By Adebayo Adedeji
To paint a picture of no animosity between Osun labour and their struggling government, the Methuselah interim chairman of Osun PDP, Dr Akindele Adekunle, yesterday caused to be published a misleading statement, describing the All Progresives Congress, APC, of being in severe pain over Labour’s Support for Adeleke. According to him, the opposition APC is jealous and agonised because of the “no-love lost” between Governor Adeleke’s government and workers. On a lighter note, the use of “No-love lost” in the context it was used clearly did not convey the intention of the author. However, he is pardoned for the language faux-pas, hoping that the talk-then-think leader of the PDP shall not one day, on account of his poor mastery of English idioms, call himself “thief” and land in trouble afterwards.
Meanwhile, which labour, in Adekunle’s oponion, is in support of Adeleke? Of course, it can not be Osun labour? Because the real Osun labour, not PDP wing in the labour movement, are in severe pains over the treatment meted to them by the state government since the 2023 elections were completed. They feel the state government handlers have not met their own side of the “election bargain” since January when, to curry ballot favour, they promised to pay their promotion arrears. They feel Adeleke and his men have used and dumped them after realising their election goal. More importantly, the labour are concerned about the reality of no fund in the purse of the state government to settle rising statutory obligations.
The labour are unhappy with Adeleke and his government for the prodigal manner they have mismanaged the huge resources accrued to them since they mounted the saddles, money amounting to over =N=90 billion!
The labour have now begun to draw lines between the current government and that of the immediate past supervised by Alhaji Adegboyega Oyetola.
The labour have begun to appreciate Oyetola more, that despite the paucity of fund challenge experienced by his administration, he was profoundly committed to their welfare, paid their salary promptly and did not owe them any kobo.
They acknowledge that the Oyetola government, both at state and LG…, earned barely =N=50 billion in the whole of his first year in office and siphoning of public fund was not the custom, as it is the culture now.
Osun labour are unhappy, are angry and are in severe pains, so are no longer moved by the lie and fraudulent boasts of the current government. They know the boasts are empty and self-serving. They know the empty boasts are to keep them in perpetual shackles and rent-seeking slavery. The PDP’s rhetorics that “… Governor Adeleke administration intends to pay the arrears along with March salary but couldn’t happen due to errors computation and reconcilation in salary records as attested to by Labour leaders in a message shared with their colleagues yesterday” is an after-thought which can no longer swindle the disappointed workers because the plot behind the “guy-man” message to the labour has since been unraveled.
The labour are now aware that the said Comrade Modupeola (Oyedele) whose name was used to distribute the satanic message “DELAY IN EFFECTING WORKERS’ PROMOTION ARREARS IN MARCH 2023,” to project Osun civil servants as incompetent and saboteurs, has distanced herself from it and expressed her strong reservations against some cash-activists using her name to perpetuate the monumental fraud.
At that, the civil servants hold that Comrade Modupeola Oyedele can not speak for Osun government workers because as a staff member of Ibadan Electricity Distribution Company, a private establishment, she can not wholly understand their predicament. Uneasy lies the head that wears the crown, they say.
The labour are disturbed that Osun State is broke and that rather than feeding the public with right narrative as to its financial helplessness, the kindergarten government in Osun is engaging in criminal propaganda to manage the mess it created for itself.
So how is APC in severe pain, when it is obvious that it is Adeleke and bumblers working for him are the ones under immense pressure to control the growing dissatisfaction among the populace as a result of the poor governance regime installed by them?
For example, of the mouthed 98 community-initiated projects by the current government, it is only a block of pit-latrines in a school in Dagbolu they have completed and have got to showcase as dividend of democracy since November they came to office. Matter-of-factly, their touted one-borehole-per-ward project has since died a natural death as many of the horribly constructed boreholes have been abandoned by the poorly mobilised contractors when they learnt a humonguos =N=14 million budgeted for each borehole had developed wings!
Sincerely, if the current government are not troubled, and distraught and in severe pains, as to their dwindling popularity, hence their desperation for renewed public validation, why should commissioning of pit-latrines and child naming ceremonies be the activities that now keep idle Adeleke and his obscure deputy busy?
