Niyi Olasinde
A former Vice Chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Osun State, Alhaji Azeez Adesiji, has cleared the air on the allegation that it was Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola and members of his political tendency that led to its loss in the last three major elections in the state.
Alhaji Adesiji made the clarification while fielding questions on the Uniq FM/ Freedom Television, Ilesa programme, L’agbo Oselu, on Tuesday.
According to him, Aregbesola made frantic efforts to quell the disagreement in the Osun APC before it escalated, but the former governor Adegboyega Oyetola led-IleriOluwa group never accepted the Olive branches extended to them.
Tracing the antecedents to the present disharmony within the party, Adesiji narrated the events that led to how he, in conjunction with others like one Alhaji Ahmed, late Sanitarian Idowu Korede and Elder Olu Odeyemi and a host of others went to Lagos around 2005 to woo Ogbeni Aregbesola to come and contest the 2007 governorship election.
According to the grassroots mobiliser, there is no moment of regret over the entire political career of Aregbesola, as he performed well as Commissioner for Works and Infrastructure in Lagos (8 years), Governor of the State of Osun (8 years) and Minister of Interior, Federal Republic of Nigeria (4 years).
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The former Chairman of Ilesa West local government and one of the arrowheads of the defunct The Osun Progressives (TOP) explained that the search for justice, equity, fairness and transparency were the pillars that governed the formation of TOP; and not divisive tendencies as wrongly attributed in some quarters.
Reminiscing on the laudable achievements of the Aregbesola administration, Adesiji noted that the good governance mantra of the APC administration to “including the payment of 13-month salary to workers, broad-based roads infrastructure, comprehensive health and sanitation, 10-kilometre roads infrastructure by LGAs/LCDAs, overhaul in schools’ infrastructure, school feeding programme up to the fourth year, trade, commerce industry and cooperatives, establishment of LCDAs, schools reclassification and rebranding and intervention in virtually all sectors like agriculture, social welfare, human resource, empowerment programmes, among others.”
Clarifying the impetus for the widely decried modulated salary structure, Adesiji emphasized how the modality was embraced as a worker-friendly approach, as the former governor did not intend massive job loss for government workers in the state.
According to him, “the prevailing paucity of fund across the nation at the time necessitated the setting up of a committee, which came out with recommendations. It was the committee, the workforce represented by the labour unions that interfaced with the Chief of Staff at the time, Mr. Adegboyega Oyetola to fashion out the modulated salary structure, under which workers on Grade Levels 01 to 07 were paid in full; Grade Levels 08 to 12 were paid three quarters of their salary; while the higher echelon from GL 13 upward earned half salaries
