Opinion: 5 Questions Gov. Adeleke Must Answer Over Alleged Conversion of Osun Property For Family Use By Adebayo Adedeji
Osun governor, Senator Ademola Adeleke, has come under heavy criticism since Monday when an Abuja based journalist, Gabriel Ekpe, alleged in his report that the governor terminated the lease agreement with NNPC Retail Limited, company managing the NNPC Mega Station in Osogbo, in order to sell the said multi-billion naira facility to a member of his family “for a ridiculous amount in the region of N100m.”
The facility branded NNPC Mega Station, situated along Osogbo-Gbongan Road, is owned by the Osun State Government but has been operated on a leasing arrangement since 2018.
Since the report surfaced, the low-budget Josef Goebbels of the Adeleke government, Kolapo Alimi, and his kennel of castrated media rottweilers have struggled to explain away the abrupt termination of the agreement even when they agreed that the partnership with the NNPC Retail Ltd has been robust, cordial and rewarding. However, here are the questions the Government of Governor Ademola Adeleke must answer if it must prove that the plausibly economically unsound action of the government, of discontinuing the “cordial partnership,” was not designed to transfer the ownership of the property to the governor’s family member, as alleged by Ekpe:
1. Who is the new lessee the government has secured to run the purpose-built facility?
2. What is the relationship of the new lessee with the governor’s siblings, Dr Deji Adeleke and Chief Dupe Adeleke-Sanni?
3. What are the financial details of the new lease agreement?
4. NNPC Retail Ltd unarguably has been adjudged the best fuel retailer in the country. What are values the new lessee is bringing to Osun that convinced the government to divorce its cordial relationship with the NNPC Retail Ltd?
5. If question number 1 is not applicable, what was the rationale behind government terminating a working partnership when a suitable replacement had not been secured?
Unless the government of Osun, without delay, puts pay to these and related questions, an average citizen of the state would continue to hold on to the narrative shared by Gabriel Ekpe, that Governor Adeleke is using his office to enrich his family.
NNPC Retail Ltd is a wholly owned downstream subsidiary Business unit of NNPC, incorporated in 2009 with the primary responsibility of efficiently marketing refined petroleum products in the country and ensuring regular product supply to Nigerians.
It has over 900 stations spread across the country and its revenue as at the end of third quarters of last year was N255.6b.
In 2022, the company acquired OVH Downstream Assets in a deliberate step to expand its footprint in the downstream and enhance its drive to make quality products accessible to customers.
One of the benefits of the company to the Osun people is that at any point when there is disruption in the supply chain of petroleum products in the state, the company has often times ensured availability of products.
