The ancient city of Osogbo was agog on Wednesday when the All Progressives Congress (APC) presidential candidate, Gen. Muhammadu Buhari stormed the South-west state of Osun in continuation of his campaigns for the 2015 general elections.

The Osogbo township stadium was filled to the brim as party members and supporters thronged the capital from across the state of Osun in their thousands.

They had insisted on waiting for Gen. Buhari since 10 AM as the candidate was attending a stakeholders workshop on non-violent elections in Abuja.

The APC presidential candidate, Gen. Muhammadu Buhari in his speech lamented that the country in last one and a half decades has found itself in vicious circle of bad governance, insecurity and breakdown of law and order.

He said unless something is done urgently, the nation will continue to wallow in political stagnation, economic depression and social insecurity.

According to the presidential candidate, APC is willing and ready to break this endless circle of socio-political misfortune.

He disclosed that through Agriculture and mining, APC will create jobs for millions of unemployed youths roaming the streets of the nation.

Buhari, amidst dancing and singing by the huge crowd of supporters, said “for upward of 16 years now, this country has found itself in a vicious circle of incompetence, unemployment, insecurity and Web of corruption.

“This circle will continue unbroken unless drastic efforts are made to arrest this downward socio-political trend. My party, APC has the blueprint to break this circle, halt the trend of misfortune and change it to fortune for the country.

“We are going to redouble our efforts in the Agriculture and mining sector to provide jobs for millions of unemployed youths. I urge you my people of Osun to collect your permanent voters cards so that you can vote en-masse for‎ APC come February 14.”.

‎Speaking earlier, the governor of the State of Osun, Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola who laced his speech with various songs to which the crowd responded, noted that the upcoming election is going to be that of independence from poverty and under-development.

He held that 16 years of PDP has brought untold hardship and bad luck to virtually every facet of the Nigerian life.

‎Aregbesola stressed that every Nigerian who has the love of this country at heart will certainly know that this is the time for the change to rescue the fortune of Nigeria from the political buccaneers call PDP.

The governor pointed that the political configuration has changed as all the 6 geo-political zones have come together to speak with one voice, saying APC is the only good thing that can happen to the country.

‎According to him, “The vote of February 14 is significant as it is symbolic. It is a vote of liberation from poverty, bad governance, insecurity and total collapse of infrastructure.

“For 16 years, PDP has ruled this country and the country has got nothing to show for it, it is all 16 years of waste, misrule and backwardness.

“Therefore, anyone who has the love of the country at heart will definitely stand for change, which wind is blowing across the country. And Osun in its character is totally for APC and Buhari”.

Also, the National Chairman of APC, Chief John Odigie-Oyegun described the presidential candidate of the party as a man of courage, principle and honesty.

He noted that Buhari is a personality whose astuteness imbued him with the talent to see far ahead of others.

He held that a vote for Buhari is a vote to cancel insecurity, corruption and clueless administration.

“Today, across the country it is one singsong‎ ‘SaiBuhari.’ even our friends in PDP are also singing the same song. Everybody wants Buhari to bring change that the nation needs at this critical moment.” He emphasised.

A highpoint of the visit by Buhari to Osogbo was after the rally at the stadium and the candidate, in a long convoy drove through the major streets of the state capital.

As the convoy drove from the stadium through Aiyetoro, Onisekere, Sabo Junction, Igbona, Old Garrage, Okefia up to the Government House, it was a deafening shout of Sai Buhari from the excited crowd of residents who expressed support for the APC presidential candidate.

The election petition tribunal sitting in Osogbo has dismissed the petition of the candidate of the Accord Party, Barrister Niyi Owolade. This has actually revealed the farce that passed as petitions at the tribunal.
Owolade had asked for the withdrawal of the petition on the ground of insufficient time. This drew sharp rebuke from the tribunal which charged Owolade of asking for incessant adjournments only to turn round and ask for withdrawal. The petition was then dismissed and N50,000 cost awarded to Aregbesola.
It is a mark of civility to seek legal redress for any perceived injustice and especially on an election, which borders on the sacred mandate of the people. However, this petition was baseless and frivolous ab initio. It was meant to give the wrong impression and cast doubt on an election that was won by Governor Rauf Aregbesola, in spite of all the obstacles put in his way by the PDP Federal Government.
The interesting thing about this case is that both Owolade and Senator Iyiola Omisore, the other petitioner at the tribunal, relied on and put forward basically the same evidence and argued in the same way. Nevertheless, they relied more on deception, lies and misinformation rather than on truth and pursuit of justice.
While the examination of ballot papers was going on, PDP spin a lie that 100,000 ballot papers which belonged to Omisore and wrongly credited to Aregbesola had been discovered and returned to its rightful owner. They now concluded that the discovery had tilted the result in favour of Omisore who would be sworn in on November 27 last year, instead Aregbesola. But as truth would have it, it was Aregbesola that was sworn in. The lie was knocked from its bottom. A television station, AIT, which published the story on its website retracted it with an apology.
The truth eventually came out in the course of the inspection, that not only was a single case of irregularity like invalid ballot paper, unsigned result sheet or unstamped result not found, a recount of the ballot papers was not even in the prayers of Omisore before the tribunal. So a transfer of even a single ballot from Aregbesola to Omisore is not going to happen. The tribunal cannot give to you what you never asked for.
Then again, the PDP caused to be published in some dailies the falsehood that there was over-voting in Oriade Local Government. If this were to be true, it would have established one of the claims of Omisore but the tribunal strongly disavowed this reporting and had to summon the correspondent of punch newspaper who syndicated the story. The tribunal averred that the report was false. The correspondent ran away and never showed up at the tribunal.
Indeed, in the course of inspection, tendering evidence or calling witnesses, it was never established that there was irregularities anywhere. Rather, what was established, even by Omisore’s witnesses, including PDP state secretary, was that the election was peaceful, free and fair.
It is not for me to preempt the tribunal’s judgement, but what is clear now is that PDP went to the tribunal as a face saving measure in order to rally its members in the vain hope of mitigating a catastrophic outing in February general election.

The Osun House of Assembly on Monday said it would give the state government’s 2015 budget a speedy consideration and passage.
Mr Najeem Salaam, Speaker of the house, said this in Osogbo while declaring open the 2015 budget defence by government Ministries, Agencies and Parastatals (MDAs). Salaam said the house would take a critical look at details of the budget estimates before giving its approval.
NAN reports that Gov. Rauf Aregbesola had in December 2014 presented a budget of N197 billion to the assembly. The speaker, who noted that the house would give priority to projects that were implementable, stressed that adjustments would be made where necessary in the proposed budget.
In his remarks, Chairman, House Committee on Finance and Appropriation, Mr Kamil Oyedele, urged various MDAs to ensure that funds allocated were used for developmental projects. Oyedele also said the house would ensure that approvals were given to only implementable projects.
Some of the MDAs that were present at the defence on Monday included the Ministry of Education, Osun Mass Education Agency, ‎Osun State Polytechnic, Iree; Teachers Establishment and Pension Office.

The Government of the State of Osun has described as very shameful, what it called the blatant lies of leaders of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) during the party’s presidential campaigns rally in Osogbo on Tuesday.

An aide to Governor Rauf Aregbesola, Semiu Okanlawon, in a reaction to claims by the Vice President Namadi Sambo and the National Chairman of the Party, Alhaji Adamu Muazu, who asked workers in Osun to demand for their salaries claiming that Osun state government collects its federation account allocations as at when due, said it is a tragedy of immense proportion when people in exalted offices such that of the vice president of a country could descend so low to the point of telling barefaced lies to score cheap political points.

Okanlawon who is the Director, Bureau of Communication and Strategy in a statement, said both Muazu and Sambo should tell the world when last were civil servants under the direct employment of the Federal Government paid as at when due.

“It is easy for Sambo, Muazu and other discredited leaders of the PDP to come to Osun and tell blatant lies over Federal Government’s obligations and make bogus claims about non-existent federal government presence in Osun.

Apart from the continually unexplained late release of allocations, Okanlawon said it is an open truth that allocations to states have also dropped in an unimaginable proportion.

“How can Sambo and Muazu justify the criminal reductions in the allocations to a state like Osun from N4.6billion to N1.1billion? In a state where salaries of workers alone carry more than N3.6billion, what magic do the PDP leaders have to make any state fulfil its obligations as at when due? Even with Federal Government unfair chunk of the allocation, why does it owe federal workers salaries” he queried.

The governor’s aide said the irrational comments made by the PDP leaders over salaries further confirmed their evil plot to starve opposition’s states of funds as a ploy to turn the people against them.

“But their evil plans have failed woefully. Not only have the people of Osun comprehended the real reasons for the funds starvation, they have gone ahead to look for means of sustaining the state in spite of the disappearing funds from the Federal Government.

“In case Sambo and Muazu are not aware, workers in Osun under the umbrella of the Nigeria Labour Congress, have risen to the challenges. Rather than being in confrontations with the government of the APC under Aregbesola, they are brainstorming to come up with alternative plans to get funds to run the state efficiently. We are confident to state that only workers who know the prudence, capacity and commitment of their government to their welfare would do this,” Okanlawon said

He said it is particularly disheartening that the PDP leaders could list roads as part of their achievements in Osun.

“Are these roads constructed by the PDP federal government built in the sky? Have they forgotten that the people of Osun ply the Osogbo-Ilobu Road; Osogbo-Ilesa Road and other federal roads in Osun and ccan attest to the shameful conditions of these roads? Even the blind would confirm that everywhere they turn, it is the handworks of the Osun APC government they see on roads. Let the PDP government point to just one road it has initiated and completed and delivered for public use in the last 10 years. They certainly won’t have any to point to.”

The statement reminded the PDP leadership that just as it has never found any foothold in Osun since the advent of the Aregbesola administration; it will not have any inroad.

He added, “The PDP should remember that it suffered a humiliating defeat in 2011. Its criminal invasion of Osun also failed to make any impact in August 2014 as its candidate lost woefully. And just as the then ACN presidential candidate was voted overwhelmingly in 2011, the APC candidate, General Muhammadu Buhari, will be voted in by the people of Osun.

“All these are because the government in Osun has demonstrated an unparalleled capacity to deliver good governance and transform the lives of the people.”

Okanlawon who also reacted to claim by the defeated candidate of the PDP in the last election, Mr. Iyiola Omisore, on alleged debt by the state, said Omisore has high reputation for unverified claims.

“As for Omisore, we know he is still dazed by the defeat he suffered in August last year that he can no longer remember that the it took the Director General of the Debt Management Office of the Presidency, to confirm that Osun’s debt is not in any way outside the limit of what it could get. In addition, the people of Osun have seen the outcome of the little borrowing in the massive transformations that have taken place in the state.”

Pictures of the Vice Presidential Candidate, All Progressive Congress (APC), Prof. Yemi Osinbajo, Governor State of Osun, Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola and All Progressive Congress (APC),Presidential Candidate, General Muhammadu Buhari during the Presidential Campaign Rally in Ogun State at MKO Abiola International Stadium Abeokuta, Ogun State on Tuesday 13/01/2015.

*From left -* Governor State of Osun, Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola; All
Progressive Congress (APC),Presidential Candidate, General Muhammadu Buhari
and Ogun State Governor, Senator Ibikunle Amosun during the Presidential
Campaign Rally in Ogun State at MKO Abiola International Stadium Abeokuta,
Ogun State on Tuesday 13/01/2015.

*From left –* Vice Presidential Candidate, All Progressive Congress (APC),
Prof. Yemi Osinbajo, Governor State of Osun, Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola; All
Progressive Congress (APC),Presidential Candidate, General Muhammadu Buhari
and Ogun State Governor, Senator Ibikunle Amosun during the Presidential
Campaign Rally in Ogun State at MKO Abiola International Stadium Abeokuta,
Ogun State on Tuesday 13/01/2015.

*From left – *Governor State of Osun, Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola; National
Chairman, All Progressive Congress (APC),Chief John Odigie – Oyegun and All
Progressive Congress (APC),Presidential Candidate, General Muhammadu Buhari
during the Presidential Campaign Rally in Ogun State at MKO Abiola
International Stadium Abeokuta, Ogun State on Tuesday 13/01/2015.

*From left –* Vice Presidential Candidate, All Progressive Congress (APC),
Prof. Yemi Osinbajo, Governor State of Osun, Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola and All
Progressive Congress (APC),Presidential Candidate, General Muhammadu Buhari
during the Presidential Campaign Rally in Ogun State at MKO Abiola
International Stadium Abeokuta, Ogun State on Tuesday 13/01/2015.

Osun State Agricultural Development Corporation (OSSADEC) on Tuesday proposed N500 million loans for agricultural development in the state in 2015.
Mr Kayode Olanipekun, the General Manager, while presenting the budget of the Agency to the state House of Assembly, said the agency was ready to partner with Bank of Agriculture on its proposal.
Olanipekun, who said the loan was meant to be disbursed to persons, including farmers, corporate and incorporate bodies.
“This programme will facilitate the provision of government support services which in turn will yield revenue through pay back by the beneficiaries.
“We intend to invest in our beneficiaries who in turn are expected to invest in agricultural enterprises.
“Proceeds from the produce of these investments will improve and boost the economy of the state and nation at large.
“We have come up with the proposal because we are aware that the budget of this year is revenue driven,” he said.
He added that the agency was ready to generate about N10 million on sale of various agricultural implements.
the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the Assembly on Tuesday continued hearing budget presentations of ministries, agencies and parastatals.
(NAN)

The All Progressives Congress candidate for Obokun State Constituency in the Osun State House of Assembly, Mr Olatunbosun Oyintiloye, has lauded the understanding of teachers in the state for calling off their ‘sit-down strike’.
He said the understanding shown by the leadership and members of the Nigeria Union of Teacher underscored their patriotism and support for Governor Rauf Aregbesola administration, as well as their commitment for change in Nigeria.
Speaking at the Obokun Local Government Education Board 2015 ecumenical prayer in Ibokun on Friday, Oyintiloye said the basis for the grievances of the teachers was propelled by the paucity of funds occasioned by the slash in federal allocation to the state.
The Osun NUT had suspended the strike the members embarked upon since December 2, 2014, to protest the non-payment of leave bonus, leave grants to secondary school teachers and non-payment of examination and running grants to schools in the state.
“The financial challenge we are facing in Osun today is not orchestrated by our government, but by the PDP-led Federal Government, which drastically reduced our allocation so that we will not be able to meet your demands.
“If not for the good understanding and your intelligence, you will not agree with us that it is not our government that is out to punish you, but the Federal Government,” he said.
OSUN DEFENDER

Pictures of the Governor State of Osun, Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola with the All Progressives Congress (APC) Governorship Candidate in Delta State, Olorogun Otega Emerhor, and others, during a recent courtesy call on the Governor in Government House, Osogbo, State of Osun

Governor State of Osun, Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola (right) with All
Progressives Congress (APC) Governorship Candidate in Delta State,
Olorogun Otega Emerhor, during a recent courtesy call on the Governor
in Government House, Osogbo, State of Osun

Governor State of Osun, Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola (2nd right); All
Progressives Congress (APC) Governorship Candidate in Delta State,
Olorogun Otega Emerhor (2nd left); APC Treasurer, Osun Chapter, Mr
Segun Olanibi (left) and Mr Sonni Afenogho (right), during a recent
courtesy call on the Governor in Government House, Osogbo, State of
Osun

Governor State of Osun, Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola (centre); All
Progressives Congress (APC) Governorship Candidate in Delta State,
Olorogun Otega Emerhor (2nd left); APC Treasurer, Osun Chapter, Mr
Segun Olanibi (left); APC Publicity Secretary, Barrister Kunle Oyatomi
(right) and Mr Sonni Afenogho (2nd right), during a recent courtesy
call on the Governor in Government House, Osogbo, State of Osun

No fewer than 413,588 registered voters representing 29.41 per cent are yet to collect their Permanent Voter Cards (PVC) in Osun State.
This was disclosed by the Chief Public Affairs Officer of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Osun State Directorates, Mrs. Adenike Tadese, while speaking Daily Independent in Osogbo.
She explained that a little over 70 per cent of the registered voters have so far collected their Permanent Voter Cards.
She declared that Osun INEC had received one million, four hundred and six thousand, one hundred and forty seven PVC from the National Headquarters of INEC.
She disclosed that as at December 24, 2014, 992,559 PVC representing 70.59 per cent have been distributed to the electorates in the state.
DAILY INDEPENDENT

Osun State government has signed a memorandum of understanding, MoU, with the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture, IITA, Ibadan, Oyo State, in order to boost food production in the state.

The agreement is aimed at making available improved seedlings, the government said, which is imperative since agriculture remains an alternative to dwindling oil revenue from the federation account.
The government also claimed it has entered into partnership with the Institute for the Establishment of Seed Laboratory, IESL, in collaboration with the state’s university, UNIOSUN, to enhance profitable seed and seedling multiplication business in the state. In his remarks during the signing ceremony at IITA, Ibadan, Director General, Office of Economic Development and Partnerships, OEDP, Dr. Charles Diji Akinola, said the partnership with the institute would help the state achieve the goal of seed multiplication programme under its Rural Enterprise and Agriculture Programme, O-REAP, to prevent yield failure due to low quality seeds.
Akinola, the state coordinator of OREAP further disclosed that IITA will support the partnership technically for it to achieve the objective of production of quality seeds, in terms of breeding, production and certification of seeds quality.
The Deputy Director General, Partnerships and Capacity Development of the institute, Dr. Kenton Dashiell, in his response promised it would ensure that the agreement with Osun State government yield positive results.
NATIONAL MIRROR