AS a preventive measure to check the spread of the dreaded Ebola Virus Disease EVD in Osun State, the government has created four isolation centres in case of eventuality.

The Special Adviser to the state Governor, Mr Rauf Aregbesola on Environment, Mr. Bola Ilori, disclosed this weekend in Osogbo.
He said the isolation centres were located in the three senatorial districts of the state and Osogbo, the state capital.

The centres, Ilori said would cater for the residents of the state who showed any of the symptoms of EVD.

He advised members of the public to inform the state government officials if they noticed any individual with the symptoms of EVD.

Ilori who declared that Osun state was free from EVD, said the state government had set up a committee on the prevention of EVD in the state.

The committee, he said would work with government officials in both the Ministries of Health and Environment on modalities for the prevention of the contagious disease in the state.

Ilori commended the Federal Government for committing huge sum of money into the prevention of EVD since its outbreak in the country.

Osun Commissioner for Agriculture and Food Security, Wale Adedoyin said, that the government had raised 54,750 improved oil palm seedlings to replace ageing palm trees.
Adedoyin, disclosed this at Ojere farm settlement in Ife North Local Government Area of the state where the distribution of the seedlings to registered farmers was inaugurated.
The commissioner said the distribution was a component of government’s Semi Wild Groove Yield Enhancement Scheme. The programme was borne out of the government’s commitment to the production of food in abundance.
He promised that the government would ensure the provision and distribution of free, unadulterated oil palm seedlings to farmers in the state.
He said the government raised 54,750 improved oil palm seedlings spread in seven nurseries in which 41,544 was the establishment count to replace ageing oil palm trees.
Adedoyin enjoined oil palm farmers at the Ojere axis, the direct beneficiaries of the pilot scheme, to use seedlings to regenerate their plantations.
Project Manager of Tree Crops in the Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security,  Seyi Adegbembo, charged farmers to make the best use of the agricultural farm inputs.
A beneficiary, Adejumo Anthony, who spoke on behalf of the farmers, described the occasion as an omen of the good things that would happen in the agricultural sector.
Adejumo described the regeneration of oil plantations as a wise investment for the state.
DAILY TIMES

 The governor of Osun State, Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola, has said it would amount to failure of unimaginable proportion if his government had failed in his first term to demonstrate that good governance, even in the face of meager resources, is possible.

Aregbesola said he went into governance in Osun fully conscious of the challenges of poor leadership the state had faced and fully determined to change the course of affairs and bring about unprecedented changes in the lives of the people.

The governor spoke at the Manchester Business School, University of Manchester at the weekend, after being presented with an award of recognition for his administration’s commitment to job creations and infrastructure provision.

Represented at the event by the Director, Bureau of Communications and Strategy, Office of the Governor, Mr Semiu Okanlawon, Aregbesola said, “If we were looking for a comfort zone, contesting for the seat of governorship of Osun would certainly not be an option. But we were quite conscious of the enormous challenges facing our people and we were poised to change that.

“We knew there were no resources even though the state is sitting on some vast opportunities which remained untapped. Our people needed the right quality of leadership to galvanise them into action and make them see the opportunities,” he said.

Photos of the Director Bureau of Communication and Strategy, office of the Governor, State of Osun, Mr. Semiu Okanlawon, representing the governor; Chief Executive Officer of TEXEM United Kingdom, Mr. Alim Abubakre;  Vice Chairman of Business Council Africa United Kingdom, Mr. Clive Carpenter and Project Director, Manchester Business School, Tara Monkman, during the presentation of award of recognition to Governor Rauf Aregbesola of Osun at the weekend

Governor of Osun, Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola, yesterday expressed shock over the death of one of Nigeria’s most versatile journalists, Dimgba Igwe.

Igwe, Vice Chairman of the Sun Newspaper until his death, was reportedly knocked down Saturday morning while going through his usual morning exercise.

In a statement by the Director, Bureau of Communications and Strategy, Office of the Governor, Mr. Semiu Okanlawon, Aregbesola said Igwe’s death once again robbed the nation’s media family of a doyen.

He described Igwe’s death as a devastating blow to not only the media world but also to the nation as a whole.

Aregbesola, however averred that Dimgba Igwe’s death has again brought to the front burner the level of insecurity to lives and property in the country.

He noted that it is unimaginable to think that merely engaging in a harmless venture like regular morning exercise could lead to a tragic death like that of Igwe.

“It is indeed a tragedy of huge proportion not only to have lost this fine journalist and manager of men, but also to have lost him in such needless tragic circumstance.

This once again calls to question the level of insecurity of lives and property in this country.

“Dimgba Igwe, until his death, and with his closest friend, Mike Awoyinfa, brought journalism to another level which brought one of Nigeria’s highest selling newspapers, the Sun into the consciousness of Nigerians.

“His death brought back to mind in a flurry our last encounter. Last year I met him and his professional twin brother, Mike Awoyinfa. And after launch, we had a profound and robust discussion about a new Nigeria of their dream.

“It is rather unfortunate that Igwe would be lost this soon. We pray for the repose of his soul.

“On behalf of myself, government and people of Osun, we send our heart-felt condolences to Igwe’s immediate and extended families, management and staff of the Sun Newspaper, Nigerian Union of Journalist (NUJ) the proprietor of the newspaper, former Governor of Abia State, Dr. Orji Uzor Kalu,” Aregbesola said.

The governor of the State of Osun, Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola has said it would amount to failure of unimaginable proportion if his government had failed in his first term to demonstrate that good governance, even in the face of meagre resources, is possible.

Aregbesola said he went into governance in Osun fully conscious of the challenges of poor leadership the state had faced and fully determined to change of the course of affairs and bring about unprecedented changes in the lives of the people.

The governor spoke at the Manchester Business School, University of Manchester at the weekend, after being presented with an award of recognition for his administration’s commitment to job creations and infrastructure provision.

Represented at the event by the Director, Bureau of Communications and Strategy, Office of the Governor, Mr. Semiu Okanlawon, Aregbesola said, “If we were looking for a comfort zone, contesting for the seat of governorship of Osun would certainly not be an option. But we were quite conscious of the enormous challenges facing our people and we were poised to change that.

“We knew there were no resources even though the state sit on some vast opportunities which remained untapped. Our people needed the right quality of leadership to galvanise them into action and make them see the opportunities.

“It would have been a terrible disaster if we had failed in our first four years to show the people that good governance is possible,”

Vice Chairman, Business Council Africa, Mr. Clive Carpenter, who presented the award to Aregbesola’s representative on behalf  of TEXEM, a UK-based consulting agency with partnership with the University of Manchester Business School (MBS), said the award was to encourage other African leaders to make good governance their main goal.

Carpenter, who admonished other African leaders to focus on development, recalled his meeting with late President Umaru Yar’Adua when the later met the Queen of England, saying he is quite aware of the vast investment opportunities in Nigeria.

Also at the event were the Chief Executive Officer of TEXEM, Mr. Alim Abubakre, Pkay Richardson, a Ghanaian Professor at the Manchester Business School.

…As Aregbesola mourns late British envoy

Osun State government has allayed fears that it may impose heavy taxes on people of the state during the second term in office of Governor Rauf Aregbesola.

Chairman of the state Internal Revenue Service (IRS), Mr. Dayo Oyebanji, stated this in a statement issued, copies of which were made available to journalists in the state.

Oyebanji said that the tax system in the state was a friend one and that the state government was poised to continue in the trend by encouraging self compliance.

The governor’s aide also said that the state government has deployed Point of Sale Terminal machines (POS), to the state Water Corporation revenue officers to enhance their effective performance in revenue generation.

He then urged the people of the state to continue to support government by paying their taxes as at when due for the government to meet its developmental tasks to the people.

Meanwhile, Governor Aregbesola has commiserated with the British High Commission over the death of its Deputy High Commissioner to Nigeria, Mr. Peter Leslie Carter in Lagos recently.

The governor, in a statement by the Director, Bureau of Communications and Strategy, office of the governor, Mr. Semiu Okanlawon, prayed for the repose of the soul of the envoy.

In Aregbesola’s condolence message, he described the late envoy as a distinguished diplomat and a gentleman of very high standing.

NATIONAL MIRROR

In Nigerian electoral politics today, the term, militarisation, has come to acquire an extended cultural meaning, consisting of three semantic components: (1) the deployment of security forces, consisting of military, police, the Department of State Service, and other security operatives; (2) the deployment occurs during an election; and (3) the election takes place in an opposition state. However, the third semantic component may not be retained during the 2015 general elections, when all states and all political parties will be involved simultaneously, including states controlled by the ruling PDP. I will return to this issue later.

What is clear for now is that, since President Goodluck Jonathan came to power in May 2011, such excessive deployments have taken place in all five governorship elections conducted under his watch, namely, Edo and Ondo states in 2012; Anambra in 2013; and Ekiti and Osun in 2014. What is common to all five states is that they were controlled by one opposition party or the other. It is also evident that the scale of the deployment has increased with each successive election.

The last of these elections, in Osun State, is the focus of this article for three reasons. First, many observers concluded that the militarisation of the state during the election was excessive. It was widely reported that well over 70,000 security operatives, including 15,000 soldiers, 30,000 policemen, 8,000 operatives of the Department of State Service, and 20,000 civil defence officers were deployed in the state just for the governorship election. That’s not all. One hundred specially trained dogs were also deployed in the state. Fifteen of the dogs, we were told, had just arrived from the United States, where they were trained to detect Improvised Explosive Devices.

No wonder, then, that some observers noted that Boko Haram would have become “a thing of the past” had such forces been deployed in Borno State all these years. Besides, the movement restriction imposed on Osun State during the election period was more intense than the one imposed on the three northern states under a state of emergency: From about 6pm on the eve of the election and while the polls were open, you could not enter or leave the state to transact any business nor could you move from one part of the state, or even your city, to another.

If the right to freely exercise one’s franchise is what democracy confers on voters, then that right was either withdrawn from some Osun voters, through intimidation or harassment, or it was timidly exercised by others. It is in this sense that the Osun case was considered an affront to democracy.

This leads to the second reason for focusing on the Osun case. Unlike previous cases, the security operatives scared Osun voters ahead of the election. It was widely reported that numerous vehicles, filled with uniformed security operatives, paraded major cities in the state, with hooded and masked operatives shooting sporadically in the air. It was a menacing signal to Osun voters that they should beware of August 9, 2014. The effect was voter intimidation, which led about 46 per cent of voters, who collected their Permanent Voter Card just weeks earlier, to stay away from the polls.

Third, a number of observers and voters who dared to exercise their freedom of movement and franchise were traumatised in various ways. This was particularly true of the leaders, representatives, and polling agents of the All Progressives Congress, the ruling party in the state, who were arrested, detained, or otherwise prevented from participating in the election by observing, supervising, or voting.

Beyond the media attention on some high profile members of the APC, including its chief spokesperson, Lai Mohammed, who were unnecessarily traumatised on the eve of, and during, the election, well over 600 APC members were involved in one form of security “brutality” or the other. They included commissioners in the state government, notably, the state Attorney General, Wale Afolabi; the Commissioner for Agriculture and Food Security, Wale Adedoyin; and the Commissioner for Tourism, Sikiru Aiyedun. The state’s federal legislators were not spared, including Senator Bayo Salami and a serving member of the House of Representatives, Folarin Fafowora. Nor were traditional rulers exempted, as the Regent of Iloko, High Chief Ogunsanya, was also harassed. The litmus test was simple: You were under suspicion if you were identified as an influential supporter of the APC.

It is the one-sidedness in the show of force against members of the APC in Osun that heightened the criticisms of electoral militarisation, especially as it came on the heels of the Ekiti election when notable supporters of the party, including Governors Chibuike Amechi and Adams Oshiomhole, were prevented from entering the state.
To be fair, rumours were widespread that the APC had planned to import thugs and voters from Lagos into Ekiti and Osun states during their governorship elections. Such fabricated rumours have become facts in the minds of many citizens. I remember a PDP supporter once insisting that the crowds at Aregbesola’s campaign rallies were imported from Lagos!

It is also fair to add that rumours were equally rife that the PDP wanted to take Osun, not just from the APC but specifically from Aregbesola’s hands. Having wrested Ekiti from the APC just two months earlier, a win in Osun was considered a high possibility. Perhaps, the suppression of votes for the APC candidate might enhance the chances of the PDP candidate.

However, such rumours belong to the realm of the hidden script when it comes to the government’s policy on electoral militarisation. The official, public script, revealed by President Jonathan after the Osun election, points to a more fundamental reason-the dual need (1) to maintain the sanctity of the ballots and (2) to avert the kind of widespread violence that followed his own election in 2011. Here’s how the President put it, referring to Nigerian voters: “They want to vote and want their votes to count; they don’t want to be molested; they don’t want ballot boxes to be hijacked by criminals. If they are convinced that the process is free, fair and credible, they have no reason to be angry.”

Well said, Mr. President. No one needs to be a Transformation Ambassador to agree with the sentiment behind your statement. I also strongly believe that you really mean well. However, the facts on the ground, as detailed above in the Osun case, do not assure voters of a level playing field. They also make militarisation appear as a suspicious method of achieving your stated goals. To the extent that the most popular candidate won, and with a wide margin, it is fair to say that the election was credible. But the process was neither free nor fair, especially on many members of the APC. The President’s continued silence on the harassment of the APC members in Ekiti and Osun may have turned a hidden transcript into an official one.

Rather than address this matter, the President has gone ahead to insist that the 2015 general elections will be militarised as well. It remains to be seen, however, whether opposition states will be more militarised than others. Most importantly, all opposition party leaders and well-meaning Nigerians must demand ahead of the elections that security agents must not be used by the ruling PDP to harass members of the opposition parties during the general elections.

It is here, I think, that Prof. Attahiru Jega, chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission, still has a job to do. It is not enough to support a House of Representatives bill that limits the role of security forces, especially soldiers, during elections. He needs to ensure the constitutional independence of INEC in conducting elections by demanding non-interference from the presidency or the ruling party ahead of the 2015 elections.

PUNCH

Independent Corrupt Practices Commission (ICPC) on Monday described the governor of the State of Osun, Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola, as the best-performing governor in Nigeria with his pro-people’s policies and transparency in governance.

The commission said it expected the governor to be more proactive in alleviating poverty in the state and be more efficient in the management of public resources during his second term.

ICPC team led by the commission board South West Representative, Professor Olu Aina, said this during a courtesy visit to the governor in his office on Tuesday in Osogbo, the state capital.

Aina said: “Mr Governor, you are one of the few individuals we have voluntarily visited, not for interrogation but as the most-performing governor in Nigeria this year.

“As part of our re-organisation in ICPC, we are giving serious attention to education. After critical examination of various cases before us, we considered education and orientation as most important aspects of our war against corruption and you will recall that you were invited to the commission office before, as a result of value you place on education. We have the privilege to honour you again for your commitment to banish poverty through education.”

He also presented a letter of request from the commission to the governor for the allocation of land to build a new office to expand the operations of ICPC in Osun and congratulated the governor for his re-election.

Responding, Governor Aregbesola, who described poverty as the brain of corruption, said the most important aspect of war against corruption is education to restore human and societal values, adding that corruption has become a way of life in Nigeria.

He said: “There cannot be a fresh and stimulating opportunity than what I have today, which is the first day I resumed office after election. I commend the new philosophy of ICPC to enlighten, educate and re-orientate all of us to shun corruption. As much as I agree with punishment, education is critical to the war against corruption.”
“The first step to eliminate it, is to educate us against the danger it poses to our society. However, poverty cannot be divorced from corruption. Poverty is a condition of existence, where society does not matter to you, when you are not even conscious of your environment.

“That is why we are struggling to put in place a governing system that will guarantee for the people what Awolowo sought seriously to make a way of life. Starting from our region to the nation, we have succeed in repeating those programmes here, which is the cradle of our party; freedom for all, life more abundant. This is our party’s vision for the people to pursue their legitimate desire and vision.”

Aregbesola said the stance of his government towards the people earned him the victory in the last governorship election, despite intimidation with federal might.

“For those who monitor the just-concluded election; considering the weakness of our own structure and the strength of the major opposition, we stood no chance on our own, but for the unimaginable support of the masses, it was impossible for any harm to come to us. That was the reason we won conveniently. Therefore, we have no excuse not to stand by the people.

“The welfare of the public is their interest and in a democracy you have no choice than to tailor every aspect of government’s direction to meet the desire of the people. That is why when the security operatives, who wore masks, were shooting sporadically, the people were waving brooms that they were for us and nothing could change their mind,” Aregbesola said.

He added that his administration will continue the O’ Meal, which is providing nutrition for school children and provide jobs for the people, including OYES among others, saying his administration will stop at nothing to make life more abundant for the people.

OSUN DEFENDER