Towards the end of Nigeria the Beautiful, a dance drama staged on Thursday, August 22 at Government House in Osogbo, a spectacled character in the traditional up-and-down dress worn by those in the Niger Delta, complete with bowler hat, dominates centre stage. His appearance raises a murmur in the audience. There is no doubt the historical figure he is playing in Nigeria’s tortuous journey to nationhood and fragile existence since amalgamation in 1914.
A stage bedecked with the Union Jack and the map of Nigeria inset, the be-whiskered matchmaker himself, Lord Lugard, who presided over the union of the various ethnicities take his turn, played to the hilt by Paul Alumona, though without the luxurious walrus. Other historical figures follow, Sardauna of Sokoto, brilliantly portrayed by Austine Onuoha, Obafemi Awolowo, brought alive on stage by Babatunde Adeniyi and of course Nnamdi Azikiwe (Paul Alumona).
Though no military leader was represented by name or anything close to it, the series of coups, counter coups and take-over so fluidly enacted by the actors left the audience in no doubt as to the part they played in the country’s history. In a ragtag formation and even less coordinated professionally, the officers edge out one another in a series of putsches, ostensibly to better the lot of the citizens but in reality to help themselves.
Eliciting much laughter, it is the director’s way of depicting them as a huge joke. Nigeria itself has been a huge joke ever since its birth as a nation. Ethnicity is as rife as it was five decades ago; corruption and mediocrity have grown correspondingly. Add to that religious intolerance and terrorism and you understand fully the combustible mix presented by the actors, sometimes through tense and funny dialogue, and mostly through celebratory dance steps or mournful shuffles. No period is left untouched in a broad historical sweep: pre-Independence, Independence, regional politics post-Independence, the civil war and its aftermath to the present day. Even Fela gets his turn on stage – to great applause from the audience.
Thus for two hours late that night was an assorted mix of politicians and diplomats, bureaucrats and culture enthusiasts, high society types in the State of Osun and visitors from without sat transfixed as the actors transported them through nearly a century of Nigeria’s history – through the lens of poet and scholar, Odia Ofeimun and realised through the directorial concept of Felix Okolo, a man he calls “my director for all seasons.” Governor Rauf Adesoji Aregbesola himself sat close to the orchestra, his head angled all through to his left watching the traffic on stage keenly.
The ambassador of France sat next to him. The head of service of the State of Osun was not far away. Commissioners and members of the House of Assembly were scattered around in the hall, plus a sprinkling of chiefs and their spouses. Long before curtains up, sumptuous dishes were ferried from table to table for guests. Food and drinks are not allowed in live theaters. But the day was also a dinner for trade and investment partners from the U.S. Having them watch Nigeria the Beautiful while dining and wining at the same time was certainly novel for a performance.
The dancers maximised available space, thanks to the dexterousness of the choreographer. A director, dramatist and choreographer, Yomi Duro-Ladipo, son of the legendary film maker, Duro Ladipo, gave Okolo kudos. “Nigeria the Beautiful is a good concept and well directed. The artistes acted well. Generally, this is a good production.” Good words to a colleague. But for sheer spectacle, Okolo is the one to beat as a director.
And yet, Nigeria the Beautiful isn’t all about spectacle despite the dozens of musical intermissions. As interpreted by Okolo, Nigeria the Beautiful is really about unity, the fullness of it in all the diversity the country represents. For in the words of the last major historical character to appear on stage, Goodluck Jonathan, “We shall build Nigeria the beautiful/ Creek and Forest/ Savannah and Sahel, Lagoon and Delta to the Plateaus/ Cross River to Lake Chad: ‘tis a duty that we owe/ To build the country beautiful, lift Africa, and unite the world; / It’s not life that matters but the goodness we bring to it.”
A week before, Osogbo town had been full of life, the goodness of it, if you like. An ordinarily serene and provincial capital, it comes alive every August when the Yoruba and those in the Diaspora converge at the famous grove in the state capital for spiritual reunion. Worshippers of the Osun/ Osogbo priestess come from far and near, seeking solution to their problems, physical or spiritual. Some others, including tourists, come for the spectacle it represents.
Friday, August 23 was the grand finale of the week-long festival. In Lagos on Sunday, August 18, there was a Goddess Concert at Eko Hotel & Suites, Victoria Island, where Asa, Dare Art-Alade, Gloria Ibru and Waje performed. According to Olatunbosun Soyode, Special Adviser on Tourism and Culture to Ogbeni Aregbesola, the concert was to appeal to younger people who might be turned off from what some of them consider a fetish festival. “If you want the younger people to be interested in your culture and heritage, you have to take it to them. The Goddess concert was to arouse their interest to come to Osogbo for the festival proper.”
If that was the sole purpose of the concert in Lagos, it was a success beyond their wildest imagination. You could feel the vibe all around. It was as if the town had more than doubled in population.
Hotels were booked in advance, bars spilled to streets and electric poles decorated with posters of Seaman’s Aromatic Schnapps. Yellow-striped blue buses popularly called koregbe zipped around the town stopping for passengers and disgorging them. Devotees dressed in white down to their shoes found their way to the grove. Buses with white banners and OPC logos were practically everywhere. The festive air was infectious, the bond between worshippers and goddess strong.
In the words of Oyintiloye Olatubosun, Assistant Director Bureau of Communications and Strategy in the Office of the Governor, “the Osun Osogbo annual international festival is a celebration of culture and fulfilment of the pledge between a people and a goddess.”
The girl/ goddess (Arugba) in question was the centre of attraction that weekend. Early on Friday at the palace, the 12-year-old had being spiritually sanctified before embarking on her odyssey from there through the town to the grove. Her predecessor was carrier for 10 years. She could be carrier for as long or even longer.
For a festival attracting devotees from all over the world – the Venezuelan and Cuban ambassadors were in town, not to mention the hundreds of Orisha worshippers from Brazil – it was not always so. It got its international imprimatur thanks to the pioneering and untiring effort of Susanne Wenger, an Austrian woman and devotee of the goddess, who died and was buried in Osogbo.
After the watching Nigeria the Beautiful at Government House, an elated Aregbesola declared: “This is the best way we know how to entertain our guests.”
The following day before the commencement of the festival at the grove and wearing white from cap to his footwear, he extolled the importance of the festival. “In celebrating this prominent festival, we must not forget what it connotes.
We must continue to imbibe and deepen the non-material values of this socio-cultural engagement. Courage, sacrifice, selflessness, brotherliness, hope and faithfulness remain some of the major values under-girding the celebration of Osun Osogbo festival.”
– adapted from THISDAY NEWSPAPER

Osun today has become an exciting investment destination. Waves of investors are streaming in and the toga of a ‘civil service’ state has been shed. It must be recalled that not long ago the ‘mainstreamers’ who controlled the government in the state of Osun did absolutely nothing in terms of developing a commercial base for the state. They did not perceive a need to do so.
For the ‘mainstreamers’ life in government consisted of hanging around the city of Abuja – the nation’s capital, picking up handouts. Very demeaning stuff. Nevertheless though demeaning this is how the mainstreamers see life in government. They had nothing to offer, and no discernable plan to move the state forward. Life consisted of a sure, constant stream of allocations from the central government.
Mercifully, not anymore! Aregbesola the valiant Omoluabi at the head of a can-do progressive government has been a game changer. For a start he is too proud a man to wallow in servility to the whims of an overbearing central government. Furthermore, he came into office very well prepared.
The symbol of good governance came into office armed with a programme of social and economic regeneration for the state of Osun. This plan is anchored on the need to create the social and economic mechanism for self-sustaining development. To achieve this, the symbol has had to do a fundamental re-direction of capital in order to provide the enabling environment for investors to stream in. Today, the investors are arriving because of the massive, unprecedented infrastructural upgrade in the state of Osun.
Road construction for example is being done cost-effectively across the state. This is an unambiguous signal to the potential investor that Osun means business. And under Aregbesola, Osun does mean business. Revamping the roads is going hand-in-glove with an imaginative programme to modernize agriculture. This is critical. This is because from here, we will achieve a critical mass to trigger off agro-allied industrialization.
The linkages provided by the Aregbesola government are clearly enticing to the investor. Linking social and economic development to achieve a synergy is straight out of the Obafemi Awolowo textbook. An example will illustrate. The rehabilitation of the Ede water-works is a good example. The re-direction of capital to rehabilitate and make optimal the supply of clean water to the population is critical. This is because a healthy work-force is a productive one.
This is of great importance to a prospective investor. Availability of clean water eliminates water borne diseases thereby minimizing a large scourge of primary health provision. Across the board the provision of such synergy entices the prospective investor.
Another illustration is the massive re-invention of the educational system. A key factor in investment decision making is of course the quality of education. A well educated work force is also a highly productive labour pool. For this reason investing in health and education will allow the state of Osun to have a high quality pool of literate, well-blended information-technology savvy and very healthy work-force.
This is what the investor wants and this is precisely what the Aregbesola government is dangling in front of him or her. The investors are already arriving. The international agencies are also giving approvals to the investor friendly policy thrust of the Aregbesola government. This is also important as an investor enticing mechanism.
Within a second-term in office, Aregbesola who has so brilliantly laid the foundation will have turned Osun into a thriving commercial and industrial beehive. We salute his foresight. Breaking the mould Aregbesola is putting the big ‘D’ back into the development process. We are now seeing real, sustainable development embedded on long-term visionary planning in the state of Osun.
This is why history will be very favourable to the Aregbesola initiative and policy thrust.

Whatever lingering doubts that still existed about the emerging profile of the state’s flagship tourism event – the Osun Osogbo festival – on the global tourism calendar, this year’s celebrations, surely ought to have dispelled them. If only for the fact that no fewer than 300,000 visitors drawn from across the globe attended the upscale events that is increasingly remarkable for its diversity, the festival can truly claim to have come to its own. The organizers certainly did well to make the events not just colourful, but a world-class event that citizens can justly be proud of.
Although global awareness in the festival is still growing and its impact the state economy still relatively limited, what is no longer open to debate is its potentials to help transform the state. All thanks to the Aregbesola administration, there is a sense of recognition today – or better still – a new imperative to make tourism assume its pride of place in the state’s socio-economic matrix. To its credit, the administration continues to invest heavily in tourism and allied infrastructure not just to give sense to its mission but to underscore the urgency of its quest to make the state numero uno tourist destination.
And to imagine that the United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) had as far back as July 15, 2005 at its World Heritage Committee meeting in Durban, South Africa adopted Osun Grove as a World Heritage Site. The truth of course was that the ruling PDP administration neither understood the import of that declaration nor the sense of appreciation of what was required in terms of appropriate infrastructures to concretise the step taken by the global body. The then helmsman, Olagunsoye Oyinlola did nothing to make visiting the site a pleasurable experience. The best his administration did was to support the community with N1 million to host the event! Worse was that the administration was too blind to see the need to lend logistical support to the emerging world event.
The difference between then and now obviously goes beyond styles and approach. It lies in the profundity of thought and the efforts made to translate them into action. While the investments are visible for all to see, so has been the ideas behind them discernable. Remarkably too, the Aregbesola administration has resisted the tendency to treat tourism as an enclave economy but rather as a section that requires careful integration with the whole.
Whether it is the roads being opened up, or the rehabilitation of the existing ones going on apace; or even the brand new airport project in the works, or still, the countless rural development initiatives designed to give the rural economy fillip, they come together in the whole – in the mission of the Aregbesola government to ensure balanced development.
The projects, of course provides a window to gauge the hunger of the state’s helmsman to open the state to the world, to ensure that its potentials in all sectors are fully maximised and to ensure that their benefits are harnessed for the people.
Only the blind will fail to appreciate that the momentum derives from the vision to leapfrog the state into development in record time.
If we are any enthused by the template adopted by the government in the last Osun Osogbo festival, particularly its partnership with the private sector players like the telecommunications giant – MTN, Nigerian Breweries and Micom – the cable manufacturing company, it is because we recognise, like the state government, that such partnerships are inescapable; they are the way to go. One area we expect to see the direct impact of the state’s educational reforms in the nearest future is in the supply of artefacts and other tourism memorabilia to visitors. Hopefully by that time, the state would have been well positioned to harness the full benefits of its tourism.
 
(culled from OSUN DEFENDER)

 
It is true that there can be no true development in any atmosphere of rancour and crisis, as was witnessed in the State of Osun throughout the insecure days of Prince Olagunsoye Oyinlola, before the inauguration of Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola at the helms of affairs in the state.
It is not sheer partisanship or exaggeration to say that Osun has witnessed rapid transformation since the inception of the current administration in the state, as peace has returned to the state.
Financial transactions as well as investments in the state have tremendously improved, as investors have continued to express confidence in the current administration and their willingness to invest in the state. “Only a fool will put hard-earned money in an insecure environment,” so goes a wise saying.
To further buttress my point, Osun, in the last few months, has witnessed influx of visitors to the state, a development that had impacted positively on the state, not for any other reason, but for the fact that peace prevails in the state.
The Ansar-U-Deen National Conference was held recently when delegates from all nations across the globe were all in Osogbo for some days. Baptist Convention was also held in Osogbo, which also pulled thousands of participants to the state, a development that contributed in no small measure to the state growing economy, aside the spiritual blessings that the two conferences had brought to the state.
Just recently, the Lions Club International also concluded its National Retreat in Osun, with the participants getting first-hand information on the numerous resources that the state is endowed with. This will in no distant future have its own positive effect on the state and its people in the form of investment and empowerment.
No one could have known about the investment opportunities in the state, not to talk of boosting its economy in an atmosphere of crisis and insecurity.
It would be recalled that the head of the immediate-past administration in the state made several futile trips to several countries across the globe and even within Nigeria, all in the name of searching for investors, as no sane person would invest in an atmosphere of rancour and crisis.
Therefore, in conclusion, it is only during a peaceful atmosphere that reasonable development can be recorded.
Residents and indigenes of the State of the Virtuous are therefore appreciative of Ogbeni Aregbesola’s initiative in promoting peace and security in the state. We all love the chains of development that have berthed in the state.
 
(culled from OSUN DEFENDER)

A manufacturing company specialising in information and communications technology (ICT) products, which is capable of generating about 20,000 jobs for youths, has started operations in Osun state.
Speaking at the company’s corporate office in Osogbo, the national sales manager, Alex Oyebamiji, disclosed that the firm, which started about 12 years ago to help promote entrepreneurship development through applied ICT, got to Nigeria about two years ago.
He said the firm has decided to partner Osun state government with the aim of manufacturing ICT products like phones, laptops and computer tablets.
Oyebamiji also disclosed that the factory for the company, which is located in Ilesa, has reached 85 per cent completion, and this makes it to be the first ICT company to build a factory of its own in that part of Nigeria.
On the choice of Osun state, he said the state has a divine economic policy and “everyone is aware that ICT facilitates global business. Economically, the state has been very vibrant. There is high response to ICT appreciation. The people have been responding to the quest for scholarship after winning our proposed raffle draw.”
He added, “Our intention is to empower youth after training. We would start by engaging five hundred youths immediately after completing the factory. Later over one thousand youth would be employed to work in the factory.
“Other segment of workers will be determined by the product range as the products and prices are segmented into low, middle and high class, in accordance with the distributorship or dealership and retailer-ship levels”.
He further stated that accessibility to the Lagos-Abuja Express road, electricity and manpower accounted for the decision of the company to site its company at Ilesa.
As part of the activities of the company in the past, Oyebamiji said by May this year, about 5,000 youths graduated from the company’s training session. He added that 100 out of them have been picked and trained for technical work at their factory in Ghana. They were trained on how to assemble and repair phones, laptops, computer tablets and all other ICT facilities.
Also, as corporate citizen’s responsibility, the company has donated sixteen buses with its logo on them offering free ride to the people in Ilesa, Ila, Ede, while ten out of these buses are plying Osogbo metropolis.
THIS DAY

As reported by a German Newspaper…
Visitors from Nigeria and a team of international and informational guests joined agricultural students who want to continue their education in theory and practical at the State Institute Idener.
Foreign guests seeking information on agriculture were shown a picture of modern methods by the State Institute Idener. However, the launch of the project was a premiere support system and is also a challenge at the same time. Birgit Gamperle, head of Management at the State Institute for Agriculture, Forestry and Horticulture says that it has been well-known beyond the country’s borders that the facility has been housing students from Nigeria for the first time, for four weeks.
The goal is clear: “We want to get fit” says Gamperle, who prepared the one-month stay for the young guests from the South-Western State of Osun, in his own words carefully.
Internships in Companies in Saxony-Anhalt
However, this does not stop the learning time of 20 Africans, all of whom are studying Agricultural-Economics to gain insights into agriculture in Saxony-Anhalt, not only in the next four, but twelve weeks. Thereafter, Idener – an internship in companies of the state follows, in which the acquired knowledge is applied.
Co-operation with the West African state should not be limited to the current time, informed Idens Head of Department, Dr. Manfred Weber. Yesterday, the students (18 – 44 years of age) were welcomed together with Birgit Gamperle. “We have tried to create a challenging and varied program for them” said Weber as he turned to the guests who have already completed a German course in their home, but not sacrificing an interpreter. If the lessons prove to be promising, which is the wish of the Nigerian state, the cooperation should be continued. Because the Osun State Governor, Rauf Aregbesola , campaigned with Saxony -Anhalt’s Minister for this form of training and was met with open ears.
Familiarizing themselves with modern technology
“The agriculture here and that in Nigeria cannot be compared with each other” said Gamperle. For that reason, the hurdles of the future teaching are not just small. What is reasonable? What is not? Both animal and plant production are not forgotten. Agriculture is the main industry in the State of Osun, where a variety of crops are grown including potatoes, corn and cocoa. The milk production is attributed as an equally important role. On the surfaces of Idener State Institute, students would learn, among other things, how they can use the modern technology in order to give a boost to the agriculture in their country.
“We want them to have a basis for more activities to take home” said Birgit Gamperle, but hopes for one thing: an active participation of the students who may also appreciate an interesting program with various tour companies.
VOLKSSTIMME

Osun State Governor Rauf Aregbesola has urged residents to be vigilant and report the vandalisation of public utilities to security agencies.
He spoke at the weekend during the 12th Walk-to-Live programme at Ijebu-Jesha, heaquarters of Oriade Local Government.
Aregbesola said: “The activities of vandals have affected the nation’s economy and destroyed social amenities. These people are bent on destroying the nation with their illegal activities. We must act as our own protectors, so we must be vigilant and protect these amenities.”
Addressing a crowd after a six-kilometre walk from Ilo-Ijesa to the Urban Day Grammar School, Ijebu-Jesa, Aregbesola said the programme was not a political campaign, but a “constant reminder” to the people to take care of their health.
Reiterating his administration’s commitment to promoting healthy living, he said: “Our government is concerned about the health of our people and we must always educate ourselves on the essence of physical fitness. Exercise is the best way to protect ourselves against diseases. Regular exercise keeps the body fit and make us live a healthy life in a clean environment.”
Former Lagos State House of Assembly Speaker Senator Olorunibe Mamora, who participated in the Walk, said the large turn out showed the people’s support for the government.
THE NATION

I congratulate Nigerians on the 53rd anniversary of our nation’s independence. But as we celebrate, we must also take time to reflect on the state of the nation. The Nigerian project is a bold experiment in nation-building. It is an experiment that has proved to be a challenging undertaking. But, for me, building Nigeria is an experiment that is well worth the attempt.
At independence, on this day in 1960, Nigeria was a country full of high hopes, and good prospects, with its diverse peoples filled with aspirations. But somewhere along the line, we got it fundamentally wrong, with the consequences that, today, 53 years on, we are still struggling to get the basics right. The country is faced with tough difficulties and mortal dangers on multiple fronts. Our efforts at nation-building are being affronted by manifold crises of under-development – bad governance; poor planning; industrial collapse; decay of basic infrastructure; socio-economic backwardness; political instability; insecurity; widespread poverty; social, ethnic and religious tension; high incidence of crime and criminality; and terrorism among many other woes.
These are undeniably serious setbacks to our development march; but they do not amount to any permanent incapacity for us not to move forward. Indeed, setbacks are necessary but temporary impediments along the path to progress. Therefore, I am at one with American entrepreneur, Les Brown, who counselled that: ‘Anytime you suffer a setback or disappointment. Put your head down and plow ahead’. Hence, I remain convinced that the Nigerian project is a viable one. And I am optimistic that we may yet get it right as a country; and convert our much vaunted great potentials into actual benefits for our people. All we need is sound leadership and good governance.
Indeed, our story on the independence path has not been doom and gloom only; it is also strewn with bright patches and shades of greatness. We have had sporting glories, a Nobel Prize in literature, representation in the top universities in the world and a Nigerian got in the Forbes 100 top list. For the most part, we groan so much at the cup being three quarter empty that we forgot it’s also one quarter full.
As someone in leadership position, I set my sight firmly on the promises the future holds and the opportunities that our great country can offer. My aspirations are for Nigeria to be able to overcome its development challenges, and to become one of the top 10 economies in the world in the shortest time possible. But we need to work towards achieving these goals. As a matter of urgency, we must shift our economic paradigm from sole dependence on oil towards productive diversification. Agriculture is a viable alternative here. We must develop our agriculture towards achieving food security. We must give primacy to food production as a strategic national imperative, for it is a sure basis for sustainable economic development.
Indeed, pursuing food security as a strategic value goes beyond merely feeding the people. Food security is a core pillar of national security. No nation can have genuine national security without food security. Therefore, if we make food security the driving force of our agricultural development, the accompanying spin-offs it will generate can only add greater value to our overall economic development efforts.
My conviction about agriculture as a viable solution to our unemployment problem lay in the fact that, an agricultural economy that is grounded in food production cannot fail. People can give up luxury items if occasion demands it. But for as long as we remain human, we will eat; food is a biological necessity! Luxury item are a matter of choice. People for instance can very easily forgo chocolate; but it would be hard to imagine them forgoing staple food like rice or potato. Food security is an essential condition for national security.
Related to this is the need to gainfully and meaningfully engage our youths by creating jobs and employment opportunities. Our present chronic youth unemployment situation is a potential source of social explosion. There is profound wisdom in productively engaging our youths. Young people are some of society’s greatest assets; but they can also be a major source of its problem. In Nigeria, youths constitute the bulk of our productive population, and that bulk is overwhelmingly unemployed! In other words, we have a potentially advantageous youth bulge in our population, which could also be turned into a bug by prolonged lack of employment.
Young people are energetic, talented, innovative, aspirational, and daring. These are good qualities for economic enterprise. We only need to be creative to harness them for the rapid socio-economic transformation of our country. Again, agriculture presents enormous possibilities in this regard. Our huge population offers immense opportunities as a market, and for massive job creation, that can absorb our teeming unemployed youths, and help in eradicating poverty.
Another area of great promise is information and communications technology. ICT also offers enormous possibilities for creating jobs and for meaningfully engaging our youths. After all, ICT is a field that is not only a product of innovation, it is driven by human creativity. Innovation and creativity are an area of strength for young people. They will have their imagination taxed and their minds energised. It can help focus the vibrant energies of our youths on positive development. In addition, it is a fertile area of almost infinite possibilities where the only limitation is the human imagination. Again, all we need do is to get our acts together; think and organise so that we can make the most of the opportunities available to us.
Essential to modern life and any economic endeavour is power, but this is an area in which the nation has been badly struggling. The circa 4,000mw the nation produces is a huge joke. This, when the economy is in full throttle, cannot even serve the Ikeja business district. Admittedly there have been great efforts at addressing the problem but they have amounted to little. This is the time to discard the old approach and tackle the problem of power squarely. We must be jolted by the realisation that without sufficient electric power, all other efforts will come to nought.
I am not trying to make light of the formidable challenges involved in making a success of the Nigerian project; my point is that the difficulties are not an excuse for failure. In fact, they are a compelling reason for us to try to overcome them. I am an unflinching believer in the assertion of George Bernard Shaw that ‘[t]he only real failure in life is the failure to try’. It is in our utmost interest not to fail to try. Success is only born of trying, and I am in no doubt at all that if we genuinely keep trying, we shall surely overcome.
October 1st of every year offers us the opportunity to review the journey of nationhood and to come to the awareness that just as we have the prospect of greatness, so also are we faced with the grim possibility of tipping over the brink; the probability of outcomes now depends on the choices that we make. It is my fervent hope and prayer, however, that we will always make the right choices and realise our greatest potential.
Once again, I congratulate us all and wish us happy independence celebrations