The Peoples Democratic Party PDP has accused the Osun State Governor Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola of lodging the N34.988bn bailout received from the Central Bank of Nigeria in a fixed deposit account for two months with a commercial bank.

The spokesperson for the PDP in Osun State, Mr. Diran Odeyemi, said this in a statement made available to our correspondent in Osogbo on Monday.

The opposition party accused that the state received the fund about two weeks ago, but the governor decided to lodge it in a fixed deposit in order to attract interest from it.

Part of the statement read, “Only paper work was completed last week. But since the arrival of the money exactly 14 days ago, Mr. Aregbesola in his usual ‘I don’t care nature’, instead of commencing payments of workers dues, lodged the N35bn given to the state.

“According to our findings, the bank that agreed to give Mr. Aregbesola the biggest interest running into several millions of naira was given the money to fix.

“The governor is buying time, for over 2 weeks now, he had been hiding behind staff screening to fish out ghost workers and the exercise is designed to last for another eight weeks. “

While responding to the allegation, the governor described the statement as unfounded and another fabricated lie from the PDP’s factory. Speaking through his media aide, Mr. Semiu Okanlawon, the governor said the PDP fabricated the date it claimed the fund was received.

The governor however challenged the opposition party to produce the proof of the said fixed deposit transaction to authenticate its claims.

He said, ” Besides, the verification exercise which the party claims is the subterfuge for this alleged lodgement in a fixed deposit account for personal gains is being handled with active involvement of civil servants. Does the PDP expect the workers themselves to delay the verification for its imagined interests on the funds to materialise?

“Its claim that bailout was paid two weeks ago further confirms its dubious intention, because even the Central Bank of Nigeria still confirmed list of states that first received their shares, while the same CBN said other states would get theirs on or before the end of last week.

“The PDP would do well to tell the world where it got its own information on the date of the bailout release to Osun as well as provide evidence of the alleged lodgement.”