Barely three days after the Governor of Osun, Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola bagged the 2013 man of the Year of one of the leading national dailies, Daily Independent, another laurel has come the way of state as its innovative Islamic bond, Sukuk earned bagged the Islamic Financial News Deal of the Year Award in Dubai, United Arabs Emirates Monday night.
It was an evening of honour for Osun and Lotus Capital, the issuing house that handled the Sukuk deal for the state as the Managing Director of IFN, Mr. Andrew Morgan, presented the award to the team from Nigeria.
Andrew Morgan, who is also the Publisher of the RedMoney Group, presented the award to the Nigerian team which comprised Osun Commissioner for Finance, Dr. Wale Bolorunduro;  who represented Governor Rauf Aregbesola, Mrs. Hajara Adeola, the MD Lotus Capital Limited;  Mrs Taba Peterside , the General Manager and Head Listing Sales and retention of Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE); Dele Oladunjoye of Kola Awodein and Co., solicitor to the Sukuk deal and Alhaja Lateefat Okunnu, Director Lotus Capital Limited.
Speaking Monday evening, Bolorunduro attributed the award to Governor Aregbesola’s penchant for exploring new ways to solve problems.
“Kudos should go to Ogbeni Aregbesola for this award. His three years in office have shown that here is a man who stops at nothing to embrace novel ideas as long as those ideas further he interests of the common man. The state has provided the platform for Lotus Capital to prove that this can be done. We are grateful for this recognition,” said Bolorunduro.
The State of Osun is not only reaping a bumper harvest but also getting international recognition, rewards and laurels for the pioneer achievements being recorded by its government. For breaking new grounds and introducing new ideas in governance, the sky appears to be the beginning for Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola’s government. After deep, thorough and adroit thinking, the government arrived at a viable alternative of fund sourcing for the development of the state’s comatose infrastructural facilities.
Aregbesola found a more convenient source of fund in the Islamic-oriented bond system (popularly called Sukuk), specifically meant for part funding re-construction of the state’s educational infrastructure. Thus, in November   2013, Osun set another record of being the first state in Nigeria to go for the Islamic bond (sukuk).
Besides, the successful completion of this bond issuance also made such transaction the first in the West African sub-region.
The good news is that less than three months after this novel deal, Osun Sukuk and the leading issuing house, Lotus Capital Limited, had been nominated for an international Award. It was gathered that Lotus Capital Limited was singled out for having successfully pioneered the Osun sukuk, a maiden sukuk issue in the country. The globally recognised Islamic Finance News (IFN) last month nominated the N11.4billion Osun Sukuk as the African deal of the year 2013, and  Lotus Capital, being the issuing house of the Sukuk, is being recognised for the unprecedented transaction.
The award came on the heels of the leading role Lotus Capital played alongside forty two (42) other issuing houses in Nigeria in the successful completion of the Osun Sukuk. With this nomination, Lotus Capital, a pioneer Islamic finance organisation in Nigeria, which specialises in handling equitable  interest-free financial services (popularly known as Islamic Finance), has been invited   by IFN to receive the 2013 edition of the global award.
The grand finale takes place at the Ritz Carlton (DFIC) Dubai, United Arab Emirates on February 24, 2014.
Lotus Capital Limited was established in June 2004 and registered with the Nigerian Security and Exchange Commission as fund managers, Corporate Investment Advisers and Issuing Houses.
It has as head the former Managing Director of Guarantee Trust Bank(GTB), Mr. Fola Adeola.
Going by world financial record, Lotus, which successfully introduced and completed Osun Sukuk, is now adjudged as one of the world’s fastest growing financial organisations with over 200 billion US dollars in assets across the world.
Again, the company is said to be growing at an annual rate of 20 per cent. Some of the company’s directors and management members expected to lead the team going to receive the award in Dubai include Mrs. Lateefat Okunnu, Mr. Muhammad Nuruddeen Lemu, Mrs. Amina Oyagbola and the company’s Managing Director/Chief Executive Officer, Mrs. Hajara Adeola.
Representing the Executive Governor of Osun, Ogbeni Rauf Adesoji Aregbesola is Dr. Wale Bolorunduro, the Commissioner for Finance, accompanied by the Acting Director General of Osun Debt Management Office, Mr. Tunde Adejumo.
It will be recalled Osun, under its N60billion bond issuance programme, approved by the Securities and Exchange Commisison (SEC) in 2012,  went for the N14. 4 billion Sukuk (14. 75 per cent) fixed return in November 2014. The maiden Sukuk which was oversubscribed has on record forty two (42) investors, cutting across a blend of corporate, institutional as well as High networth investors, under the auspices of Lotus Capital Limited as the leading issuing house and Augusto and Co, one of Nigeria’s rating agencies, as the rating agent.
The Sukuk was issued in accordance with the Osun State Bonds, Notes and Other Securities Law 2012. A special purpose Vehicle company – Osun Sukuk Company Plc, a duly registered public liability company anchored the issue.
While authorising and approving the offer at the Company’s board meeting in November last year, Governor Rauf Aregbesola said his government embraces Capital market funding for most of its infrastructure development projects (such as the building of new schools and renovation of some old one, road constructions, healthcare services, commercial infrastructure) given its associated benefits such as lower cost, and stability of interest rate over the transaction tenor.
He appealed to the people to see the bond option as an avenue to attract development to the state for the benefit of all and sundry. According to the governor, “The Sukuk is a veritable avenue for us to access capital to develop our state and it will be used to finance building of schools across the state”.
The Governor re-affirmed that his administration is passionate about the welfare of the people as well as tangible development in the state state. He further remarked that ” the paucity of funds accruable and so available to the state can do little of the developmental agenda of the current administration”.  Corroborating the Governor, the state’s Commissioner for Finance, Dr. Wale Bolorunduro, maintained during the completion meeting on the issue (held last year November),  that “raising fund under the  current financial condition in the country  is like drinking water from fire-hose, the changes in the market are too rapid, but Osun in its characteristic innovative financing has been doing it.” Bolorunduro  reiterated that “the over subscription of Osun sukuk is a positive confirmation of the trust and confidence, the market placed on Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola who has brought prudence, purpose and performance to government”.
The chairperson of Lotus Capital, Mrs. Hajara Adeola, also while reacting to the successful completion  and over-subscription of the issue noted that the sukuk’s success represented a clear vote of confidence in Governor Aregbesola’s administration, the State of Osun and its people.
Adeola said that the governor had become unique for his penchant for exploring novel ways of doing things, adding that the sukuk represented another instance of Aregbesola’s exploring new ways of seeking for the development of the state.
Since the successful issue of Osun Sukuk, states’ governments  and Federal Government of Nigeria have been looking at the direction of Sukuk as an alternative of funding their capital projects.
To Aregbesola, it is a bumper harvest of award for excellence and innovations. Just last Friday, Aregbesola’s penchant for exploring alternative perspectives towards achieving growth earned him a noble award – the Daily Independent’s Man of the Year Award. The national newspaper premised it’s decision to award Aregbesola on what it called symbol of alternative perspectives.
Obviously, Lotus Capital Limited has won the award, but the fact is not lost on the company that the state offered itself as the platform upon which Lotus rose to this enviable height.

The state government of Osun has nominated a former Chief of General Staff during the military era and elder statesman Gen Alani Akinrinade, former Speaker of the House of Assembly in the State, Prof Mojeed Alabi and four others to represent the state at the national conference being organised by the Federal Government.
Others on the list of nominees are a former Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Defence Mr. Femi Akande, former Commissioner for Justice in the State,  Chief Gbadegesin Adedeji, Director General Development Agenda for Western Nigerian Commission Mr. Dipo Famakinwa and Mrs. Bola Ogunrinade (mni).
The Deputy Governor of the state Mrs Grace Titi Laoye Tomori acting on the directive of the Governor Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola had forwarded a letter to the office of the Secretary to Government of the Federation Chief Anyim Pius Anyim.

Markets play critical role in economic life of Nigerians, especially for those in the rural areas. This is why the Osun State government is constructing markets across the state for the people.
The state has said the multi-million naira Ayegbaju International Market being constructed by the administration will soon be commissioned.
Osun State Governor, Rauf Aregbesola, stated this while speaking at a one- day sensitisation workshop on the N220 billion Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises Development Fund (MSMEDF) organised by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) for stakeholders in the state.
Aregbesola, represented by the state Commissioner for Finance, Budget and Economic Planning, Dr. Wale Bolorunduro, said the state government has concluded arrangement to commission the multi-million naira Osogbo Ayegbaju International market for use of the traders.
He stated further that the government would also empower women of the state with N600 million in the next few weeks.
He maintained that the government has worked out modalities with micro finance banks to disburse the loan to the beneficiaries of the government gesture.
The governor, who urged the people, especially women, to maximise the opportunity of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN)’s loan, described them as a major factor in the economic development of the state, promising that the state was ready to maximise the apex bank loan for development of the state and its citizenry.
Aregbesola stated that when the present administration came on board in November 2010, the gross Domestic product (GDP) of the state was $5 billion, which it has increased into over $9billion in 2013.
He flayed the critics of his administration, saying that the state is now the seventh largest economy in the federation going by the Federal Government data on GDP, adding that the opposition parties in the state lack knowledge about the economic development of the state.
He reiterated that no fewer than 200,000 people would benefit from the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN)’s gesture in collaboration with the state government, noting that Osun State government would provide counterpart fund in order to increase the number of beneficiaries to 400,000.
He stressed that the state government would provide bank guarantee for the cooperative socities in the state that show interest to access the fund.
The branch controller of the CBN, Mr. Macduff Okorode Efetabore, while speaking, explained the reason why the apex bank initiated the fund, saying it was to develop the economic status of over two million Nigeria citizens, particularly 60 per cent of women entrepreneurs in the period of ten years.
He said that the main objective of the fund was to provide, low interest fund the to Nigerian economy through participating financial institutions.
CBN boss also stated that the management team of the bank recognised the strategic position of state governments to the Nigerian citizens at the grassroots, thereby making them important stakeholders in the administration of the fund. He added that CBN has developed operational guidelines for the state government participation in the MSME development fund.
Effetabore maintained, “The MSMED fund has two broad objectives, which are social and commercial. The social/development fund shall constitute 10 per cent, broken down as follows: grants per cent, interest drawback three per cent, managing agents’ operations cost two per cent, adding that the commercial fund shall constitute 90 per cent of the fund as follows; wholesale funding-90 per cent of the commercial component and guarantees/refinancing-10 per cent of the commercial component.
“Considering the peculiar challenges faced by women in accessing financial services in Nigeria, the revised micro-finance policy, regulatory and supervisory framework in section 4.2 (1V) provides that women’s access to financial services should increase by 15 per cent annually in order to eliminate gender disparity. In order to achieve this, sixty 60 per cent, which is N132.00 billion of the fund has been earmarked for providing financial services to women.
“In operating the fund, special consideration shall also be given to institutions that will provide financial services to graduates of the Central Bank of Nigeria’s Entrepreneurship Development Centres (EDCs)”.
DAILY INDEPENDENT

The Deputy Executive Secretary of Obokun Local Government Area of Osun State, Mr Ekundayo Adeniyi, has commended the state governor, Mr Rauf Aregbesola, for the development programmes he had been carrying out to transform the state.
Ekundayo stated this at the recognition of Aregbesola as the 2013 man of the year, by the Daily Independent newspaper, recently.
According to the council boss, within three years and some months, Aregbesola had impacted positively on the state through tarring of roads, construction of drainages in order to prevent erosion, building of four millennium schools, introduction of monthly environmental sanitation exercise in other to ensure healthy living of the people and recruitment of over 40,000 youths under OYES scheme, among others.
He also commended the governor for the payment of 13th month salary to workers, introduction of free feeding for primary school pupils, distribution of 750,000 school uniforms free of charge to secondary school students and the security of lives and property of the citizens of the state by making provision for several patrol vehicles for the security agencies, as well as the purchase of an helicopter.
Ekundayo urged the people of the state to allow the good work of Aregbesola to continue by voting massively for him in the August 9, 2014 gubernatorial election in the state.
TRIBUNE

Photos from the Send-forth Ceremony for the Outgoing SDS in Osogbo, State of Osun

Governor State of Osun, Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola (2nd right); Speaker,
State of Osun House of Assembly, Honourable Najeem Salaam (2nd left);
Outgoing State Director, Security (SDS), Mr. Joshua Yakubu (right) and
Incoming SDS, Mr. Andrew Iorkyar (left), during the Send-forth
Ceremony for the Outgoing SDS in Osogbo, State of Osun

Governor State of Osun, Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola (left) and Outgoing
State Director, Security (SDS), Mr. Joshua Yakubu (right), during his
Send-forth Ceremony in Osogbo, State of Osun

From left, Governor State of Osun, Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola; Outgoing
State Director, Security (SDS), Mr. Joshua Yakubu; Commandant
Engineering Construction Regiment (ECR), Ede, Brigadier General Gbenga
Adeyemi; Commissioner for Police, Osun Command, Mr Ibrahim Maishanu
and others, during the Send-forth Ceremony for the Outgoing SDS in
Osogbo, State of Osun

From left, Governor State of Osun, Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola; Outgoing
State Director, Security (SDS), Mr. Joshua Yakubu; Speaker, State of
Osun House of Assembly, Honourable Najeem Salaam; Incoming SDS, Mr.
Andrew Iorkyar and Commissioner for Police, Osun Command, Mr Ibrahim
Maishanu, during the Send-forth Ceremony for the Outgoing SDS in
Osogbo, State of Osun

Relief may have finally come the way of victims of political violence of 2007 governorship election in Osun State as the government has accepted the White Paper on the Truth and Reconciliation Commission set up by governor Rauf Aregbesola to look into cases of human right abuses during the administration of former governor Olagunsoye Oyinlola headed by retired Justice Samson Uwaifo.
Commissioner for Information and Strategy, Mr. Sunday Akere who confirmed the submission of the panel’s recommendation yesterday, said the recommendations would be implemented to the letter by the government.
He disclosed that the 285- page recommendation of the commission was received by Governor Aregbesola at the end of the weekly executive council meeting at the Governor’s office.
VANGUARD

No fewer than 280 gender sensitive and socially inclusive micro-projects have been successfully implemented and functional while 65 others are on-going by the Osun state Community Social Development Project {CSDP}.
Osun state CSDP General Manager {GM},Mrs Funmi Abokede noted that the World Bank assisted project has the capacity to enhance rapid development of the country if properly executed in view of its immense contribution to the upliftment of rural communities in the state.
Abokede, who canvassed this position while presenting the activities of the agency to reporters in Osogbo,Osun state at the weekend said since its inception in 2009,the agency had assisted in the realisation of the government’s six-point Integral Action Plan to banish poverty, hunger, unemployment, restore healthy living, promote functional eduction and enhance communal peace and progress.
The GM noted involvement of communities in the execution of identified projects coupled with close monitoring activity by the agency have contributed to the modest success attained in the scheme.
Giving details on how the agency conducts its affairs, she explained, “Communities provided on the spot information about their critical needs to ensure that these specific needs are met through appropriate intervention strategies with active involvement of community members. As such, community members are not just beneficiaries of community development programmes but they are also actors”.
Some of the projects completed for the benefit of rural dwellers cut across different sectors including education, water, health, rural electrification, environment and natural resources, transport, socio-economic, gender and vulnerable groups.
She attributed the achievemnents recorded by the agency to effective resource utilisation and the support received from governor Rauf Aregbeola who increased the state counterpart funding from N100million to N200 million.
According to her, Osun state came second after Cross River state in access to the World Bank facility among the 26 participating states in the scheme in the federation due to its commitment to the project.
“A total sum of $7,732,076.10 million (N1,191,721,373.65 billion) was accessed from the World Bank instead of initial $5,000,000 million (N750, 000, 000 million) as a result of good performance”, Abokede said.
She noted Osun CSDP was unique because the agency gave voice and decision making responsibility to women and other vulnerable groups which led to the formation of a group called “Women In Development {WID} network comprising 253 women treasurers in the 253 CSPP communities.
She said as at February this year, the agency had executed 280 gender sensitive community micro projects that have impacted positively on the populace while 65 others were still on-going.
GUARDIAN

The Deputy Governor of the State of Osun,,Mrs Grace Titi Laoye Tomori after a careful review of the circumstances that surrounded the indefinite closure of A.D.S High School,Osogbo,has  lifted the ban and instructed  the  school to re-open immediately.
This was contained in a press release signed by the Permanent Secretary,Ministry of Education,Mr Lawrence Oyeniran.
According to the release,teaching and learning activities would commence on Tuesday 25th February,2014,immediately after the Mid-Term break.
The statement added that Parents and guardians are enjoined to guard against unwholesome behaviour of their children and wards in order to ensure that  they henceforth exhibit the Omoluabi culture both within and outside the School.
The statement stressed further that for the avoidance of doubt ,any Student of the school that fails to conduct himself or herself within the established school rules and regulations would be disciplined appropriately.

THE Vanguard newspaper editorial of Tuesday, 11 February 2014, page 18 Of Choristers, Hijab, Masquerades was an apparent attempt to put in perspective the disturbances that played up at the Baptist High School, Iwo in the State of Osun.
The newspaper directed its searchlight on the causes of the disturbances, the role of stakeholders, including the government and what the true situation is beyond the sensationalism of the whole issue in certain media quarters.
Vanguard should be commended for its role of informing the people on the activities of government. But while putting the matters in perspective, the editorial became fraught with wrong assumptions and fallacies.
This became more evident in the insinuation that religion is at the centre of every policy of the government; concluding that the reported disagreement in Iwo amounts to reaping the fruits of the perceived heavy investment of government in religion.
One should be interested in a dispassionate x-raying of the programmes of the Rauf Aregbesola administration to determine where religious bias is evident.
A look at the flagship programmes of the administration such as youth empowerment, infrastructure provisions, school reform projects, environment, urban renewal, industrialisation efforts, security, health, social security schemes do not in any way reflect anything close to that insinuation.
It would have been an issue had the recruitment of 40,000 youths under the Osun Youth Empowerment Scheme (OYES) been carried out on the basis of religion. It would have been an issue had schools being built now throughout the state been selected on the basis of religion.
Have the over 750 kilometres of roads already completed selected on the basis of religion? Were the 1,602 vunerale elderly persons selected for monthly social security scheme that entitles them to N10,000 monthly chosen on the basis of their faith? Were the 3,100 women trained and employed to provide nutritious meal to about 350,000 pupils of elementary schools under the O’MEAL scheme chosen on the basis of their faith?
If no one can locate religion at the centre of any of these policies that have driven the state in the last three years from its very parlous state to what is now the 7th largest economy in Nigeria, how then can anyone accuse the Aregbesola administration of promoting religion as claimed in the editorial?
The impression must be corrected that there is no tension whatsoever in the state as reported by some newspapers. The drama that is presented to the world in the most sensational form as manifest in Osun is limited to a particular school where the Baptist Mission wrongly assumed ownership of the institution and from that incorrect premise and notion, squares up to the government in some aspects of the state-wide education reform.
Two, there was no time government converted any legacy missionary schools. Federal Government took them over nationwide almost 40 years ago through a law. Hence, these schools are public schools solely controlled and run by government.
The example cited in the editorial that government turned Baptist Boys High school, Ejigbo, a boys-only school, to a mixed school, is also untrue.
More than 30 years ago, the said Baptist Boys High School had been converted to a mixed school. Anything to the contrary is untrue. That was more than three decades before the government came to power.
On the use of hijab, the disagreement between the Christians and their Muslim counterparts predates the present government. Its peak was when the matter was taken to the court which automatically makes it impossible for the government to make any categorical policy for now until the matter is dispensed with at the court.
What the High Court in the state said was that the status quo ante should be maintained pending the determination (judgment) on the matter. And as a product of the rule of law, the government of Aregbesola couldn’t do less but obey and abide by the pronouncement of this court of record.
In other words, at no time did the government direct the use of hijab in public schools and it must be stated that hijab wearing is not a thing that started with the newly introduced public schools’ uniform by the Aregbesola government.
What happened at the Baptist High School, Iwo, was not in any way a fall out of the school reform. Rather, the reform has even unearthed what has been a time bomb of indiscipline, cultism and various other disastrous undercurrents that had militated against brilliant performances of children in schools.
But while those rots were unveiled, those who want to score cheap political points have moved in, in order to discredit a reform whose result alone is enough to knock them out of contest with Aregbesola in the coming governorship election in August let alone all other people-focused policies.
We must put it on record that at no time was security threatened in the state. The incident at the Baptist, Iwo, last two weeks, where 92 students protested either the use or otherwise of hijab is not strange.
The government has demonstrated the highest form of responsiveness and responsibility by tackling the matter decisively and halting the drift.
Source: VANGAURD

The Osun House of Assembly has urged the state’s Independent Electoral Commission (OSIEC) to be transparent in the conduct of the forthcoming local government election this year.
The council election, earlier scheduled to hold in March, is postponed because of the pending bill seeking to create additional 27 local governments.
Mr. Kamil Oyedele, Chairman, House Committee on Finance and Appropriation, gave the charge when the Chairman of OSIEC, Mr. Segun Oladitan, and other officials of the commission appeared before the House Committee on Budget review in Osogbo.
Oyedele said the commission must ensure that all the political parties that would participate were given a level-playing ground to operate during the election.
He said the conduct of the election and its result must be acceptable to all the parties, adding that OSIEC should carry along all the stakeholders in the exercise.
“This assembly charges you to be transparent in the conduct of the election for the result to be acceptable to all as a free and fair poll. The house is ready to give necessary assistance to the commission for a successful conduct of council polls in Osun,’’ Oyedele said.
Earlier, Oladitan said the commission had begun preparation toward a successful conduct of the poll.
“We have begun discussions with the police, market women and other relevant stakeholders with a view to achieving a free and fair poll. As part of the preparations, the commission has visited four states of the federation where local government elections had been conducted,’’ Oladitan said.
He gave an assurance that the commission would conduct a referendum before the poll, to allow members of the public and corporate bodies to contribute to its success.
Oladitan solicited for adequate fund from the state government for the election.
NIGERIAN OBSERVER