the unlettered.

Another disgraceful lie is allegations of delay in sharing palliatives from the Federal Government. The first phase of the rice palliative was handled by a non-governmental committee and the second phase was shared across various interest groups alongside those rice equally purchased by the state government. In fact, the writer’s party received from the palliatives disbursement by the Adeleke administration and we dare him to fault this assertion with fact.