'ICPC never said I stole bailout Funds' - Rauf Aregbesola.

Governor Rauf Aregbesola of Osun state told newsmen that reports in the media saying the Independent Corrupt Practices and other Related Offences Commission (ICPC) indicted him of diverting bailout funds are false.

Aregbesola said the reports were cooked up by members of the opposition and a section of the media.

The Governor also commended the workers for their patience with his administration.

Aregbesola said “The Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission never indicted us. Other media agencies reported what the ICPC published on the disbursement of bailout funds by states was as at October last year and this was given to them by us. How could we then have indicted ourselves?


“I am happy that ICPC has cleared the air. The anti-corruption body has written to us affirming again that the information it gave out covered only October 2015, saying that it never indicted us since there was no evidence that showed we applied the funds to any other matter outside of workers’ salaries.”


“We demanded for N64.3 billion to cover outstanding salaries, pension and gratuities up till June 2015 for the state workers and N23.8 billion to cover the salaries, pension and gratuities for the local government workers for the same period.


“However, we got N25.8 billion for state and N9.1 billion for local government, totaling N34.9 billion. So, we can all see that this is a far cry from what we needed and asked for. We got this far only because of exceptional financial engineering, extreme prudence and commendable cooperation of labour,” Aregbesola said.

The Governor came under fire from the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) for allegedly asking for more bailout funds.