The Osun State chapter of the All Progressives Congress (APC) has criticized members of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) representing the state in the House of Representatives for writing to President Bola Ahmed Tinubu over alleged withholding of local government allocations by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN).
In a statement issued on Thursday by the APC’s Director of Media and Information, Kola Olabisi, the party described the lawmakers’ actions as misleading and an overreach of their constitutional roles. Olabisi accused the PDP caucus of misinforming the public, stating that their claims lacked substance and were intended to distort facts.
“It is unfortunate that the lawmakers could descend so low as to not understand the limits of their statutory responsibilities under the Nigerian Constitution,” the statement read.
The APC was responding to a letter recently addressed to President Tinubu by eight House of Representatives members under the banner of the Osun State National Assembly Caucus. In the letter, the lawmakers alleged that the CBN had withheld the allocations of the state’s 30 local government councils for four consecutive months.
Olabisi, however, dismissed the claim, insisting that the allocations are currently being processed by the legally elected council officials.
“We make bold to state that the confused Osun State PDP Caucus’s allegation is entirely false. The local government executive officers who are legally empowered are in the process of accessing the funds,” he said.
He further accused the lawmakers of hypocrisy, questioning their moral authority to raise concerns about local government finances when, according to him, they had yet to justify the billions of naira allocated to them for constituency projects.
“It is shameful that these federal lawmakers, who have collected billions of naira without visible projects to show, could muster the audacity to petition the President on local government funds,” Olabisi stated.
The APC called on the lawmakers to first account for their constituency allowances before demanding transparency in local government administration.
“Is it not clear that local government councils are solely responsible for local projects, including constituency initiatives?” Olabisi queried.
The development adds a fresh twist to the ongoing political tension in Osun State as the ruling APC and opposition PDP continue to clash over governance and accountability issues.
