The Deputy Speaker of the House
of Representatives, Mr. Lasun Yusuf, on Monday shunned the summit organised to
proffer solutions to the financial crisis rocking Osun State.
The Osun Legislators’ Forum,
comprising of lawmakers from Abuja and the House, convened the summit with a
view to solving the current financial crisis in the state.
Although the Deputy Governor,
Mrs. Titi Laoye-Tomori, and Senator Isiaka Adeleke also were not present at the
summit, their absence did not raise questions like Lasun’s.
The summit was attended by
Governor Rauf Aregbesola; former Governor Olagunsoye Oyinlola; a former Chief
of Defence Staff, Air Marshal, Oluseyi Petinrin (retd.), monarchs and other
prominent leaders in the state.
Lasun’s absence further fuelled
speculations that the rift which his emergence as the deputy speaker caused
between him and Aregbesola had not been settled.
Lasun, who represents Osogbo/
Olorunda/ Orolu Federal Constituency, had defied the position of the All
Progressives Congress to contest the position of the deputy speaker and he won.
The APC Elders’ Forum in Osun
State asked him to resign and advocated that he should be sanctioned, but the
lawmaker rejected their calls.
One of the legislators, Alhaja
Ayo Omidiran, had announced on Saturday that the lawmakers decided to come up
with the idea in order to find solutions to the economic crisis confronting the
state.
When asked why Lasun was not
present at the Saturday press conference, Omidiran said the lawmaker was being
expected to attend the summit.
At the event, the Chairman of
Nigeria Labour Congress in Osun State, Mr. Jacob Adekomi, faulted the claim of
Governor Rauf Aregbesola administration that the state monthly wage bill is
N3.6bn. He also said that the number of the state’s workforce was not as huge
as claimed by the state government.
Adekomi said this in his
presentation at a stakeholders’ meeting, organised by the Osun Legislators’
Forum in Osogbo to proffer solutions to the problems confronting the state.
He said the union would not
support any plan to sack workers, saying they were ready to submit themselves
for staff audit to ascertain the actual number of workers.
He said, “Retrenchment of workers
is not a solution to the problem of the state. We have always support the
government and we will continue to support the government.
“Let the state government stop
using consultants to do what civil servants can do. If at all the state
government will use consultants it should be minimal and their commission
should not exceed 10 per cent.
“Osun State wage bill is not up
to N3.6bn that the government is claiming. Workers are not up to 35,000 which
is the government’s figure. That was why we agreed to submit ourselves for
screening to know how many we are. There are some persons on the state
government’s pay roll who are not workers.”
The NLC chairman, who spoke in
Yoruba, also advised the Osun State Government to withdraw from joint ownership
of the Ladoke Akintola University of Technology, Ogbomoso.
He said that the state should
leave the university for Oyo State and merge whatever assets got from it with
the Osun State University. According to him, the state does not have the
capacity to finance more than one university at the moment.
“Let Osun stop the joint
ownership of LAUTECH with Oyo State. We should merge our part of the school
with UNIOSUN. This will save the government the subventions spending on the
university,” he said.
Copyright PUNCH.
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