Osun State Governor Rauf Aregbesola yesterday queried the integrity of the judge, who wrote a petition against him, Justice Folahanmi Oloyede.
His query followed last week’s dismissal of the petition against him and his deputy, Mrs. Titilayo Laoye-Tomori by the State House of Assembly.
Justice Oloyede, who had accused the Aregbesola administration in a petition to the House of Assemblyof mismanaging the state’s resources and thereby plunging it into financial chaos, failed to substantiate her allegations when invited by the House Committee to give evidence.
The House dismissed the petition after its panel on the matter reported that the judge failed to honour its invitation.
Speaking at the 50 birthday party of Osun State Speaker Najeem Salaam on Saturday, Aregbesola lashed out at the judge for what he described as a conduct unbecoming of judges.
He said the petition did not deserve the treatment it got in the media.
His words: “I want to say that there was no basis for the petition. It’s all lies. A judge who doesn’t know herself as a judge… Judges can only be seen and not heard. She (Oloyede) doesn’t have any substance in the judiciary. She lied against me.
“The journalists should have checked the financial statement of the allocation before writing their stories. “If I had collected N538 billion, Osun would have turned to Dubai. I am happy Buhari went to the USA and it was said that one million barrels of crude oil was being stolen everyday.”
The governor said Mrs. Oloyede accused him of being absent from the state, but the weekly executive meeting register proved otherwise.
“I have never gone on leave since November 2010 when I came into government. There is no single truth in the judge’s petition.
“I will tell the side of my story bit by bit. I am confident that before the end of the month the period of hard time will smoke off in the state.”
The governor declined to dance at the party, even when his favourite song was rendered by the band.
He jokingly told the social gathering that “a debtor doesn’t deserve to dance.”
When it dawned on the governor that the people were disappointed by his refusal to dance, he apologised: “You know that I’m Kokoro (a good dancer.) I would have loved to dance but a debtor doesn’t deserve to dance. You know I owe the workers and that is why I cannot dance. Just bear with me today.”
The musical band, a local musician from the Oranmiyan Orchestra also at the party instantly took a microphone and electrified the gathering with ýtheir songs.
Singing that there is hope, it urged the governor to dance away his worries.
Rather than taking to the dancing floor, Aregbesola took the microphone to clear the air on the allegation of misappropriation of the state resources levelled against him and his deputy.
He said: “Debt is a bad thing and I’m being careful with what I do because of the fact that I owe Osun workers. But you will hear a lot from me once I pay the outstanding salaries of our workers between August and September. Then that time I can dance.”
Speaker Salaam also echoed the governor. He told the gathering that his birthday party was not funded by the state government.
According to him, it was organised in his honour by his friends and political associates.
The Nation
