Commissioner Dosu Babatunde of Osun State for Chieftaincy and Local Government has cautioned the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) against diverting state-accrued local government funds to private accounts.
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This comes at the same time that Babatunde revealed that it has evidence indicating that the CBN and the office of the Accountant General of the Federation have purportedly settled on a plan to divert funds meant for the Osun local government to the personal accounts of criminals.
The Commissioner issued this warning in a statement that was made accessible to furucinovel in Osogbo on Wednesday.
Furthermore, the Commissioner insisted that the impending move is an intentional attempt to derail the cases currently pending before Nigeria’s highest court.
According to the statement, there is a plot afoot between the offices of the Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria and the Accountant General of the Federation regarding the distribution of funds to Osun State’s local governments. This plot is allegedly intended to derail the cases that have already been filed at the Supreme Court of Nigeria.
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According to the information that is now available to us as a government, it appears that the offices of the Accountant General of the Federation and the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) have finalised arrangements to transfer funds from Osun LG allocations to the personal accounts of individuals who are not authorised to receive them.
It is our firm belief that the decision by these two federal agencies to transfer funds from the government into private accounts violates the Constitution and is, therefore, very regrettable and regretful. The rules governing public funds will be flagrantly disregarded in this case.
Upon learning of this plan, the Osun State Government wasted no time getting things rolling through the Auditor General for Local Governments office. They promptly wrote to the CBN, introducing them to the accounting officers—including the Heads of Local Government Administrations (H.L.A.) and Director of Finance—from each of the thirty local governments in the state.
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“However, in a surprising turn of events, the list was rejected by the CBN Osogbo office. Instead of involving the accounting officers of all the LGs in Osun State, the money for the Osun Local Government was sent to the private accounts of individuals associated with former Governor Gboyega Oyetola.”
According to Babatunde, the action is being prepared without his knowledge or agreement, and he is pleading with President Bola Tinubu to step in.
We humbly request that the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, be apprised of these constitutional shenanigans, as we firmly believe that they are being carried out without the knowledge or consent of the President or the Honourable Minister of Finance.
Money sent to an individual’s personal account is not and will never be funds belonging to the Osun State Local Government. The government of Osun State will not hesitate to take legal action to rectify this anomaly, and the consequences will be severe.
“At long last, we are taking this opportunity to urge the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria to step in and prevent individuals in Osun State from abusing their position to steal from the people’s coffers,” the statement read.
A previous story in furucinovel said that there was a rift between the Osun State Government and the state chapter of the All Progressives Congress (APC) about how the courts should have interpreted the recent appeal court rulings from June 11 and February 10, 2025. Claiming victory, both sides appealed the Appellate Court’s decision.
The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) led state government in Osun had earlier claimed that no court ruling had restored the APC local government officials elected in the state’s local election on October 22, 2022, while the APC in Osun has asserted that the judgements had confirmed this.
Despite the chaos, the local government election was held on February 22, 2025, by the Osun State Independent Electoral Commission, OSSIEC.
The winners of the election, the PDP candidates during their swearing-in by Governor Ademola Adeleke on Sunday, February 23 were advised not to resume at the local government secretariats.
Remi Abass, an APC chieftain in the Ikire, Irewole local government area of the state, was one of several casualties in the crisis that erupted from the dispute over local government power in the state.