Osun State Governor, Rauf Aregbesola has reacted to the threat by Osun State chapter of the Social Democratic Party (SDP) to publish his assets.

The chairman of the party, Mr. Ademola Ishola, had at the party’s Performance Assessment meeting held in Osogbo dared the state governor to immediately declare his assets publicly.

SDP said it conducted its private investigations and discovered how the governor had allegedly acquired enormous assets in the last four years in a state where millions of indigenes are living in abject poverty.

But Aregbesola in a statement in Osogbo on Monday said SDP was only looking for relevance.

The statement signed by the Director, Bureau of Communication and Strategy, Office of the Governor, Semiu Okanlawon, reads, “Our attention has been drawn to a statement said to have been issued by the Social Democratic Party in Osun where it asked the Governor of Osun Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola to publicly declare his assets.

“The SDP is obviously looking for things to hold on to in order to be relevant, for the party was not the one that asked Aregbesola to fulfil the constitutional duty of declaring his assets before and after his first term.

“The SDP and its leaders certainly need some education on what is called security votes as their allegation of Aregbesola collecting N25 billion security vote is nothing but a laughable demonstration of lack of knowledge of what constitutes security votes”.

“They need to be educated that funds spent by any governor to tackle unfortunate cases of violence, natural disasters and other emergencies come under security votes”.

“Therefore no governor with serious commitments to the welfare of his people and in haste to transform his state like Aregbesola goes about hiding under the guise of security votes to enrich himself”.

“The SDP, after all its lies have been exposed by the facts and figures of the revenues in the state, is out in search of fresh allegations. It has missed the point again”.

“Aregbesola has proved that governance is not about enriching self but using the resources of the people for their utmost good”.

“With the very meagre resources available to his government, he has laid a solid foundation for the future development which no one can fault”.

“The party’s cooked up figures of revenues have been proved to the whole world to be fake and of no consequence.

“It is therefore pertinent to ask the party to go ahead and publish what it has in its possession,” the statement added.