Nigeria: Osun State In The Last Six Years!
27 January 2017
By Abiodun Komolafe
In one of his essays, American author,
Wilfred Peterson wrote: "big thinking precedes great achievement." With
the benefit of hindsight, Rauf Aregbesolahas left his marks on history and his
successors will have to do a lot to rival his achievements. And, as the
governor marks six years as Osun State helmsman, an attempt at appraising his
stewardship is, in my view, not out of place.
Let's start with the Education sector where
Aregbesola's rich, nurturing, and healing
contributions are well known to students of political history. In the last six
years, his administration has successfully completed about 100 out of the
promised 170 mega schools. Others, though delayed due to obvious reasons, are
more than 60% completed. With the employment of about 7,350 teachers,
professionally trained and equipped to improve learning in public schools; and
with the retraining of more than 5000 others, one is not left in doubt about
the "remarkable improvement
in the pass rate of students presented for the West African Secondary School
Certificate Examination (WASSCE)from 6.86% in 2007 to 46.3% in 2016."
With the creation of Osun Education
Quality Assurance and Morality Enforcement Agency, Aregbesola's government
has also succeeded in restoring high quality education, discipline and
morality into our schools. And, apart from being the only state in the country
that has so far been providing free, nutritious lunch for its primary school
pupils through its now-repackaged Osun Elementary School Feeding and Health
Scheme, the programme, alongside others such as youth empowerment and
elderly welfare schemes, have been adopted by the Federal Government.
Pundits will agree
with me that, in a recessed economy such as we have found ourselves,
diversification is one sure way out of the woods.
Aregbesola creatively recognizes the importance of agriculture as the 'future
of Osun State'. Little wonder he has visited no fewer than six farm
settlements in recent times. In simple language, a visit of this size and
shape will not only aim at
reviving the glory of the sector, it is also an avenue to get first-hand
information from the farmers with a view to improving the revenue base of the
state. It is also in a bid to make Osun State the food hub of the Southwest
region that 20 of its youth were recently sent to Germany, a country renowned
for her industrial and technological edge, to learn the science of mechanized
farming.
At a time like this,
we need to challenge those who claim to have been championing our cause to
reveal to us the structure and the nomenclature of our cause. Quite frankly,
I've always wondered why a 25-year old state like
Osun could not boast of at least 25 first-rate, world-class industries! In
truth, that was the sorry state of the state before Aregbesola changed it for
good. RLG Technology Institute,
Ilesa; Omoluabi Garment Industries, Osogbo; and
Bola Ige Mechatronics Institute,
Esa-Okeamong others, have not only come to stay, they, alongside the
once-moribund-but-now-revived Cocoa Products Industry in Edeare now
adding to the state's revenue base.
Again, we shouldn't forget in a hurry
his bold step in according Osogbo its pride of place in the comity of state
capitals in Nigeria even as he deserves commendation for his intervention in
local government administration in the state. With the creation and successful
take-off of 61 Local Council Development Areas (LCDAs); 3 Area Offices; and 2
Administrative Offices from the former 31 Local Government Areas, Aregbesola
has succeeded in bringing government closer to the people, apart from the
encouragement of even development of towns and villages within the state and
positive improvement in the state's revenue base.
Kudos to this visionary leader for the
importance his government attaches to the socio-economic revivification and
huge infrastructural development of the state!Aregbesola's quality leadership
could also be felt in the rehabilitation and equipping of government hospitals
with state-of-the-art facilities. Apart from the building of Diabetes
Centre at Ede, in collaboration with some Non-Governmental
Organizations (NGOs), state hospitals all over the state were also
upgraded in line with global standards; and procurement of drugs from our
hospitals have become so simplified that patients can now walk in and get
drugs without the usual bottlenecks hitherto attached to the process.
Welcome
'OponÌmò',
the stand-alone, e-learning device, which has unfortunately become an object
of needless, benighted controversies. While Aregbesola's traducers
characteristically see it as yet another in the series of successive
governments' phony projects though which funds are senselessly siphoned into
private pockets, it must be noted that, economy-induced challenges
notwithstanding, not less than 23,000 units of the customized computer were
distributed to pupils in Osun State-owned schools during the first phase while
the second phase which took effect in November 2015 is still in progress. As
we speak, those already retrieved from out-gone
students are undergoing reconfiguration to give students newly-promoted to SSS
3 class the equal opportunity of using the 'Tablet of Knowledge'.
Democracy hath no
fury than a people abandoned! Give it to the astute administrator who has
succeeded in-building a productive and workable
system. Today, issuance of Certificate of Occupancy
(C of O) goes for as low as N30,000.00 as against
N100,000.00 for a piece of land measured 15 by 30 metre (50 by 100) and it can
be got within 3 months. We have the 'Omoluabi Scale'
(Osunwon Omoluabi),
put in place, principally, to eliminate cheating and
leverage on the control of commodity pricing while not overlooking its
advantageous health implications.
The politically-motivated Hijab
narrative! The economy-induced salary palaver! The storm-in-a-teacup merger of
schools! The ridiculously over-bloated Osun debt profile! And, of course, the
alleged Islamization agenda! As Aregbesola's government is midterm and sort of
winding down, one cannot but expect more of distracting surprises from closest
allies, distressing betrayal from false friends, willful nonsense from
hitherto party members, obsessive egotism from the narrow, uneducated mind,
deceitful drama from the weird, stunningly ignorant whose portion is in
beliefs that reject persuasion; and frustrating innuendos from the "foxes, the
little foxes" scandalously scheming to pitch the governor's administration
into turmoil. In any case, these are some of the hypocritical ingredients of
the 'nothing-goes-according-to-plan' political broth and only focussed
governance can serve as antidote!
In 2013, Osun emerged with lowest
unemployment rate in Nigeria! But how come we are where we are and where do we
go from here? The truth, the bitter truth is that Nigeria's current economic
situation and its attendant complications are signals sufficient enough to
warn this notoriously extractive, not productive, system that something needs
to give before it is too late! As things stand, no fewer than 33 states are
struggling to pay their workers' salaries and more than 25 of them are
prisoners to the bailout loans given to states earlier in the life of the
Muhammadu Buhari-led administration. Should Federal Government deem it fit to
cancel these loans, allocations accruing to states from the Federation Account
will heave a sigh of relief and Osun will be better for it. Furthermore, with
right regulations and incentives, coupled with efficient monitoring of loans
disbursement to farmers, it's just a matter of time before agriculture regains
its lost glory in the state.
Similarly, if the national government
can actualize its promise of employing 200,000 youth before the year runs out,
its trickle-down effect will in no small measure impact on the state's
economy. Over and above all, eventual formation of state executive council and
constitution of local government administration will go a long way in creating
the prosperity we desire in Osun.
All said, with
Aregbesola's honourable intentions, innovative
interventions and crowning achievements, won't we rather agree with Anthony
Udofia that "it is globally acceptable to borrow
money to do capital projects"?
May
powers and personalities, assigned to derail Osun's beautiful destiny,
scatter!
*KOMOLAFE
writes in from Ijebu-Jesa, Osun State, Nigeria (ijebujesa@yahoo.co.uk)
abiodun
KOMOLAFE,
020,
Okenisa Street,
PO Box
153,
Ijebu-Jesa, Osun State.
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