Adeleke launches 20,000 SIM cards for civil servants

• It is to monitor LG chairmen – APC

From Lateef Dada, Osogbo

Osun State Governor Ademola Adeleke, on Wednesday, launched 20,000 SIM cards for civil servants tagged “Glo Imole Connect initiative”.

Noting that the initiative was to strengthen communication within the public service and enhance the ease with which government businesses are carried out in the state, Adeleke said, “We are taking a bold step towards improving our public servants’ linkage across the state.

“These lines, operating under a closed user group (CUG) arrangement, come with significantly reduced call and data rates. More importantly, they offer a practical and affordable means of staying in touch with one another for official duties and public service delivery.

“One of the challenges in public governance has always been the difficulty of seamless communication. Information does not always move quickly or efficiently and this has often led to avoidable delays and disconnections between agencies and officers across different levels. With this new arrangement, I am confident that we will begin to close those gaps and work in closer alignment,” Adeleke said.

But the All Progressives Congress (APC) alleged that the SIM card was designed to enable the government monitor the calls and interactions with the ‘duly elected and Court of Appeal reinstated APC council chairmen and councillors’.

A statement by the Director of Media and Information of the APC, Kola Olabisi, said, “A fact check on the emergency invitation to all the local government staff revealed that the offer of a free Glo line for the NULGE members and others is skilfully devised by the Governor Adeleke-led administration to enable the government monitor their calls and interactions with the duly elected and Court of Appeal reinstated APC council chairmen and councillors.

“It is shameful that a government could go to this obnoxious length to devise a means through which it can be illegally intruding into the privacy of the innocent workers which is a gross violation of their fundamental rights guaranteed by the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria,” APC said.