The Osun state chapter of the All Progressive Congress (APC) cannot hide under one finger as Osun people and the general public are aware that the opposition party is deliberately withholding Osun local government allocations to punish the people and the performing Governor of Osun state.
Spokesperson to the state governor, Mallam Olawale Rasheed issued the rebuttal against a statement by the state APC, adding that “the June 13 judgement of the Court of Appeal sustained the sacking of the APC council chairmen and expressly validated the February 22, 2025 local governments election held across Osun local governments.
“The public is further in the know that the APC Chairmen and councillors were sacked by two courts as early as 2022 and their removal was never reversed even by the misinterpreted court of appeal judgement of February 10, 2025. We challenge the Osun APC to point out the exact portion of the February 10, 2022, judgement of the Appeal Court where an order for reinstatement was made.
“Prior to the Court of Appeal ruling of June 13th, the APC made spirited efforts to breach the law by pushing for the payment of local governments allocation to court sacked APC chairmen but the illegality move met brickwall on all fronts.
“The Court judgement which was already widely published and submitted officially to the Presidency, relevant ministries and other stakeholders actually recapped the genesis, timeline and current position of the law with respect to Osun local government leadership and concluded that APC chairmen and councillors produced by the flawed October 15, 2022, local governments election remain sacked and confirmed the products of the February 22, 2025 local elections in Osun state as the authentic leaders of the local governments.
“The Osun APC can therefore not hide under fake news any longer as the facts can no longer be twisted. As at today, there is no legal or political basis for the withholding of Osun state local government allocations.
“As rightly noted by the Commissioner for Information earlier today, we are aware that the Federal Government and indeed the Presidency have all the facts of the situation concerning Osun Local Governments and the reality remains that the court judgement sacking the APC Yes/No election Chairmen and Councilors remains valid and subsisting as was recently validated by the 13th June judgement of the Court of Appeal.
“As a matter of fact, there should not be any further controversy after the appeal court judgement recognizing the elected chairmen and councillors who are products of the 22nd February 2025 Local Government elections.
“We further submit that there is no judicial judgement halting the release of the withheld fund as the Supreme Court judgement on local government autonomy has never been implemented and Osun State alone cannot be singled out from the 36 states even if the apex judgement has come into effect.
“We clarify further that even if the Supreme Court judgment is applied to Osun state, the local government accounts for such payment must still be opened with the duly elected chairmen of 22nd February, 2025 and accredited local officials as signatories in line with the law. Hence, there is still no ground to withhold the state’s local government allocations.
“As a government, we are aware that President Bola Ahmed Tinubu only got to know about the funds seizure from the Nigerian Tribune front page during the Eid (Ileya) holidays, which means that the Attorney-General of the Federation instructed the Accountant-General of the Federation to withhold the funds without presidential approval. We, therefore, appeal to Mr. President to intervene and order the release of Osun local government allocations.
“Osun APC should therefore retrace her anti-people posture and ensure immediate release of Osun allocation to the rightly elected leadership of the local governments who were elected on February 22nd 2025.
“We must put APC on notice that Osun people will harshly punish them through the ballot for their willful inhuman punishment of Osun people”, the statement concluded.
