On Wednesday, June 28, 2023, a Twitter user, @akomscopy tweeted that the Governor of Osun State, Ademola Adeleke, has not appointed commissioners since he assumed office.
The tweet has generated reactions on social media. In the tweet, he said “Governor Adeleke is almost a year in office and not a single commissioner appointed. It’s funny a charlatan with money and affluence was allowed to take over Osun State Government House. Someone who joined politics by accident and became a senator with no tangible contributions in the Senate yet people of Osun said he’s their choice,” he tweeted.
Claim: Has Ademola Adeleke appointed commissioners since he assumed office?
Verification
CDD Fact-checkers can confirm that since November 27, 2022, when Ademola Adeleke assumed office as the Governor of Osun state, he has not appointed commissioners.
However, on July 4, 2023, the Governor submitted a full list of commissioners and special advisers to the Osun State House of Assembly through the House Speaker. The list is to be read out at the plenary session of the Assembly when it resumes from its recess early next week. The House of Assembly had gone on recess after the inauguration to allow the new lawmakers to get prepared for legislative business and for the logistics of House operations to be firmed up for newly inaugurated Assembly.
This is despite the fact that there’s a new law in place that mandates the president and state governors to appoint ministers and commissioners within the first two months of taking over power.
About the New Law
Daily Trust on Sunday reports that former President Muhammadu Buhari assented to the bill that mandates the president and governors to submit the names of persons nominated as ministers or commissioners within 60 days of taking the oath of office for confirmation by the Senate or State House of Assembly.
He also assented to the State Houses of Assembly Financial and State Judiciary autonomy bills and 14 other constitutional amendment bills alongside three other bills. This, according to the Presidency, is in furtherance of Section 58 (4) of the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. The Senior Special Assistant to the President on National Assembly Matters (Senate), Senator Babajide Omoworare, made the announcement in a statement on March 17, 2023.
The statement read, “Others are ensuring that the President and governors submit the names of persons nominated as ministers or commissioners within 60 days of taking the oath of office for confirmation by the Senate or State House of Assembly; and for related matters; enabling states generate, transmit, and distribute electricity in areas covered by the national grid; and for related matters”’.
“Excluding the period of intervening events in the computation of time for determining pre-election matters petitions, etc; regulating the first session and inauguration of members-elect of the national and state assemblies; changing prisons to correctional service and re-designate correctional service in the concurrent list; and moving item “railway” from the exclusive legislative list to the concurrent list.”
Since the bill was passed into law in March and the 60 days period (since taking oath of office) has elapsed, the Governor refused to appoint commissioners until July 4. Even though he has forward the commissioner-nominees to the State Assembly, they are yet to be confirmed.
Verdict: TRUE
CDD fact-checkers can confirm the claim that the Osun State governor has not appointed commissioners after over eight months in office despite a subsisting law mandating chief executives of states to do so. However, he recently sent a commissioner-nominees list to the State Assembly for approval.
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