Members of the Civil Society Coalition for the Emancipation of Osun State (CSCEO) on Tuesday, in Abuja, called on the National Assembly (NASS) to intervene in the financial mess in which Osun State has found itself under Governor Rauf Aregbesola, who they said enjoyed the support of members of the State House of Assembly.

This call was made during a peaceful demonstration held at the premises of the National Assembly by members of the coalition, comprising 20 civil society and faith-based organisations that converged at the complex as early as 7:30 a.m.

In a petition submitted to Senate President, Dr Bukola Saraki and Speaker of the House of Representatives, Hon Yakubu Dogara, the group pleaded with the National Assembly to save Osun from imminent anarchy. The petition, which was received on behalf of the two lead officers by the Deputy Sergeant-at-Arms, A M Nnaji, listed 16 issues bordering on alleged financial recklessness of the governor, which led to receiving of negative allocations from the Federation Account.

The letter signed jointly by CSCEO chairman, Comrade Adeniyi Sulaiman and the Assistant Secretary, Comrade Gbenga Oyeleke, urged the National Assembly to support the demand of Osun citizens for a “thorough and credible investigation of the deliberate

and criminal mismanagement of our meager resources by the duo of Aregbesola and Mrs Grace Titi Laoye-Tomori, the deputy governor, which action is threatening the peace and security of our state.

“We are here to show our grievances over the governance of our state under the dictatorial, grossly corrupt and oppressive rule of Aregbesola, who has turned Osun into a totalitarian state where citizens have no fundamental rights but only fundamental duties. The governance of Osun State in the last five years has been characterised by cluelessness, highhandedness, impunity, greed and wanton disregard for time-tested principles of public management and international best practices. We were promised banishment of poverty and hunger, peaceful co-existence and all-round development and prosperity, but what do we have five years after? Poverty, hunger and starvation, backwardness, social insecurity, mutual suspicion and religious disharmony, sickness and deaths.

“As it stands today, Osun is a failed state under the watch of Rauf Adesoji Aregbesola and his rubber stamped legislators, whose failure to perform their oversight functions as representatives of the people is grossly responsible for the pitiable and precarious condition we have found ourselves. No matter how maladroit the governor may be, if the House of Assembly had performed its functions as enshrined in the constitution, things would have been different.

“In the light of the following and in the spirit of the anti-corruption crusade of the All Progressives Congress (APC)-led government of President Muhammadu Buhari, we are hereby requesting the intervention of your good self and the distinguished members of the Senate to support the demand of Osun citizens for a thorough and credible investigation of the deliberate and criminal mismanagement of our meager resources by the duo of Ogbeni Rauf Adesoji Aregbesola and Mrs Grace Titi Laoye-Tomori: governor and deputy governor of Osun State respectively, which action is threatening the peace and security of our state. We will like you to use your good offices as worthy representatives of the people to compel the EFCC and ICPC to act on our petitions, which they duly received but which they have decided to bury. Any attempt to bury them further may portray President Buhari and his APC-led government as being insincere with their anti-corruption crusade.

“We will like to counsel here that what is good for the goose should also be good for the gander. There should be no sacred cows in the implementation of Mr President’s anti-corruption campaign, as it is well known that charity must begin at home.

“Finally, we will like to inform you that we shall do all within the provisions of the amended 1999 Constitution to effect the recall of the unscrupulous rubberstamp legislators of the Osun State House of Assembly by their constituencies.”

During the rally, protesters carried placards some of which read: “Osun people want FG to take Osun from Rauf Aregbesola; NASS, Osun Pensioners are dying, Aregbesola must go, No to Minus-Allocation, Aregbe has sold Osun into debt slavery,” among others.

•Photo shows Mr Nnaji, Deputy Sergeant-at-Arms of the National Assembly, addressing members of the Civil Society Coalition for the Emancipation of Osun State (CSCEO).