I read the interview granted by Diran Odeyemi, the big megaphone for Senator Iyiola Omisore the other day. As I ran through his meandering, his slicing and spinning, his squirming and quacking through issues regarding his boss’ ambition to become governor by fire-and-by-force in Osun, it was not difficult for me to conclude that all Diran was trying to do was attempt to repackage the garbage.
What Diran may have forgotten is that no matter how much you suit up a pig, it is what it is-a pig. No matter how much you try to repackage the garbage, it is what it is- the garbage. Anything connected to the PDP in Osun State today is malodorous garbage. You can box it up in the best American-made briefcase, you can clad it up with the most beautiful Italian gift wrap, and you can even soak it in a French perfume and cologne, the stench will still stink to high heavens.
I have asked people close to the Omisore campaign what the man stands for. None of them could tell me. They keep rambling that Omisore is a Doctor, he was a senator, and he helped pay Muyiwa Ige’s tuition when he was in the University. Is that it? That’s not what it takes to become a governor. There are thousands of Osun citizens who hold the PhD degree, there are a handful of people who have been senators, and there are millions among us who help pay people’s tuition every day, and many of them are market women and pure-water sellers. These are not qualifications you strap on to wanting to become a governor. Besides, we know Senator Omisore very, very well!
Let me give you a handful of qualifications that make not just a governor, but a good one who deserves re-election:
 

1. If 24 out of 38 members of your executive council don’t hold the same religious belief as you do, yet you appoint them based on merit, you are a good GOVERNOR.
2. If in your first 100 days as Governor you take off 20,000 indolent youths from the streets by training and giving them skills that last a lifetime, and then put them in the state workforce with fair remuneration, you are a good GOVERNOR.
3. If investors from the Western world are partnering with you based on evidences of quality work you do, not rhetoric and lies, you are a good GOVERNOR.
4. If the state you govern hands out computer tablets to students for free to enhance knowledge that last for as long as you live, you are a good GOVERNOR.
5. When your administration sets up a manufacturing company producing computers, plasma TV, cell-phones and other electronics, and its first-ever in Nigeria where thousands of people will be gainfully employed, you are a good GOVERNOR.
6. If your state from the bottom is numbered 34 out of 36 in riches and resources, if your state monthly allocation has been cut in half by spiteful opposition government at the center urged on by its local desperate, clueless ambassadors, and in spite of the deliberate high-handed pauperization scheme you are able to pay your bills and keep your election promises to the people, you are a good GOVERNOR.

These and much more has Rauf Adesoji Aregbesola, the incumbent governor of the State of Osun done! Who then do we believe, GRABAGE REPACKAGED or a total package of hope and verifiable results? Who do we believe?
THIS IS STRAIGHTUP TALK!!!
FOLA OJO in HARTFORD WISCONSIN U.S.A

Governor of Osun State, Rauf Aregbesola, has urged Nigerians to take to the streets to protest last week’s abduction of 234 girls from their hostel at Government Girl’s Secondary School, Chibok, Borno State.
Aregbesola spoke on Tuesday at the presentation of a book “Giant of History (The making of our world)” authored by the Lagos State Commissioner for Information, Mr. Lateef Ibirogba, at Civic Centre Lagos.
The governor, who was the Keynote Speaker at the event lamented that seven days after the abduction, it was frightening that there has been no lead as to where the girls have been kept.
“Am so depressed about what is happening in the country and I do not know how to put it. I cannot understand the rationale behind the kidnapping of school girls. Girls who left their homes with sole ambition of acquiring knowledge only to end up as companions to criminals it is frightening,” he said.
The governor lamented that Nigerians were gradually accepting kidnapping as a normal occurrence, saying that the time has come for all to rise up and kick against the situation.
“I don’t even know what say than to urge everybody to do anything humanly possible collectively and individually to put an end to this sad development. The Federal Government must rise up to this. Everyone in authority must act now. It is not only degrading us as a people, it is defaming us.
“As horrible as Afghanistan is we never read of human beings abducted .We talk of no man’s land of West Afghanistan, such does not happen. Nigeria is heading to the level that does not recognize us as civilized people and human beings anymore and it is a shame.
“I should not have said this here considering my position in the polity but what is my choice? When school children are being abducted in schools and we carry on as if it is mere statistics. It is not. We must protest on the streets to tell all of us that enough is enough.”
THE NATION

The story of reinventing Osun State may well have started from poor and unflattering circumstances. Back in 2003, four years before he ran for governor of the state and seven before he was declared winner and sworn in, Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola travelled round several communities in the state. What he saw did not lift his spirits. Old people, in most cases women in their late 60s and mid 70s, were surrounded by malnourished children.
This was a grim picture. Who were these kids? Most probably grandchildren left behind by their mothers in search of jobs and survival elsewhere.
It was at this point that the vision of a new Osun began to take shape. Something needed to be done to lift the people from the depths of poverty and despair. It would be a comprehensive approach. New jobs would be created, but more than that, the people needed to rediscover themselves and their worth. They also needed to be happy citizens of Osun once again. Collapsed infrastructure would be revived, nonexistent ones put in place. The uninspiring school system needed a new lease of life and parents must be encouraged to begin to send their children to school. The school infrastructure, nothing to write home about at that time, must be upgraded to make it as inspiring to both teachers and pupils as possible.
There was a plan for developing local technology, a clear vision for boosting the state economy and getting Osun citizens to give their best to the state and be happy working for the collective.
Aregbesola is said to have got to work, mobilising partners who would help work out a development plan for the state. One striking thing that came out of that plan was the Osun Green Book, which rallied the people to the awareness of their liberty and freedom to determine their own affairs.
Four years on, the picture of the new Osun has appeared and the people seem to like what they see. Considerable order has become part of the state. You can tell from the landscaping of the road as soon as you cross into the state end of the border, and also from the trees planted on both sides of the road.
“The landscaping makes for more pleasurable driving,” said Mr Adelowo Adewumi, Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Regional Planning and Special Duties.
That same pleasure and ease informed the policy of at least 10km of roads in each of the state’s 30 local government areas, in addition to one Area Office, added the permanent secretary. The road plan has helped to open up the rural areas, making it easier for farmers not just to access their farms but also to transport their produce to any market in the state. Residents of rustic, Ori-Oke prayer mountain community of Ikoyi also benefitted from the policy.
The focus on education is perhaps even more striking. In several towns, eye-catching schools with modern learning tools have replaced the dilapidated and off-putting facilities that used to exist in those places. Elementary schools enjoy this attention as much as do the middle and high schools. And Governor Aregbe-sola and his team are quick to point out that the postcard-perfect schools are not model facilities. They are the standard Osun schools, they say, adding that in time every school in the state will not only be a beauty to behold but will offer state-of-the-art learning and teaching aids.
“We went to Osun purposefully,” Aregbesola likes to say, adding, “The state was on the journey to perdition if the trend wasn’t stopped.”
That slide has been halted not only in schools where enrolment is perhaps the highest in the country, but also on the streets of towns and cities as well as villages in the state. Like every other state, unemployment was a big concern. Jobless young people fled the state in droves in search of jobs in such places as Lagos State. Those who stayed behind could only swallow hard and grind their teeth; in some cases, they were a problem to everybody.
The OYES, a youth jobs scheme, has considerably thinned down the mass of the unemployed in the state, helping to curb crime in tow. Tens of thousands of youths have been trained in skills and put to work, either directly employed by the state government or privately engaged. So many young people in the state across both sexes have been trained to control traffic or keep the streets tidy. Some women drive heavy-duty refuse trucks and are happy doing so. Some have been trained to make durable burnt bricks, some to raise fish, a good number to make garments.
The Omoluabi Garments Factory puts the fabric-making plan in great relief. There, hands and minds are at work on an array of sewing machines. The movement of workers from one point to another is constant.
Mr Oyedeji Abayomi, branch manager of the facility, said 3,500 garments are produced everyday at the factory. This is impressive.
Every month, the state makes N200m, Aregbesola said. His administration’s revenue policy should take the credit for that, especially the plan to source 60 per cent of every project locally, and to give 80 per cent of the work to locals. This prevents capital flight and boosts the local economy. Three different uniforms are used in Osun public schools. All the uniforms are sewn by Osun residents. This creates jobs for the locals and helps to retain revenue in the state.
You also find this approach at work at the Ayegbaju International Market, a sprawling facility boasting a bank, hospital, hotel, police and fire stations, and warehouses, among others, including a second-hand clothing section.
“2,500 people work at the market every day,” Dr Wale Bolorunduro, Commissioner of Finance, Economic Planning and Budget said as work at the market was rounded off preparatory to its inauguration.
Bolorunduro is happy that the market project, which is directly under his ministry, has kept to plan, and that the Aregbesola administration is delivering on its promises.
Just as happy is Mr Ajibola Basiru, Commissioner of Regional Integration and Special Duties, whose alma mater, one of the state’s primary schools, was given a new life in Aregbesola’s education plan. Basiru believes that the governor has done what he said he will do, and that Osun people are happy with him.
The state is touted as Nigeria’s seventh largest economy. In a few years, quality hotels are springing up in Osogbo, the capital. But one firm that is helping in growing the state economy is Rlg, a telecoms firm in Ilesha, specialising in repair and assembly of GSM phones and tablets. The firm, whose headquarters is in Ghana is in partnership with OYES, and has provided jobs to scores of Osun citizens.
Four years on, a new Osun is visible. Grandmas in the rural settings may heave a sigh of relief.
THE NATION

Professor Pat Utomi is an economist and a politician. He co-founded the Lagos Business School, now Pan African University.  In this interview, Utomi speaks on the on-going National Conference and the economy among other issues.

One of the biggest issues in the country today is the National Conference.  We have optimists concerning the conference. We also have pessimists. There are those who are neither here nor there. Where do you stand?

I have made it part of business to keep challenging us about what our consciousness should be. In recent times, we have begun to focus on two sets of activities to deal with this matter. The first has to do with the hope that was raised that a national dialogue could result in a certain understanding of what has kept us back and how we could look at the future so that we could make the progress that is deservedly ours given the endowment of our country.

In that regard, I was the convener of the National Summit Group which began the formal canvassing for National Conference. But I am deeply sad at what came to be known as the National Conference. It’s a tragedy for Nigeria that we ended up with how the body was constituted.

It is incapable of engaging the future; it is talk on the past and the personal quarrels of yesterday. It lacks the capacity, in terms of many of the people who are there and in terms of their endowment not because they are good or bad people, to engage the future. And so, many people are now dismissing the conference as a waste of good time, good money and all kinds of motives are now being imputed on how it was constituted, why it was constituted, and all of that.

What kind of conference would you have loved to see?
The conference should be building national consensus, talking about acceptable norms. To return to Delta, a couple of weeks ago I talked about this movement for a new Delta; I said that one of the easiest ways to characterize a new Delta is a programme that I called ‘Aregbe Times 20’.
What does ‘Aregbe Times 20’ mean? There was a lot of talk on how many pupils/students were in school in Osun State because they get free lunch. You can give breakfast and lunch in a state like Delta and not encounter any challenge finding the resources to execute it. If any progress must take place, there are two things government must do: education and healthcare. People who are well and educated will create their future.
And so when you look at what (Governor) Aregbesola is doing, you will see it translate, in few years, into a different kind of Osun State. It is not by accident that today we keep talking about the advantage that the South-west has because of Chief Awolowo’s policy on education in the 50s.
READ the full interview… http://www.vanguardngr.com/2014/04/national-conference-incapable-engaging-future-pat-utomi/

 

In 1982 was an action powerhouse movie called RAMBO which starred Sylvester Stallone as a Vietnam veteran who used his advanced military techniques, machine guns and bare hands to fight off the entire police force of a few towns. RAMBO turned these towns into warfronts with his armaments. In Nigeria, there is now our own RAMBO in Vice-President, Namadi Sambo who has promised that Osun and Ekiti states will be warfronts in the coming gubernatorial elections. This time, he seems to be promising us; it will not be a movie!
What is making this threat more unsettling is the optics of several incidents we now see in the aftermath of the statement.  A couple of days after the utterance, we saw Ayo Fayose, the Ekiti ambassador in the state Governorship election cladded in a bullet-proof vest during a campaign event. That confirms that some kind of war is looming in that state. Musiliu Obanikoro, Minister of State of Defense mobilized men in army uniform to the site of the Ondo bye-election that was just concluded. The location was filled with pandemonium and violence and INEC indicted him.
Before the RAMBO statement was made, Jelili Adesiyan, Minister of Police Affairs we heard pounced on Isiaka Adeleke with 40 anti-riot policemen during last month’s PDP primaries where Iyiola Omisore became the governorship flag bearer of the party. What in the world is wrong with us about power, money and politics? Do we have to fight wars to serve the people? I don’t think so. If Ekiti and Osun become frontiers of violence in the coming elections, Vice President Sambo will be held responsible for importing RAMBO into the states.
The unpleasant cumulus the statement has further created is that Vice President Namadi “Rambo” Sambo has not come out to deny or walk back the talk. He has not apologized for heating up the polity in these states. It then affirms that our own Sambo who has now become a leading “Rambo” of the PDP meant every word he spoke. The truth now is that our own Vice-President is now SAMBO THE RAMBO who has signaled something that should make APC members, Aregbesola, Fayemi and all the citizens in these two states sleep with only on eye closed.
THIS IS STRAIGHTUP TALK!

Cross section of Indigenes and non-indigenes of Osun Boarding the Free Train Ride provided by the State Government of Osun, back to Lagos State after the Easter celebration at Osogbo Terminus, State of Osun on Monday 21-04-2014