THE Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has commended Sterling Bank Plc and the Osun State Government, for their roles in deepening agent banking and Financial Inclusion (FI) initiatives.This commendation came, even as the apex bank advised other financial institutions to ensure that more Nigerians currently unbanked are brought into the financial services net.
The Assistant Director of Payment Policy and Oversight Banking Payment System at CBN, Olushola Agboola, who conveyed the message at the workshop organized for Banks and Other Financial Institutions on financial inclusion and agent banking, in Oshogbo, Osun State, also called for more to be done to ensure wider reach.
As fallout of the agent banking scheme, which Sterling Bank launched in Lagos last year and extended to Osun, the financial institution has empowered over 100 indigenes of the state.
The bank’s Head of Financial Inclusion, Richard Osungboye, said with collaborative efforts between CBN and the state government, the percentage of rural people yet to be captured in the financial system will reduce significantly.
He particularly commended the state government’s plan to adopt the “Cooperative Model” for the establishment of microfinance banks as approved by CBN.
GUARDIAN
Category: News
The acting General Manager Osun State Sports Council, Akin Adio, said on Monday that the state had begun preparations in order to excel at the 2014 National Sports Festival to be held in Calabar.
Adio spoke on Monday in Osogbo in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria.
He said the council was re-positioning all sports to guarantee an excellent outing, noting that inadequate preparation contributed to the poor performance of the state’s contingent at the Lagos Games.
Adio added that poor officiating debarred the contingent from winning gold in boxing and other events at the Games.
Osun won only two gold, one silver and seven bronze medals at the 18th National Sports Festival in Lagos.
He said that coaches and organising secretaries of the various sports had begun work on how to improve on their performance.
Adio said that local competitions in some events had begun so as to discover new talents.
“The council is equally working on how to generate funds to complement government’s allocation, to make the council sufficient monetarily.
“We plan to solicit support from individuals and organisations within and outside the state, to ensure that our sportsmen and women are motivated through timely payment of their allowances,’’ Adio added.
One reason Governor Rauf Aregbesola is succeeding in Osun State is by taking care of a large number of youths in his state, home to 3.4 million people (2006 census), in which at least 60 per cent of that population comprises the youth.
Youths are restive, irresistible and could easily be swept into criminality if left idle. Aregbesola knew they could be a time-bomb and could disrupt his programme, so, he diffused the ‘bomb’.
Today, the state is reaping abundantly from the spin-off of the initiative tagged OYES, or Osun State Youth Empowerment Scheme, put in place as a stop-gap to cut down on unemployment and infuse into the youth positive work ethics and culture, discipline, tenacity of purpose, self-sustenance, resourcefulness and respect for the environment.
Today, the state is the safest in the country in terms of crime rate, and it is the clear leader in employment, according to the Nigerian Bureau of Statistics. Youth restiveness is hardly in the front burner and prostitution is hardly existing.
This also translates into good governance as Aregbesola, already a focused man, is able to forge ahead in executing his six-point agenda for the state, an enhanced co-existence among the various ethnic and religious groups, while entrepreneurs are at peace in their business transactions.
The magic wand is rapidly and tangibly contributing to the state’s economic growth as prevailing peace is attracting investors, while the governor is busy establishing more industries equally in the three senatorial zones.
It is much easier to destroy than to build. Only, and only the Federal Government could say exactly how much it spends daily in executing the wars against insurgency in the North-east, militancy and kidnappings in the south, an amount which could have been chaneled to other useful purposes if youths in those regions had been taken care of in the first place.
Aregbesola would rather spend part of the meagre resources of the state on human and infrastructural development, rather than on senseless events and frivolities.
In 2010, he put in place the initiative, an idea he nurtured long before becoming governor. Participation in the scheme offers cadets the opportunity to acquire life-attitudes, self-confidence and improved skills within two years on the scheme. Only 20,000 applicants were successful at its take-off in December, 2010, out of about 250,000 who applied.
The figure represents a 20 percent decrease in youth unemployment in the state. If the number is added to about20,000 workers in the conventional government jobs, one would believe in Aregbesola’s talisman.
Many of these applicants had waited and pounded the streets for years after graduation, either from secondary or tertiary institutions, in search of a job or to further their studies.
Instead of turning down the other applicants, the governor turned the project into a rolling scheme to accommodate others in turn, attesting to his wisdom and caring attitude. While serving, the cadets are also given 60 per cent consideration in any job opportunities.
However, arm-chair critics say the project is too demeaning and condescending, for instance, for a graduate to be cleaners, forgetting that depending on who handles the knife, it could save lives if used by a surgeon but could destroy if handled by a robber.
The unemployed Osun youths know where the shoes pinch. On acquiring the needed skills offered by the scheme, many of them have exploited it to their maximum advantage as many more have continued with their life ambitions in tertiary institutions or in other forms of gainful engagements.
Many more have established small and medium scale industries through co-operative societies, becoming employers of labour, instead of being weighed down by frustration and depression, capable of turning them into social outcasts. It is a part-time job of two to three hours daily, with participants reporting for work thrice weekly.
Corps members have no offices, thus saving the state government enormous amount in running the paraphernalia of office; they are only smartly kitted for group identity and morale-boosting. After a week in training, they are deployed to productive services in identified areas of socio-economic lives and paid a monthly allowance of N10,000 to help them to cover basic needs.
The N200 million spent monthly on the scheme has the tendency to reflate the economy as the amount largely circulates within the state.
The cadets are work-ready, exceedingly competitive for the economy and the society and, while in service, they are armed with new skills, entrepreneurship and mentoring preparatory to a more gainful employment and challenges. They work in every part of the state.
It is no wonder the World Bank recommends the initiative as an antidote to unemployment, criminality, and good governance. It is also not a surprise that Aregbesola was invited to Abuja for the take-off ceremony of the Federal Government’s version of the scheme, tagged Youth Employment and Social Support Operation (YESSO).
The corps members in OYES are grouped into the Green Gang, for sanitation and greenery, Sanitation Czars for sanitation activities, Public Works Brigade for road maintenance, public building and infrastructure; Paramedics for emergency services and health support; Traffic Marshall in charge of restoring peace and order and Teacher Corps for volunteer teaching in public schools.
There is no gain-saying the fact that Aregbesola has been managing the little resources judiciously and prudently, to the benefit of the citizens whose lives he pledged to touch. The project has given hope to the hopeless and resonates the people’s implicit confidence in the governor.
It is time governments at local, state and federal levels adopted the good practice in removing their unemployment albatross.
And as one of the beneficiaries put it: ‘’It is now time for us the youth, nay the people of the state, to reciprocate Aregbesola’s gesture by voting for him again, to carry on the good job, complete what he has started and take us to the Promise Land.’’
•Adeoye, a Public Affairs Analyst, wrote in from Osogbo.
Photos of the Governor State of Osun, Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola, Rt. Reverend John Bamgboye and his wife Mrs. Janet Monisola Bamgboye during the retirement thanksgiving service of reverend John Bamgboye at Methodist Church, Isale –Aro, Osogbo on Sunday 20/07/2014.

From right – Senator representing Osun Central Senatorial District, Senator Sola Adeyeye, Governor State of Osun, Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola, Rt. Reverend John Bamgboye and his wife Mrs. Janet Monisola Bamgboye during the retirement thanksgiving service of reverend John Bamgboye at Methodist Church, Isale –Aro, Osogbo on Sunday 20/07/2014.

From left- Rt. Reverend Dr.Michael Uche, Governor State of Osun, Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola, Reverend John Bamgboye and his wife Mrs. Janet Monisola Bamgboye during the retirement thanksgiving service of reverend John Bamgboye at Methodist Church, Isale –Aro, Osogbo on Sunday 20/07/2014

Rt. Reverend Dr. Michael Uche(4th left), Governor State of Osun, Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola(5th left), Reverend John Bamgboye (4th right) and his wife Mrs. Janet Monisola Bamgboye(3rd right) and others during the retirement thanksgiving service of reverend John Bamgboye at Methodist Church, Isale –Aro, Osogbo on Sunday 20/07/2014.
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Photos of the Governor State of Osun, Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola with Founder, Christ Apostolic Church, Mountain of Mercy, Orile-Agege, Lagos, Pastor Elijah Ajayi, during a Solidarity Visit to the Governor in Government House, Osogbo, State of Osun, during the weekend

Governor State of Osun, Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola (right) with Founder, Christ
Apostolic Church, Mountain of Mercy, Orile-Agege, Lagos, Pastor Elijah
Ajayi, during a Solidarity Visit to the Governor in Government House,
Osogbo, State of Osun, during the weekend

Governor State of Osun, Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola (middle); Founder, Christ
Apostolic Church (CAC), Mountain of Mercy, Orile-Agege, Lagos, Pastor
Elijah Ajayi (left) and Senior Pastor, CAC Mountain of Mercy, Harrisburg,
USA, Pastor Sunday Ajayi (right), during a Solidarity Visit to the Governor
in Government House, Osogbo, State of Osun, during the weekend

Governor State of Osun, Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola (middle); Founder, Christ
Apostolic Church (CAC), Mountain of Mercy, Orile-Agege, Lagos, Pastor
Elijah Ajayi (left) and Senior Pastor, CAC Mountain of Mercy, Harrisburg,
USA, Pastor Sunday Ajayi (right), during a Solidarity Visit to the Governor
in Government House, Osogbo, State of Osun, during the weekend
Still on the Ijesha South Federal Constituency gubernatorial election mega rally of Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola held on July 15, 2014 in Ilesha, I came across two women and seeing the joy on their faces at being present at Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola’s campaign rally despite their physical challenges and the difficulties of meandering their way through such a mammoth crowd, I took up the job of a journalist to do an interview on what could have motivated them to overlook the stress of coming for the rally.
The woman on the left will be referred to as Mrs. A, she said she is a widow with four children with the last born in secondary school, she claimed that before the coming in of Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola’s administration in Osun state, that life was very difficult as two of her children had finished school with no funds to proceed further educationally or learn a vocational job and that sustaining the last born in school was hell due to poverty.
However, luck smiled on her, just like other families in the state of Osun as two of her children were engaged in O’yes voluntary community service scheme and are paid ten thousand Naira monthly stipend by the Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola administration.
According to her, the condition of living in the family has changed for the better as the scheme has been able to save family’s image and helped the society at large by engaging these youths and taking their minds of crime, since like they say, an idle mind is the devil’s workshop.
She further explained that Ogbeni Rauf is God sent as his administration has relieved millions of families the burden of maintaining their children in public schools as the government provides free school uniforms, an electronic textbook device called Opon Imo, free nutritional meals in schools made up of eggs, chicken and fish. To her, she has only one meal a day to provide for her daughter in public school as Ogbeni Rauf has relieved her of that financial burden.
Infact, she said, she is forever grateful like millions of others to the government of Ogbeni Rauf for taking this burden of the shoulders of the masses and in her words, come August 9, 2014, she and her household will vote for this masses burden bearer.
Thanks,
Written by Nelson Ekujumi
BLOGSPOT
Photos showing the new Omoluabi Scholar Buses and of the Governor State of Osun, Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola with the ecstatic mammoth crowd during the official commissioning of St. Stephen’s Middle School, Modakeke State of Osun on Friday 18/07/2014
![Governor State of Osun, Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola [middle], Ogunsua of Madekeke, Oba Francis Adedoyin [2nd left],Chairman Osun Schools Reclassification Committee[O’ Schools], Alhaji Layi Oyeduntan [left] and the Executive Secretary, Ife-East Area Office, Modakeke, Mr Wale Amusan during the official commissioning of St. Stephen’s Middle School, Modakeke State of Osun on Friday 18/07/2014](http://165.227.111.29/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/2.jpg)
Governor State of Osun, Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola [middle], Ogunsua of Madekeke, Oba Francis Adedoyin [2nd left],Chairman Osun Schools Reclassification Committee[O’ Schools], Alhaji Layi Oyeduntan [left] and the Executive Secretary, Ife-East Area Office, Modakeke, Mr Wale Amusan during the official commissioning of St. Stephen’s Middle School, Modakeke State of Osun on Friday 18/07/2014
The late sage, Chief Obafemi Awolowo, was well known more for his political philosophy in those days. His literary works, which are well documented for generations yet unborn, speak volume of a political philosopher. Awolowo wrote volumes on his thoughts regarding how Nigeria should be governed, what are expected of politicians as well as how society should be ordered.
Most political writs of contemporary Nigerian society have continued to borrow from his wisdom of thought known popularly as Awo’s Philosophical thoughts. Awo was a political warrior in his days and he generated so much controversy because of his forthrightness, unparalleled discipline, boldness and vision. In fact, Awo saw far beyond his time. This may be responsible for his frequent bruises with those who could not see beyond their nose. He was betrayed, abused, cursed and even jailed. He was undaunted even till the end of his life.
Awo’s legacy could not be matched even by the best of politician till date.
It is quite rare to find a combination of political philosopher and true politician like Papa Awo. This is where the Governor of the State of Osun, Ogbeni Rauf Adesoji Aregbesola, has continued to be different from the pack. He stands out and he is still being seen as a wonder which the Almighty has bestowed on the people of Osun.
Governor Aregbesola has not ceased to amaze me as a politician and political philosopher combined in one personality, a rarity. In these days of politics of no direction, the Governor of Osun has confounded critics that you can be a political philosopher as well as a good politician.
He shared so many attributes with Chief Obafemi Awolowo, some of which include forthrightness, discipline, boldness, and vision. It is therefore not surprising that he also shares from some of Awo’s woes which include betrayal, misunderstanding from a section of those who should know better and verbal abuse. As if these are not enough, he was even faced with financial decapitation.
His political philosophy spans education reformation, welfare, governance, personal and environmental health, food security, just to mention only a few. In these days when application of deceptive rhetoric to get what you want, Aregbesola has been very honest with the people, saying it as it is. He lives a modest life known only to philosopher kings. You can hardly associate him with crass opulence which is prevalent in today’s men of power.
His Walk-For-Life physical exercise programme which he carries to the grass root has almost turned into a Movement of sort; the Apalara youth engagement scheme has literarily bailed out our youths out of idleness and unemployment; his education reform has been applauded both at home and outside.
In a recent encounter, the General Overseer of the Living Faith Church (a.k.a. Winners Church) Bishop David Oyedepo had this to say of him “any governance that is producing results and affecting the lives of vast majority of the people, must be deeply appreciated”.
He also declared that the new educational policy, which had culminated in the building of mega schools in the State, deserves global applause.
He said: “I deeply appreciate the infrastructural development. Besides, the education revolution is for us a great achievement. I can see the massive road construction going on.
“This is to the benefit of the people. No policy can remove the roads. I am very impressed”.
As the election D-day draws nearer by the hour, the people have the choice as to whether they would want to go back to the old days of the locusts represented by the opposition in the state.
Ayo Akinola, a social and political analyst
Members of the Fulani Community in the State of Osun on Sunday endorsed the second term ambition of Governor Rauf Aregbesola.
Majority of the Fulani community members, who are mostly herdsmen, stormed the Government House in their hundreds to rally support for the governor.
Speaking on behalf of the Fulani Community in the state, Alhaji Toyin Sulaiman, expressed appreciation to the governor for advancing the course of Fulanis in the state.
Sulaiman said most of the programmes of the present administration in the rural areas are targeted towards making life better and meaningful for the Fulani herdsmen and their families in the state. Sulaiman called on the governor to create more opportunities for Fulani community by assisting in boosting their cattle business. He also called on the government to assist them in the area of building more schools in their communities and create employment opportunities for their educated children.
He said: “We are in full support of your administration because no government has supported and assisted our people like your administration. “We are so happy that you have given us so much recognition by setting up this committee that will see to the needs of our people, which no government has ever done before in this state.”
Within the first term of the current administration, Aregbesola has displayed uncommon zeal, to banish hunger, poverty, unemployment and restore healthy living beyond the imagination of the people. Responding, Governor Aregbesola urged every ethnic group in the state to draw closer to the present administration in the state, as a way of knowing further the yearnings of every resident of the state.
Aregbesola, who lauded the efforts of the committee on harmonious relationship between Fulani herdsmen and farmers, said the six-point integral action plan of the government touches every live in the state. He said the Fulanis are not left out, having been able to supply the state government with about one thousand cows for the school’s feeding programme (O-MEAL) in the last two years.
According to Aregbesola: “Our six-point integral action plan carries you along in the schemes of things and we are not ready or planning to leave any ethnic group, especially the Fulanis, out in our developmental agenda.” “Our programmes towards development have no preferential treatment for any religion or group. This administration is an administration for everybody and it will continue to be like that.”
“Our six-point integral action plan cuts across every citizen in this state, regardless of your tribe and religion. I implore you not to distant yourselves from this government and the rest of this state because we are one and we want to make life more meaningful and easier for you.”
Also speaking earlier, Assistant Chief of Staff and Chairman of the Committee on Harmonious Relationship between the Fulani Herdsmen and the Farmers, Honourable Oguntola Toogun, said the committee, with the support of the state government, has been able to maintain good relationship between the two groups, adding that other pending issues would be settled soon.
He said the committee worked in collaboration with all the executive secretaries in the state, which has made the job easier.