A group of civil society organisations based in Osun State has
\ncautioned President Muhammadu Buhari against entrusting funds meant
\nfor the school feeding programme of his government in the hand of the
\nstate governor, Mr. Rauf Aregbesola, alleging that the money will be
\nmisappropriated by him and his cohorts.<\/p>\n
The group under the umbrella of the Civil Societies Coalition for the
\nEmancipation of Osun State (CSCEOS) stated that already the plan to
\nsiphon off the funds of the school feeding programme which President
\nBuhari is expected to launch in Osogbo, the state capital on Thursday,
\nSeptember 1,2016 has been exposed.<\/p>\n
In a statement signed by the CSCEOS Chairman, Comrade Adeniyi,Alimi Sulaiman
\non Tuesday and made available to newsmen in Osogbo, the group lamented
\nthat the governor has connived with the Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo
\nto convince President Buhari to release funds meant for the free food
\nproject to state governments across the state.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is where corruption has swept into the programme. This is where
\nthe project will become conduit pipes through which billions of naira
\nwill be going into private purses. This is where Buhari\u2019s
\nanti-corruption crusade will be messed up.<\/p>\n
\u201cAlready, Aregbesola has falsified documents where he tremendously
\nincreased numbers of pupils in the state public schools. He has also
\nforced cooks being used for his inherited O-meal programme to sign
\ndocuments that the state government was releasing N270 worth of food
\nper child each day instead of the N28 he was given them.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe can imagine how much will be going off the drain into private
\naccounts. For instance, if a sum of N270 is being released for one
\nmillion pupils in the state, this would be N270 million. Whereas, the
\ncooks will get meagre amount from this money and the remaining is
\ngoing to be embezzled.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe want to advise Mr. President to allow the FG officials to be
\nmonitoring and executing the programme so as to avoid people of the
\nstate to be shortchanged by Aregbesola and his cronies. Today, Osun is
\nthe most indebted state in Nigeria under the nose of Aregbesola. In
\nour state, it is the more you look, the less we see with window
\ndressing projects to deceive people.\u201d, the statement reads.<\/p>\n
While describing Mr. Aregbesola as serial and pathological liar and
\nthe most corrupt governor in the entire country, the group insisted
\nthat Aregbesola should not be entrusted with such programme funds at
\nthis material time where Nigeria is passing through economic crisis.<\/p>\n
CSCEOS stated that this call became imperative due to the experience of
\nthe people of the state in the hand of Mr. Aregbesola over the
\n\u201ccriminal mismanagement of the funds accrued to the State from
\nFederation Account since November 2010 till date\u201d, justifying its
\nposition that the school feeding programme funds of the FG would be
\ndiverted like that of N35billion bailout funds meant for the payment
\nof workers\u2019 salaries and leave bonus with the pension due of the
\nretirees in the State.<\/p>\n
The group also expressed displeasure on the state of affairs of the
\nstate nay Nigeria where situation are unbearable to the masses,
\ncalling on the workers and retirees alike in the state to use the One-
\nDay visit of the Mr. President to the state as an opportunity to
\nexpress their grievances on the non-payment of their seven to eight
\nmonths backlogs of salaries and pensions due to them, despite the
\neffort of the Buhari-led administration to bailout the state recently.<\/p>\n
It equally urged the affected workers and retirees to be courageous
\nenough to use their democratic means of pressure for their home
\ndemands during the Presidential visit to the State, advising the
\npeople of the State to stop the idea of suffering and smiling culture
\nduring the visitation of their elected leaders as if all was well with
\nthem and which it was not well in the nation presently.<\/p>\n
It added that \u201cAs a voice of the voiceless and down trodden masses of
\nour people, we would not keep quiet in the face of mis-governance of
\nGovernor Aregbesola so as not to be guilty of complicity, likewise, we
\nwould not close our eyes by allowing our meager resources to be
\nsiphoned by Aregbesola and his allies under the guise of embarking on
\na cosmetics programme\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A group of civil society organisations based in Osun State has cautioned President Muhammadu Buhari against entrusting funds meant for the school feeding programme of his government in the hand…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":22877,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-52717","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"yoast_head":"\n