The Osun State chapter of the All Progressives Congress (APC) has observed that the state Governor Ademola Adeleke has absconded from the state for the past two weeks which has become a cause for concern to the people of the state as it is not normal for a chief executive of a state to abandon his people without any tangible information.
A fast check confirmed it that Governor Adeleke quietly left the state unannounced about two weeks ago when he failed in his effort to defect to the opposition APC.
The question being asked in hushed tones in some public places, inside commercial buses and by motorcycle riders and their passengers in the state, is where could be the whereabouts of their governor for this long.
It would be recalled that the same manner of disappearance happened to the governor barely one year into his administration when the people of the state were left in the dark concerning his whereabouts for some time.
Those who were packaging the governor came up with different stories with various information that he was in the United States of America, others said he was in the United Kingdom shopping for foreign investors.
It was when there was nothing to cover up the bare-faced lies that the people of the state later got to know that the governor was in Thailand on a medical mission.
It is absolutely wrong for Governor Adeleke to take the people of the state for granted by just sneaking out of the Government House for an undisclosed destination without considering it appropriate to inform the people of the state.
The governor should be aware that governing a state is a serious business which requires absolute devotion of time, energy and resources in order to give qualitative governance to the people of the state.
It is very important for the governor that he should learn how to be accountable to the people of the state and not his nuclear and extended family alone because he was the one who applied for the governorship seat of the state.
Osun State is not a limited liability company where the owner is at liberty to leave the company at will without the knowledge of the people.
The people of the state who have been asking: ‘Where is our governor?’ are justified as the stalemate willingly caused at the local government level by the governor who has been sponsoring and oiling the wheel of the needless strike embarked upon by the National Union of Local Government Employees (NULGE) for the past six months, can not be allowed to repeat same at the state level.
As the governor of all and sundry, we as a party, need to know the whereabouts of the governor and who has been holding fort for him during his absence from the state since two weeks ago
Did the governor duly transmit power to his deputy who is constitutionally covered to temporarily step into the shoes of his principal in his absence?
It would be disastrous if the governor should leave the reins of his administration to the members of his family who, all along, have been running his government for him by proxy to the embarrassment and consternation of the right-thinking members of the society.
The worry of the people of the state over the governor’s long absence is equally justified for the fear that the trip may form an addition to the N3.1 billion that the governor has spent on both foreign and local trips within the first half of this year without anything to show for the benefit of the state.
Governor Adeleke’s handlers should speak up now and disclose to the people of the state the whereabouts of their governor.
e-SIGNED:
*Mogaji KOLA OLABISI, Osun State APC Director of Media and Information.*
