PRESS RELEASE: OSUN ASSEMBLY FAULTS VP SAMBO STATEMENT

Speaker, Osun House of Assembly, Rt. Hon. Najeem Salaam has condemned the statement credited to the Vice President Namadi Sambo on camera of a national television that the state would be taken from "a man who took the state from the back door", wondering why the country's Vice president would go to the extreme in ridiculing the judgment of a Court of Appeal of competent jurisdiction that declared Governor Rauf Aregbesola as duly elected having won the majority lawful vote on the antics of politicking.  

In a statement signed by his Chief Press Secretary, Mr. Goke Butika, the Speaker while granting a state television an interview expressed his shock at the statement, saying it was capable of not only intimidating judiciary, but also demoralizing men on the bench of justice institution, describing the statement as anarchic and impeachable.

He said: "honestly speaking our politics and politicians seem to have taken to the extreme in their contestation for power, I could not believe it when the Vice President said he would declare war in Ekiti and Osun states and when soldiers were deployed in Ekiti state, we thought it was normal, but with the statement Vice President Sambo made, it has shown clearly that that there is something beyond the ordinary in the underbelly of the forthcoming governorship election in the state."

Speaker Salaam then charged all the well meaning Nigerians to speak to the attack on judiciary officially launched by the Vice President, noting that if the statement is allowed to translate into action as it manifested in Ekiti state, the consequences of it would be have a trickle-down effect on all and sundry.

It would be recalled that Vice President Sambo while granting an interview on channels television on Wednesday said the PDP had perfected strategies to take Osun state from the man who took power from the backdoor through backdoor.

In a related development, Speaker Salaam further decried the impunity of some politicians who basked on the federal might to flout set of rules in the states where the opposition control ranging from traffic to use of siren, noting that it speaks volume that a candidate who desires to govern a state has developed contempt for traffic rules just because he thinks he has the backing of the federal government.

He said: "I have witnessed it severally where a governorship candidate who thinks he has the backing of the federal government, flouted traffic rules severally and blaring siren to scare our people out of the road against the directive of the state government, and the same man desires to govern the state; the attitude speaks volume.

Goke Butika
Chief Press Secretary to the Speaker
Osun House of Assembly