The Osun State Government on Monday described as frivolous a petition before the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) on alleged diversion of local government funds by the Rauf Aregbesola administration.

The EFCC had last week invited the Civil Societies Coalition for the Emancipation of Osun to its Ibadan office to explain the rationale behind the petition.

The Director, Bureau of Communication and Strategy in the Office of the Governor, Semiu Okanlawon, in a statement, said: “the self-appointed civil society group is a group that had been making bogus claims against Governor Aregbesola and his government without producing evidence to substantiate any of the allegations.

“For instance, this was the group that accused Governor Aregbesola of embezzling the N34.988bn bailout loan obtained last year as part of Federal Government’s intervention to assist states meet their salary obligations.

“The same group had accused Governor Aregbesola of borrowing over N750 billion on projects that have not impacted on the socio-economic lives of the people of Osun. The government had also been accused of planning a mass sack of civil servants in the state especially in the wake of the challenges to meet salary obligations by the state. It is instructive that none of these allegations and others from this same group has been proved to be true.”

The state government described the group as a “dubious two-man contraption masquerading as a pro-people organization.”

The statement added: “We must remind Nigerians lest they take this group serious at all that Mr. Sulaiman Adeniyi who claims to be the leader of the group and Seun Adeoye, have been no more than two hired hands of the Peoples Democratic Party in Osun and its allied opposition elements.

“It is pertinent to state that the so-called civil society group is a contraption hurriedly put together by Adeniyi and Adeoye to push the dubious agenda of their sponsors, the humiliated governorship candidates of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and the Social Democratic Party (SDP), Senator Iyiola Omisore and Mr. Segun Akinwusi respectively to blackmail Governor Aregbesola and his government.

“When all their antics against the Aregbesola government failed, Nigerians must recall how these characters procured the services of a High Court Judge to write a petition with all forms of spurious allegations which they equally failed to defend.”