Gboyega Oyetola, the Osun state governor, has spent the last three years projecting an image of a leader who is averse to underhand dealings and unconscious abuse of public trust. It is posture that created the impression of a totally different person from his predecessor, Rauf Aregbesola, who Oyetola himself had severally portrayed as inflicting enormous damage on the state with his reckless attitude to governance.
But here we are confronted with the reality, and it is appalling. Not only is Oyetola the exact opposite of the image he had created in the mind of Osun people, he is irredeemably lacking of the huge trust invested in his person.
This was the clear message from Pandora paper, which exposed Oyetola’s hideous and manifestly flawed financial dealings. In a trove of documents unearthed by a network of journalists coordinated by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ), Oyetola maintained a string of secret offshore companies– presenting an alarming insight into how morality and law do not matter to him.
As the Pandora paper revealed, Oyetola sat on the board of an offshore company in a tax heaven for years despite holding political office in the country. Between 2010 and 2018, Oyetola was the chief of staff to Rauf Aregbesola, and by Nigeria’s code of conduct law, this is totally forbidden and could cause him prosecution.
But that is not really the gist. In 2017, just some months before Oyetola was foisted on Osun people through the aid of a ‘remote control’ by APC controlled central government, something despicable happened. It was a situation that provided a clear understanding of the fact that, outlook, most times, can be deceiving.
Shortly after President Muhammadu Buhari took office in 2015, he expressed resolve to go after elements of the past administrations who frittered the country’s resources directly or otherwise. Of the names targeted by the government was Kolawole Aluko, an associate of a former Minister of Petroleum Resources, Diazeni Allison-Madueke, who was accused of a monumental fraud against the country.
The story will however took an interesting perspective when in 2017, Aranda Overseas Corporation, an offshore company linked to Oyetola, bought a property at Grove End Road, London, at a staggering £9 million. The property belonged to Aluko, and was one of his properties that had been confiscated to the Nigeria government through a Mareva injunction secured around that time.
This is frightening and Osun people have every reason to be concerned. Think about it– why did Oyetola’s company choose to buy a property from an international fugitive and at a ridiculous discount price? The price for the property was a red flag yet, that was not enough to scare Oyetola away from it.
I’ve followed the arguments of some of Oyetola’s aides’ and supporters’ on the issue and how they try hard to absolve Oyetola of any wrongdoing. But as usual, they are not only wrong but exposes their poor understandings of what the revelation tells us about the governor. More than before, Osun people can realize that Oyetola is not who his look suggests.
To put it in a more clear term, Oyetola is a pretender and if anything, the Pandora paper revelation lifted the veil that had concealed his true picture from the public. Almost every time, he pretend to care about the people and how he is desired to work for their benefits. Yet he hide behind the curtain to amass luxurious properties with unexplained wealth.
Although Oyetola, by virtue of his office is immune from prosecution at the moment, nevertheless, he is not insulated from investigation. What he did through his secret offshore company did not only fouled the laws of the land but invariably helped a fugitive get off the hook of justice. Hence, anti-graft agencies in the country must as a matter of responsibility launch a thorough investigation into the revelation, and ensure that no one involved in this unscrupulous act that undermines the country go unpunished, including Oyetola when he leaves office in 2022.
Ibrahim Sarafa writes from Iwo, Osun State.
