Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) governor Ademola Adeleke has claimed that Oyetola had illegally hired 12,000 people in his final months in office.
A media adviser to the former governor, Ismail Omipidan, dismissed the claim as false at an engagement with stakeholders and members of the Osun Young Professionals in Kwara State in Ilorin.
“It’s a lie. We challenged them to prove it by producing a list of the 12,000 workers employed within two months, and they couldn’t. What’s even the workforce of Osun state? The fact is that we only employed 1,500 teachers and 500 casual health workers whose appointments were regularised, making 2,000 workers. Some were even employed before the election, and some others after the election. We worked till the last day commissioning projects and not that we were creating landmines.” he said.
Omipidan said that the Oyetola administration gave a good account of itself during the four years of administration, adding that the state internally generated revenue (IGR) was improved from about N10 billion to about N19 billion annual revenue.
He said:” We built over 500 Kilometers of roads within four years. Most of the roads we did were roads that were abandoned some 30 or 40 years ago. Examples are the Ada-Igbajo road, the Alekuwodo network of roads, and the Iwo-Oshogbo road. We flagged off the construction of Iwo road before we left. As I speak, work is ongoing on Iwo-Oshogbo road. These are parts of the promises we made. For me, I always argue that we never lost the election; we only lost the vote count.
“We didn’t take any bank facility for four years. Before we came in in 2018, payment of salary was a huge challenge. For the four years we spent, we did not owe salary. Even the November salary, my principal signed before we left office.
“If you know our situation in Osun before 2018, you’ll marvel. One of the things we deliberately kept out of the media until recently was the level of indebtedness. We deliberately kept it out because we didn’t want to let it look as if we are trying to undermine anyone. Unfortunately, it became our albatross.
“When Oyetola took over in 2018, we inherited debt. What we did was to find means of making things work for the four years we have governed Osun. We didn’t add to the debt we inherited.”
