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The former governor of the State of Osun now Interior Minister of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola has affirmed that his administration Social Investment Programmes didn't over-burden the state financial strength.

Aregbesola made this known on Saturday while debunking some of the rumours associated with the debt profile of the State during a virtual colloquium organised by a group of individuals in commemoration of the Osun former helmsman 63rd birthday tagged: *Government Unusual:* _**_Innovative Economic Solutions to Unlock Mass Prosperity**_

The Osun former governor said, "there is this (chorus of) debt, debt and debt: a motivated people can never be in debt regardless of the size and I must correct something, we did not use debt to fund any of our social programmes"

The bulk of the debt that was overhanging now is the debt incurred on overdraft of salaries, the loans we took from the capital markets were directed at development - physical and human.

"And I must say, we have liquidated the SEC loan which will called vanilla bond by the end of last year, we are liquidating Sukuk bond 11.4 Billion Naira by the November of this year."

"So, what it means is that in terms of the actual debt we took to fund development, there is no issue at all"

" The issue we have is in the money we had to take from the commercial bank which we had transferred through the instrumentalist of the governors' forum and the other measures that came into helping government by our president to absolve the bond as federal government bond with a long term of nineteen-twenty years which we are now paying"

"By the time we finish paying the Sukuk bond by October-November this year, the State will be relieved and don't forget, if as it is said, we are doing so well in a lot of things, definitely, it will translate into IGR. And that will help"

Aregbesola used the opportunity provided by the colloquium to thank President Muhammadu Buhari, for his encouragement and for motivating him far before he joined his cabinet

"President Muhammadu has been encouraging me, motivating me and pushing me to my best, particularly in the line of concentrating on the mass of people without jeopardising the interest of the minority and that is key"

The interior minister also eulogizes Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu who he described as the hero of whatever he did or achieved as Governor of Osun

"I can't forget his contributions to making me a good public administrator, he takes all the glory apart from God and with the people whom I worked with under him, people like the present Vice President, Professor Yemi Osinbajo, Yemi Kadoso, Dele Alake, Wale Edun and a couple of other brilliant people who did not only make our governance of Lagos successful but rallied around me as the Governor of Osun", he concluded.

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