By Hezekiah Oladele Bamiji
The attention of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Osun State Chapter, has been drawn to a pedestrian and laughably ignorant press statement by the Allied Peoples Movement (APM), in which it tried, albeit comically, to indict the performing administration of Governor Ademola Adeleke over Osun’s VAT generation figures for Q1 2025.
Ordinarily, we wouldn’t have dignified such low-level commentary from a mushroom party with zero representation or credibility, but for the unsuspecting public who may mistake noise for knowledge, we owe a duty to clarify.
First, VAT generation is not a magic tap that a government can turn on overnight. It is the outcome of years of structural economic planning, industrial base development, market size, corporate presence, and consumer power. It is laughable for the APM to compare Osun to Lagos or Ogun, which host thousands of major corporate VAT contributors, ports, industrial clusters and economic infrastructures built and consolidated over decades, long before Governor Adeleke took office barely two years ago.
Osun State, historically driven by a public service economy and burdened by the fiscal mismanagement of the 12-year APC rule that APM conveniently ignores, is in a steady recovery mode. Governor Adeleke inherited a near-collapsed economy in 2022, overburdened with debt, unpaid entitlements, abandoned public infrastructure and a demotivated local enterprise ecosystem.
Despite this, under the leadership of Governor Adeleke, the Osun economy is on a steady rebound. The administration’s policy focus on stimulating small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), empowering artisans and farmers, promoting digital entrepreneurship, and revitalizing agriculture have begun yielding measurable outcomes, gradually reflecting in VAT returns and more evidently in the state’s rising Gross Domestic Product (GDP).
It is intellectually dishonest and economically illiterate to expect a state with a limited industrial footprint to suddenly outpace its peers in VAT generation within just two years of reform. Lagos, a former capital city with the headquarters of multinationals and a GDP rivalling many African nations cannot reasonably be used as a benchmark for Osun.
The same APM that says nothing about the N407 billion debt inherited from the APC government, nor the N135 billion revenue discrepancy we called out in 2023, now wants to act as the fiscal watchdog of Osun? The hypocrisy is stunning.
While we appreciate the public’s interest in performance metrics, we urge citizens to interrogate such propaganda with data and logic, not political bitterness masquerading as economic commentary.
Governor Adeleke’s infrastructural rollout, aggressive ease-of-doing-business reforms, and strategic investment in the creative, tech, and agribusiness sectors are the foundation of Osun’s future VAT growth. We are building not just for the moment, but for sustainable progress.
To APM and its political handlers, your attempt to fish in dry waters with false equivalences and attention-seeking rants will not distract this administration from its clear economic agenda. Osun is rising again and no amount of noise from political spectators can stop this renaissance.
Signed:
Hezekiah Oladele Bamiji
Director of Media & Publicity
PDP, Osun State Chapter
22/06/2025
