N1bn Donation To Church Not From State Treasury – Gov Adeleke Clarifies

Osun State Governor Ademola Adeleke has stated that there is no link between the state and his brother Deji Adeleke’s N1 billion donation to the Cherubim and Seraphim Church.

In a statement released on Saturday, Governor Adeleke’s spokesperson, Mallam Olawale Rasheed, clarified that the donation was a personal philanthropic effort by the Governor’s elder brother, a prominent business magnate, and not a government-funded initiative.

The All Progressives Congress, APC, in the state had lambasted the governor, Ademola Adeleke, and his siblings for donating N1 billion to the Cherubim and Seraphim Church in Lagos.

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The party, in a statement issued by its state chairman, Tajudeen Lawal, chastised Governor Adeleke for contributing such a large money at a time when the state desperately needs to be branded a solvent sub-national.

The governor said that he did not donate the aforementioned fund and that the donation did not come from the state’s treasury.

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The governor further accused the state APC of running out of ideas, leading to the deployment of blatant lies and fake news at a globally live-streamed event, as well as a personal donation by Dr. Deji Adeleke.

He said, “Let us all recall that Dr Adeleke made substantial donations to the state government under the Oyetola administration during the COVID crisis. Was Governor Adeleke in office then?”

“Dr Adeleke also hugely contributed to the Federal Government during the Covid crisis. Was Governor Adeleke in charge of the Osun treasury then?”

“At the event in Lagos, neither the state government nor the state Governor made any donation. The only donation came from Dr Adeleke who is more than capable of doing so as he had done to APC governments when Mr Oyetola and Muhammadu Buhari were in office.”

He also maintained that attempts by the state APC to play the religious card also fell flat because the Muslim community knows it is benefiting more from his administration than under the previous APC government.

“The Osun APC is daily hallucinating as it has become overwhelmed by the superlative performances.

“The other time, the opposition, shocked by wholesale validation of Osun infrastructure projects by the engineering community, ignorantly lambasted the highly professional and credible COREN/NSE team. Meanwhile, NSE had conducted similar exercises in the
APC states of Lagos and Ogun.

“We seek to put this unnecessary debate to rest by clarifying once again that neither the state government nor the state Governor donated the said One Billion naira to the Lagos church. We add too that the said money is not being sourced from the state treasury. And we conclude by affirming that the philanthropist who made the donation had made even bigger donations in the past and even to the APC government to address the state emergency.”

Governor Adeleke encouraged the public to shun fake news merchants in the state.