Senator pledges to sue Governor Adeleke over government vehicles allegation

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The Senator representing Osun West Senatorial District, Adelere Oriolowo, threatened Governor Ademola Adeleke with legal action for alleged defamation.

This is an allegation by the Asset Recovery Committee set up by the government that Mr Orilowo converted five machines belonging to the Osun State Agricultural Development Program for personal use.

The committee also accused former governor Gboyega Oyetola, his wife, Kafayat and some officials who served under the former governor of taking away government vehicles worth 3.2 billion naira after their tenure.

Olawale Rasheed, Governor Adeleke’s spokesman, had also urged those affected to return the vehicles or face the law.

Senator Oriolowo, at a press conference on Tuesday, said the allegations against him were false.

The lawmaker who is a member of the All Progressives Congress (APC) has given the state government seven days to withdraw the allegations.

He also demanded compensation of 500 million naira for alleged damage to his reputation.

I therefore requested my lawyers to write to the state government to demand a letter of apology within seven (7) days and also to pay the sum of Five Hundred Million Naira (N500,000,000) in compensation for unquantifiable damage to my name and integrity,” he said.

The letter from my lawyers has since been received by the government on December 30, 2022 and I hope that government will backtrack, remove the post and apologize to me. Failure in which, I will use all legal means at my disposal to obtain justice.

Mr Oriolowo said the allegations had further damaged his reputation, noting many people had called him about it.

“Since publication, many well-meaning people inside and outside the shores of Nigeria have continuously reached out to me for clarification and solidarity.

When the allegations were made earlier, PREMIUM TIMES called and messaged Mr Oriolowo for his response, but he did not respond.

ALSO READ: Governor Adeleke suspends other Osun officials over alleged corruption

The lawmaker said the vehicles they accused him of taking away are in the possession of the Ministry of Rural Development.

Said equipment which then belonged to OSSADEP existed when I left the agency 15 years ago. To my knowledge, some of them have been transferred to the Ministry of Rural Development to assist the government. A simple due diligence or investigation by the committee would have revealed the salient fact that the equipment is still owned by the Osun State government.

Reacting to the threat, Mr Rasheed said the reports indicting the senator came from a report by government agencies.

“The first thing we need to realize is that the committee got all the reports from these agencies under oath, the committee got these details from OSSADEP and ORAM with the oath administered to their representative by the Commissioner for sworn in, so the committee did not fabricate the report that was released to the public,” he said.

“The second thing to note is that OSSADEP reported that these machines were moved in 2014 and in the inventory submitted by OSSADEP indicated that these machines were listed under the name Oriolowo, remember this has submitted by OSSADEP under oath,” he added.

“Between the two agencies, OSSADEP in its own inventory register showed that the senator was in possession of these machines. ORAM, on the other hand, said it had no records, no inventory of these machines. The committee then submitted an interim report in which it asks the committee to return the machines on the basis of the oath submission of OSSADEP and ORAM, the main thing is that these machines belong to the people of the State of Osun are missing, the mandate of the committee is to follow up and recover the missing goods so these are the words of the senator against the submission of OSSADEP.

Mr Rasheed noted that the committee was not hunting the senator but only after recovering the missing vehicles.

“The public should take note that the report is an interim report which also leaves room for additional information from those affected, this additional information will now be fully reflected, I mean the final report. The committee isn’t on a witch hunt, it’s only after missing vehicles.

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