It was widely reported shortly after Muhammadu Buhari assumed office as the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria that 27 out of the 36 states of the Federation including Osun State had difficulties in meeting salaries payment obligation of their workers as a result of the nation’s dwindling Oil revenue.
 
 

 
For this reason, the then newly elected Buhari Government offered to help concerned state governments with concessionary loan, popularly called bailout fund facilitated through the Apex bank, Central Bank of Nigeria(CBN) to defray backlog of salaries arrear.
 
Requests were made to the Central Bank of Nigeria by concerned states, the Osun State government  requested for N64,327,492,947.01 to cover salaries, allowances, pensions and gratuities of State workers while a sum of N23,887,975,810.26 was requested to offset the outstanding arrears of salaries, allowances, pension and gratuities of local government workers in the State but unfortunately, the Central Bank of Nigeria CBN only approved and released N25,871,920,000 to cover just salaries and allowances of state workers, leaving out pension and gratuities while only N9,117,070,000 was approved and released by the CBN for arrears of salaries and allowances also leaving out local government pension and gratuities just as it was done for their counterparts in the state.
 

For the sake of emphasis, no fund was released for pension and gratuity by the CBN to the state government  despite the fact that it was included in the request of N64,327,492,947.01 for state workers and N25,871,920,000  for local government workers to the apex bank
 
A total sum of N34bn not inclusive of the pension was released to the Osun State government for state and local government workers’ salaries and allowances which is far less than the requested amount by the state .
 
However, to further display a high level of transparency in the disbursement of the loan referred to as  bailout fund, the state government and the labour unions agreed to supervise the disbursement of the fund for the state government and local government workers in line with the CBN guideline, an apportionment committee headed by the first NLC President, Comrade Hassan Sunmonu, with labour unions and other stakeholders as members was set up to monitor the fund and the revenue from other sources, This, no doubt, afforded the labour unions and relevant stakeholders the opportunity to monitor all transactions as attested to by labour unions and bankers involved in the bailout disbursement.
Despite the fact that pensioners were not captured in the bailout fund released to the Osun State government, Mr Rauf Aregbesola for his love for the pensioners magnanimously ensured that both state and local government pensioners benefited from the bailout fund. The government had paid the pensioners up till August 2016 in line with modulated salary structures as applicable to civil servants in the state. The pensioners should ordinarily not have been paid from the fund, but for the magnanimity of the governor, who said they must be included  because they had served the state diligently.
It is important to debunk insinuations aimed at blackmailing Mr Rauf Aregbesola’s administration that the bailout fund was mismanaged. Of all the states, no state has been transparent and open in terms of management of the use of the fund as Osun State.
Yes, you shall know the truth and it shall set you free!
All evidence have shown that the Osun State government has demonstrated a high sense of responsibility and transparency in the application of the fund and as of  November 30, 2016, the state government had N2.040 million in First Bank and N1.312 million in Wema Bank as balance of the bailout fund for the state with a balance of N173,226,000 domiciled in Zenith Bank  for the Local Government bailout fund  .
It is also worth noting that under that modulated salaries structure, a chunk of Osun workers still receive full salaries and allowances while only those in the senior cadre get half salaries. Confirmed reports even had it that the state government has directed an upward review of salaries and allowance under the modulated salary scheme for immediate payment of Sept, Oct, Nov and Dec 2016 salaries payment . It is no doubt regrettable that we find ourselves in such a situation as a result of dwindling revenue  which has made several neighboring states default in payment of salaries and allowance for between 8 and 15 months now.
The diligent use of the bailout given to the Osun State government has afforded her to continuously meet salaries obligation despite meagre allocation accruing to the state while unprecedented infrastructural development has continued across the length and breadth of the state  .

Osun state government has debunked the insinuations making the round that the state has received another concessionary fund popularly called bailout fund from Federal Government.
 
 

 
The state government reiterated its commitment to the welfare of its workforce stressing that the government would continue to promote religious tolerance and diversity in the state.
Governor Aregbesola made this known while speaking at the Year 2016 Christmas Carol jointly organised by the and Osun State Christian Association of Nigeria (OSCAN).
Dispelling the rumours that have generated mixed reactions from different quarters in the state, the Deputy Governor, Mrs. Titilayo Laoye Tomori, who represented her boss, said that the government only received part of the refunds from the Paris/London Club loans deductions through the Federal Government.
Aregbesola maintained that the government has been fair to workers in the state despite the harsh economic condition rocking the nation.
He reassured the people of the state of his administration’s unrelenting efforts to continuously ensure religious tolerance, harmony and balance as well as peaceful cohabitation among the residents in the state.
According to him, the peace experiencing in the state was due to the state government’s high level of cordiality among faithful of different religions living in the state.
Governor charged indigenes and residents in the state to continue to see beyond religious differences and live together in peace and devoid of acrimony.
He therefore expressed happiness at the Inter-Denominational Christmas Carol, saying that the coming together showed that various denominations in the state christian circle are one and in peace.
Also speaking at the carol that saw various churches and faithful gathered at the Osogbo city stadium in Osogbo, the state capital, OSCAN Chairman, Very Rev. Michael Okodua said the carol was organised to mark the coming of Jesus Christ into the world through the celebration of Christmas.
The cleric charged Christians to always be wary of the second coming of their saviour  asking them to avoid sinful occasions and be prayerful.
The august occasion witnessed the rendition of songs and reading of scriptures by various choirs from different denominations in the state which portrayed the season of Christmas.
Likewise, the participants at the programme were full of gladness as they sang and danced alongside the choir just as prayers were said for the state and the country at large.

In a paper presented at a colloquium to mark his six years in office as governor of Osun State, Rauf Aregbesola reiterated his administration’s commitment to laying a solid foundation for the state in every area such that tampering with its progress in the future would be difficult, if not impossible. While describing “rising expenditure, especially wage bill, within the contrast of falling revenue” as the  biggest challenge  facing  his  government, Aregbesola promised that his administration would do all within its powers to ensure that no one was left behind in the distribution of  the  dividends of democracy  to the  good  people  of  Osun. “We are grappling with the challenge of finance and we are doing all within our power to complete all the projects we started. We are not going to leave any project uncompleted”, the governor stated.
 

 
Democracy hath no fury than a people abandoned! So, what is Raufnomics? In my considered opinion, the promoter has given a clue:    it is about “getting as much from little and using the resources of the state to maximally benefit the people”.  It is about “strategic planning and intervention in society; making governance mass-based and people-centric”; and “guaranteeing the maximum good for the maximum number of people.” With a special reference to Osun,  Raufnomics has proved to be a popular solution  to   the  state’s socio-economic problems created as a result of years of Nigeria’s  sole  dependence on proceeds from crude oil. It has helped sustain the state even as it continues to encourage innovative interventions within the framework of the administration’s Six Point Integral Action Plan in such a way as to help put the economy of the state back on track.
In addition to some of this administration’s laudable achievements which  have  already  been  captured in Aregbesola’s speech at the event, the establishment of Osun Job Centre, designed principally  to serve as an interface between  jobseekers and employers of labour;  the  procurement of no fewer than 125 Patrol Vans, 20 Armoured Personnel Carriers (APC) and one helicopter which has  helped   in drastically reducing incidences of crime in the state;   and  the creation and successful take-off of 61 Local Council Development Areas (LCDAs), three Area Offices and two Administrative Offices from the former 31 Local Government Areas  are also some of the ways this government  has positively affected the rule of the game.
A strong advocate of regional integration, he was a major force in the establishment of the Development Agenda for Western Nigeria (DAWN) Commission, an institutional and programmed body saddled with the responsibility of midwifing the regional integration agenda of the Southwest states.  And, with the creation of Osun Education Quality Assurance and Morality Enforcement Agency, I doubt if any misguided pupil or student will ever attempt to task the tolerance of the good people of Osun or insult their collective intelligence again.
Aregbesola’s approval of the immediate commencement of a unified Public Service in the state is worth mentioning here. Apart from repositioning “the State Public Service for efficient and effective service delivery at all levels of governance”, the step is also aimed at removing “all restrictions to seamless movement of personnel from one spectrum of the Public Service to the other”. Needless to repeat that it is in a bid to ensure transparency in the state’s financial dealings that he recently inaugurated the Hassan Sunmonu-led committee on allocation of revenues to “oversee allocation of state’s revenue to prompt payment of salaries as well as adequate running of government.”

The price of fame, it is often said, goes beyond brooding or bargaining around the frustration of some mischievous parallelisms! But when will Nigeria’s vine overcome the antics of her “foxes, the little foxes” and who will raise the hands of her Moses as an assurance of permanent victory? Coming closer home, if we have an avatar at the helm of affairs in Osun, how come the state is such in dire straits that it now seems as if delayed salaries have come to stay with us? Assuming without conceding that we are in this pass because of the level of our debt and its management, as a result of which dear state has allegedly become slave to Irrevocable Payment Standing Orders (IPSOs) and other debt recovery instruments, how do we situate the fate of richer and resource-endowed states like Ondo and Bayelsa which are also behind schedule in terms of salary obligations to their workers?
Well, the tragedy of our Nigerianness is that we deceive ourselves a lot and that has been our greatest undoing! Here, we play politics like an interest-driven game, unrepentantly   notorious for its art of the impossible and personal manipulations. That is why, despite  efforts by this dogged fighter at positively impacting lives   through his numerous programmes, policies and schemes, there still exists some unrefined, less-informed  detractors who derisively consider it fit and proper to constitute themselves into an opposition of the government of the day, however well-meaning and good-intentioned. Because of the way they  are fated,  they  always allow their personal and selfish desire for certain specialities to run wild thereby straying away from unprejudiced realities. They lust for what they do not have and that which is of no use to them and, despite the fact that they do not get that which they do not have and that which they neither need nor deserve, they delude themselves with it to spoil that which they are supposed to have but unfortunately they do not have.
In their world, there is neither economic focus nor political direction that is practically aimed at alleviating the people’s poverty and pains. Instead, they revel in the virulence of insouciant leaders and the proliferation of unprincipled politicians. For no just cause, these individualists and spoilers culpably hate leaders for doing good, categorize a government which runs a most transparent allocation of scarce resources to tackle underdevelopment as ‘reckless’; and  tag  one which strives to  confront problems engendered by socio-political transformation as  ‘insensitive’! Since they are experts at spreading beliefs that reject persuasion, they tar every developmental stride with the mark of corruption. In their myopic view, Opon Imo is a scam; O-YES, money-sapping; O-MEALS,  unnecessary; and policies and programmes aimed  at  shoring up the state’s revenue generation capacity are ‘too draconian and unfriendly’.
In any case, “minds differ as rivers differ”, says Baron Thomas Macaulay.  While some might liken Aregbesola to a “controversial politician who doesn’t listen to advice, however novel or useful”, to others, he’s one astute administrator who would not “want to enrich himself at the expense of the poor masses”. While some might unfairly consider his style of governance as one “built only on propaganda”, others see it – and, rightly, too – as “a source of hope in the face of the weak and bleak future that the Yoruba race and Nigeria face.” In all  of  these  however;  and  political persuasions notwithstanding,  what critics of Raufnomics  cannot deny is  Aregbesola’s  gentleness, straightforwardness and uncanny sense of direction which he has dispassionately deployed in  transforming the state into  an emerging market with a lot of potentials. Unlike others whose portion is in making promises at the drop of a hat with no real intention of keeping them, it is unRauf to allow people who delight in whirling by their dark clouds to be the limit of his success.
Need I say more on why Osun has continued to wax stronger, in spite of  the  biting economic slowdown currently troubling Nigeria’s Israel?

The Government of Osun has said the minimum requirement of the state for a sustainable and effective governance is a minimum revenue of N10 billion monthly.
This disclosure was made in a communique issued at the conclusion of the retreat to review the 2017 budget proposal of the state in Ijebu-Jesa.

Osun government, in a bid to deliver on its promises to the people, concluded a three-day retreat designed to elicit robust and rigorous discussions along the line of the State’s revenue vis-à-vis budget performance in 2017.
Government, in the communique, stated that the performance of the 2016 budget,the Draft 2017 budget proposal, performance of IGR and projects to be embarked and improved upon to catalyse economic growth among others were reviewed at the retreat.
Participants at the retreat were drawn from both the public and private sectors, comprising the Governor,  Deputy Governor, Speaker of the State House of Assembly, Secretary to the State Government, Chief-of-Staff to the Governor, Head of Service, prominent citizens of Osun, former cabinet members of the State Executive Council and Heads of relevant MDAs of the State.
The communique held that for sustainable good governance of the state, the minimum that the state requires monthly is not less than N10 billion.
It added that the success of the proposed 2017 budget which is proposed to be a balanced budget is dependent on aggressive revenue drive that takes IGR to between 5 and N6 billion per month.
It also stressed that budgets estimates of the state should be driven by revenue and not expenditure in line with global best practices with the need to set up committees to: review existing revenue heads; determine genuine heads of revenues and conduct realistic assessments of what can be generated.
The communique read in part, “The proposed committees should be done within 2 weeks of the conclusion of the retreat, quarterly review of revenue generation performance by all revenue generating agencies to appraise performance, identify challenges, propose solutions towards the attainment of revenue set targets.
“Mobilisation of the civil service to embrace efficiency and productivity as the essence and watchword for successful budget implementation in 2017. Effective coordination of all revenue generation activities in the state by Osun Internal Revenue Services (OIRS).
“Prioritisation of projects with a view to funding them at the appropriate time was also considered imperative and potential areas considered as quick-wins on the state’s IGR generation were identified for immediate exploration.
“State Asset Management Agency (O’SAMA) to be established for mapping, custody and management of all the State’s assets particularly land and vacant school properties across the State”.
The communique also emphasised that for effective implementation of the Land Use Charge Law, it is resolved that Local Government staff should be trained and engaged for the identification, enumeration, categorisation of properties, and service of assessment notices.
It also noted that abattoirs should be set up across the state with private sector involvement to enhance health and sanitation.
Government resolved at the retreat that efforts must be intensified to identify and explore solid mineral and forestry resources in the state through public/private partnership.
 
communique_osun-budget-retreat_december-2016

My piece today is not going to be popular with some people. But everything is not all about criticizing government. It is equally important to praise where government has done well and that is what this piece is about. It is a focus on the governor of the State of Osun, Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola. The idea is not to whitewash him or paint him in negative colours,  rather, it’s to tell the story of Osun the way it really is, based on a visit to the state recently.
Indeed, I have always been accused of being unsparing in my criticisms of the All Progressives Congress (APC), but what those who have formed such opinions failed to understand is that as journalists, we have a huge responsibility to write in ways that would elevate the country and make it better than it is. To educate, if need be, praise and criticise in order to bring improvement into the society. Such huge responsibility is not personal and is devoid of partisanship. If it had been the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the saddle today, I would also have been unsparing in my criticism.
 

 
Nigeria is in a bad shape, hunger has taken over the land. Expectations of the people are not being met. Nigeria is not yet the country of our dream, so there is always something to talk or write about to make it better and keep our leaders on their toes, knowing that they have a huge responsibility while not forgetting that the expectation of about 180 million Nigerians is riding on them, including those of the unborn generation. Thus, leadership is a huge responsibility and it requires a whole lot of sacrifice which  politicians, who have the collective mandate of the people, must constantly be reminded of.
But back to the state of Osun. There’s no one in the country today that would say he has not heard or read about the many criticisms that have trailed the governor. If it was not about the religious issue which made some  organisations to instruct their wards to wear their religious raiment  to school,  it would be about pensioner complaining about non inclusion in the bailout fund. My take is that some of what the governor tried to do was misunderstood while a lot of them were equally due to “politics”, the way we play it in this part of the world. Take last week’s protest by pensioners, that they were not paid from the bailout which was meant to clear salary arrears. The pensioners were paid on the same day the workers were being paid despite the fact that they were not included in the bailout fund. Paying them was solely the governor’s initiative.
Some of the major problems we are confronted with in the country today are  politicization of issues and religious sentiment. Both have blinded us, such that we fail to  appreciate the good in others even when it is starring us in the face. Nigerians have not been allowed to look beyond the criticisms and see the giant strides of Aregbesola in Osun in areas of education, social net provided for indigent and the aged, infrastructure development and the vision behind the different actions of the governor. One thing is clear, the governor is positively unconventional in his way of doing things, maybe because the conventional has not been yielding the intended results.
Most critics of the state government have always tried to understand why he remained popular among the masses or why he was always followed by a massive crowd anytime he walked on the streets of Osogbo, the state capital or any part of the state. The answer, as I later found out was because he was impacting in the life of the people. There are two governors in the country today that have taken governance to the street and have shown genuine care to the masses- Ekiti governor, Ayo Fayose and Aregbesola. They walk and work the streets and mix with the masses without fear. The cloth they wear is a reflection of who and what they are. You hardly see them in flowing agbada that politicians favour. It makes it easy for them to move in the crowd.
Apart from the fact that the state of Osun is one of those with the lowest revenue allocations in the country, it has been able to marshal what it has to great advantage with maximum impact. In the area of education, there is a vast infrastructural development. Modern classrooms are being built with modern conveniences. This is replicated in all the local government areas in the state.  I recall that shortly after the governor was sworn in, he constituted an education summit which came out with a blue print on what to do to improve education in the state. The result is what is seen today. Each pupil is given two school uniforms by the state. Also, a meal a day for the student is ongoing. The implication of this is that, there have been massive enrollment in schools from 155, 318 to 254,793. It has also translated into improvement in the life of the people. The food stuffs for the food for the pupils are sourced from the local market. Farmers are smiling, produce sellers are equally smiling. The pupils are happy and the parents are relieved. It’s really a win-win situation.
There are school buses to convey students home after school at subsidized rate. iPad (opon imo) loaded with instructional material are also given to certain categories of pupils.
In road construction, one of the achievements of the administration is the construction of  a minimum of seven and maximum of 10 kilometers of road per local government in each of the 31 Local government areas. But the most impressive of the road constructions are the three legacy roads –  the Gbongan-Akoda, Osogbo-old garage to Kwara state boundary and the Oba Adesoji Aderemi roads. Work is on going in all these roads. To complete some of these projects,  the state recently took a Sukkuk bond of N11.4billion.
Other areas of impact of the governor is identifying elderly people who were too old and were really waiting for their final moment, the state identified these people and gave them a reprieve. There was the story of the old man who could no longer walk but lived in a story building. Anytime he needed anything, he would tie a rope to a bucket with his money inside and would lower it to the ground floor. Once the item is placed in the bucket he would pull  it up again. He was one of the 1,600 citizens identified across the state who collet N10, 000 every month. The project goes by the name, Agba Osun (Osun elders) programme. In Osun state, you could hardly walk the street and see a mentally-challenged person, this is because the state has a programme of rehabilitating such people. The youths are equally recruited into O’YES (Osun Youths Empowerment Scheme) to keep them off the street, as the saying goes, an idle hand is the devil’s workshop.

 

LECTURE DELIVERED BY THE GOVERNOR OF THE STATE OF OSUN, OGBENI RAUF AREGBESOLA, TO COMMEMORATE THE 20TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE FOUNDING OF CITY PEOPLE SOFT SELL MAGAZINE, HELD AT AURORA EVENTS CENTRE, RING ROAD, OSOGBO, ON DECEMBER 14, 2016
Protocols,
GOVERNMENT UNUSUAL IN SIX YEARS
I must thank Seye Kehinde and his team at City People for the consideration of Osogbo as the venue and the kind invitation to deliver the 20th anniversary of the founding of the soft sell magazine.
Let me first congratulate City People on its 20th anniversary, for surviving and thriving the inclement weather and instability in the newspaper industry. City People is not the first or the last but it has been the most successful and longest lasting so far. There was Prime People and others in the soft sell genre that ruled the waves at sometimes but which have since been rested. There are others still in print with some measure of success. However, City People appears to be the reigning champion and I pray that your reign will endure.
The late Alhaji Ismail Babatunde Jose, the doyen of journalism at his time, once segmented newspapers into three. These are those above society that set standard for it; those at the level of society, that reflects its true shape; and those below society, that seeks to drag it down all the time.
Soft sell magazines, it appears, belong to the third category with their rave stories, gossips, salacious and often lewd stories and obsession with celebrities, their vanities, gaudy consumption pattern, fashion and social gatherings. There have been allegations of blackmail and extortion, with many people claiming to have been maligned and falsely accused and many reputations ruined.
Let me enter this caveat that the soft sell magazines can hardly be blamed if their reports are true, no matter who is hurt. Their job is to bring out the dark and the ugly wherever they are. However, the big question is where to draw the line in seeking for the ‘truth’. In England, for instance, a newspaper had to wind down when it was discovered it tapped into the telephones of people in order to obtain their secrets.Some even plant agents and bribe staff in order to access the innermost privacies of their targets. So, invasion of privacy and illegal wiretaps are clearly criminal acts, more so when information obtained are not necessarily of overriding public importance, but just to create sensation and give idle minds something to talk about, not caring for the cost to the victims. There have been reports of marriages that have been ruined because of gossips in tabloids, that could have been true or false altogether.
This conflict with the public and the tendency to leave behind a long list of angry, embittered and disgruntled victims have been the bane of soft sell magazines, often leading to litigations and other unsavoury developments for them. The worst part is when they build a negative reputation of trading in falsehood. This is when the public’s trust in them waned and they lose readership and eventually wound up.
However, with the new media, soft sell magazines have had their share substantially eaten up by blogs and this further marginalised their genre in the press.
That City People is still thriving after 20 years is an indication that it has raised its game above these pressers and has cultivated respectability in the market. I hope it will keep it up and at least remain at the level of society, if it cannot rise above it.
I have been asked to speak about my experience in government in the last six years. This is not without certain challenges. The past six year cannot be taken on its own since it is intricately interwoven with several years before it and is also a precursor to the future. So, talking about the six years of our administration is to talk about the past, the present and the future.
I brought to the administration an ideological consciousness shaped in dialectical materialism. This is an outlook that conceives of history in terms of dialectics – the struggle and unity of opposites, quantitative change leading to qualitative change and negation of negation. It conceives of the society and the government as reflective of how economic powers are possessed by the few at the expense of the majority and how this economic power is used to construct political and social hegemony with which to oppress the masses. The eternal struggle of the marginalized for freedom and inclusion. The consequent resistance of the mutually opposed classes for advantage and triumph.
My unmistakable historical mission therefore is to liberate the masses from the clutches and stranglehold of the few, by empowering them majorly through education, health and minimum resources needed for survival, thereby freeing their creative ability. I am not a starry-eyed communist. My mission has been to free those who are bound and make them to run on their own, without holding down those who are strong enough to also run on their own. In this way, the talents and creativity of both the strong and the weak will be let loose; guaranteeing freedom, creating wealth and making life more abundant for all. On this I stand on the shoulders of giants such as Chief Obafemi Awolowo,Chief Bola Ige, Nelson Mandela and Commandante Fidel Castro.

I was privileged to have horned my political and administrative skills, beginning with my student unionism days, culminating in my serving for eight years as Commissioner for Works in Lagos State under my mentor and leader, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, in a progressive, visionary and people oriented administration that ushered in unprecedented prosperity and laid the foundation for the metastasizing of Lagos into the sixth largest economy in Africa.
My first great experience is working with people. I count it a great privilege to work with the finest people on the earth. I have worked with great people who are competent professionals in Lagos and Osun. In my first term I worked with great men and women, some of who are politicians while some are not, but they are all very loyal and hard working. They are largely responsible for our success at the first term. They have also been around unofficially as consultants and have been of great assistant.
The people of Osun are very wonderful people. They are fiercely loyal, appreciative and courageous people. When you earn their trust they stand with you without flinching. I recall a unique experience we had few days before my re-election in 2014. The Federal Government had deployed the largest armada of war not seen anywhere in the country since the Civil War, to Osun. Fearsome looking security operatives of all hues were assembled in the state, especially the state capital, Osogbo, with ferocious dogs in tow. These dogs of war were parading the streets in very long convoy of vehicles with operatives clad in balaclava, shooting sporadically in the air, trying to put the fear of God in the people.
Initially the people viewed them with curiosity but were not intimidated. Later they started responding by waving brooms, the symbol of our party, in the air and singing song of solidarity for us. The share bravura of the security operatives notwithstanding, the people came out on Election Day to vote for us overwhelmingly, stood with their votes and made it to count.
They have also shown great understanding and cooperationin the face of the grimmest financial challenge we faced. The public workers in state government, in particular, deserve special commendation. They have demonstrated fidelity, resilience, perseverance and sacrifice in our greatest time of need.
The people have displayed Omoluabi ethics of the highest order when the opposition flooded the state with cash, during the election. They collected their money and the other gifts as we directed them but they refused to vote for them. They voted for principle. They will always be in my heart and any opportunity I have to serve them again, I will take it with both arms.
I have been privileged to affect the state by raising the standard of living of the people. For us, all our programmes, policies and activities since we came to office have been with the intention to eradicate poverty and create wealth for all our people. Our six point integral action plan of Banishing Poverty, Banishing Hunger, Banishing Unemployment, Restoring Healthy Living, Promoting Functional Education and Enhancing Communal Peace and Progress were designed to lift the condition of our people from poverty stricken to being wealthy.
You will recall that in less than 100 day of our inauguration, we established Osun Youth Empowerment Scheme (OYES) through which we employed 20,000 cadets into public works. In two years, we doubled the figure to 40,000.
We gave the first batch safe landing with jobs in teaching, various agriculture schemes and ICT. For this, Osun now has one of the least unemployment figures in Nigeria while the state is also among those with the lowest crimes rate. The N200 million monthly allowance paid to the cadets reflated the economy of Osun and shot it up to the seventh largest GDP in Nigeria.
Agriculture has been of serious importance to us. We were able to quickly resolve that agriculture is also a national security matter. No nation is considered safe that cannot feed his people. Our intervention in agriculture has been massive. We set up the OREAP, through which we have been able to execute many other programmes like rural development, land clearing and access and youth training in agriculture. We have made available to farmers more than N2 billion zero interest loans in addition to yearly provision of farming inputs and additives. We have also sponsored two sets of youths to Germany for training in modern farming techniques.

Our greatest impact is in education. Our first task when we came to office was to hold an education summit, which was chaired by Prof Wole Soyinka. From that summit emerged the blueprint we are implementing on education. We immediately reclassified our schools into elementary, middle and high schools. The elementary and middle schools cover the primary and junior secondary schools. The high school is the senior secondary school.
We are building 170 new schools. These are 100 primary, 50 middle and 20 high schools. Out of these, 20 elementary schools, 22 middle schools and 11 high schools have been completed.
Beyond new buildings, we are also rehabilitating the old schools. We have carried out renovations on 40 other schools which give us 1,694 standard classrooms in the existing elementary, middle and high schools. They provide accommodation for nearly 90,000 pupils. We have provided for them more than 100,000 desks and chairs, toilets and boreholes and made schools decent places to be.
We have provided 50,000 eLearning tablets (Opon Imo) for grade 12 final year high school pupils in the state. This has benefitted three sets already while the fourth set, i.e. the current final year set has just been given the tablet.
In addition to building schools, we have recruited more than 12,000 teachers to boost manpower in the school system. We are also motivating teachers. We have put in place a policy that makes teachers in elementary and middle schools to rise to grade level 16. We have, in addition, appointed three Tutors General, equivalent of Permanent Secretary, in the three senatorial districts in the state. We have concluded arrangement to appoint nine Headmasters General for effective coordination, management and administration of elementary and middle schools in each of the nine federal constituencies in the state.
We have established the Osun Education Quality Assurance and Morality Enforcement Agency to assure education quality and enforce morality in our schools.
Our overall vision is to develop the new person intellectually, socially and morally. This new person is placed in the centre of society who views his/her own development as part of and for the development of society.
We also distributed free uniforms to pupils in public schools. The programme gave birth to a garment manufacturing company, Omoluabi Garment Company Ltd, which can employ 3,000 workers at full capacity. The private investor, Sam and Sarah brought its investment and the government supported it. We contributed shareholders loan of about N900 million to the venture, which was redeemed by the delivery of 750,000 uniforms out of which 450,000 were distributed freely to Osun pupils. The rest were sold in the subsequent years and the state recouped some of its money.
But the job was given to the company on the condition that it establishes a factory in Osun. In doing so, the land on which the factory was built, was provided by government and converted to about 25 per cent equity in the company. With the company now valued at over N3 billion, that investment is worth N750 million. In reality, considering this partnership and the value obtained, it is as if the state did not spend any cash on this project and it got uniforms worth N900 million and asset worth N750 million in the final analysis.
We are also one of the states that pioneered free school feeding programme. In the programme, healthy and nutritious meals are being served to 262,000 elementary 1-4 pupils in all public schools in the state, every school day. This programme, called O’MEALS cost the government of Osun N3.6 billion per annum.
This is not an isolated programme. It is integrated into the agriculture and economic empowerment programmes of the state. This is because under it, 3,007 food vendors were engaged and trained to cook healthy and hygienic food for the pupils. To be able to feed these pupils, 15,000 whole chickens, 254,000 eggs, 35 heads of cattle and 40 tonnes of catfish are weekly bought off farmers and other producers in this state.
O’MEALS was so successful that it attracted the attention of Partnership for Child Development (PCD) of Imperial College, London and the World Bank, both of whom have supported it and recommended it to other states and countries, as part of Millennium Development Goals. I have also been invited twice by the British Parliament to speak on the programme. Osun has also been the template for its national rollout. Earlier this year, Osun has hosted and trained other states preparing to launch this programme in their respective states.

One of our first acts in office was to reengineer the finances of Osun. Many might have forgotten but we have not. When we came in, even in the midst of plenty, salary was in fits and falls. The state was under a financial burden of loans obtained at unfavourable terms. But we were able to restructure the loans on longer and more favourable terms. We were then able to pay salaries on or before the 25th of every month for four successive years including annual bonus payment called 13th month salary.
We realised also that given the level of neglect, we must accelerate development by taking loans from the capital market. This is because more than 70 per cent of our revenues are used to pay salaries. This is outside of the cost of running government. After going through the rigorous regulatory process, we could only take N30 billion Vanilla Bond and N11.4 billion Sukuk Bond with which we attacked underdevelopment in the state. The conventional vanilla bond was to partly absorb the N18.3 billion short term inherited loan. The Sukuk bond was used to finance the construction of 11 State of the Art High Schools. From the vanilla bond and other sources, we rehabilitated and completed 230 states roads spanning 368 km. We partnered local governments to deliver 226 council roads across the 30 local governments and the development area with a combined length of 216 km.
Thus, we were able to construct more than 800 kilometres of quality, stone based roads with concrete drainages across the length and breadth of the state. Work is ongoing on the Orile-Owu – Ijebu-Igbo Expressway; Osogbo – Ila-Odo, Kwara Boundary Expressway; Oba Adesoji Aderemi Ring Road; and Gbongan – Akoda Road. These are not just any roads that catch our fancy. They are roads carefully selected because they impacted the most on the social and economic activities of our people.
We have carried out the most comprehensive and successful social programme in Nigeria. This is because we incorporated widows, the elderly, lunatics, physically challenged and other vulnerable groups in governance. We were paying a monthly stipend to the critically vulnerable elderly citizens in addition to taking care of their health. We also took care of the destitute and the lunatics, rehabilitating them and reintegrating them back into the society. We mobilized resources for effective security and maintenance of law and order. We ensure effective statewide ambulance service.
One of the biggest challenges we have had to grapple with is rising expenditure, especially wage bill, within the contrast of falling revenue. When I came in as Governor on November 27, 2010, oil was being sold above $100. It crashed to as low as $22 last year and sells for $54 at present. In contrast, my wage bill rose from N1.4 billion to N3.6 billion. Yet, we must also fulfil our obligation to the people who elected us and gave us the mandate to govern. We have made it a point that no one is left behind by our administration.
We cannot possibly recount our experience in one day. But what I have mentioned are just a tip of the iceberg. In the process, however, we have learnt how to cope with adversity, unreasonable opposition and hostility without basis or rationality. We have fought the good fight of federalism. We have laid the foundation for the development of Osun in the next 50 years. We have no doubt that the seed we have sown will yield bountiful harvest for individuals and the state in the foreseeable future.
We have gone so far because of the support and encouragement of the good people of Osun. These are the women groups, market women and their leaders, professionals, business people, artisans, farmers, civil servants, traditional rulers, community leaders, community based organisations, religious groups and religious leaders, students, youth associations, commercial motorcyclists, transporters and transport unions, the supportive and friendly media, political parties and all people of goodwill.
I congratulate City People once again and wish you more success in the service of the people.
I thank you all for your kind attention.
Osun a dara!

The Governor of Osun, Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola on Wednesday said no government since the creation of the state  has done what his administration did in the last six years.
He said the policies of his administration were designed to turn around the general well-being of the people irrespective of socioeconomic and political status.
 

 
 
Governor Aregbesola made the statement while delivering his lecture in commemoration of the City People 20th Special Anniversary lecture, at Aurora Conference and Events Centre, Osogbo.
Recounting the strides made so far, Governor Aregbesola who titled his speech  “Government Unusual in 6years” said his government has successfully laid the foundation for the development of the state in the next 50years.
Aregbesola said his government came with a written covenant tagged “My Pact for the People of Osun” to which the foundation template of his good governance was espoused.
The Governor stated that Osun remained the only state in Nigeria where government’s policies and programmes are incorporated and synchronised to bring all round development to the citizenry.
He said his government came to power to restore people to the path of success, peace, unity love, harmony and greatness.
Governor Aregbesola stressed further that the mission of his administration has been to free those who are bound and make them to run on their own, without holding down those who are strong enough to also run on their own.
The Governor who described the people of the state as wonderful, faithful, reliable and resilient said, their courageous tendencies had really helped to reclaim his mandate in 2010 after a protracted legal tussle that lasted for almost four years.
Aregbesola said his administration six-point integral action plan of banishing poverty, banishing hunger, banishing unemployment, restoring healthy living, promoting functional education and enhancing communal peace and progress are designed to lift the condition of people from poverty stricken to being wealthy.
He added, “I have been privileged to affect the state by raising the standard of living of the people. For us, all our programmes, policies and activities since we came to office have been with the intention to eradicate poverty and create wealth for all our people.
“truly we are here to liberate the people from the shackles of retrogression, poverty and hunger that had eaten deep into their daily lives, but the amazing part of it was the support given to us by the good people of this state who have been so resilient, forthright and dogged to our efforts in building a new state of Osun.
“Our people have always demonstrated greater love and courage to all forms of intimidation and castigation from the traducers who have never seen anything good from our interventions.
“The people of Osun are very wonderful people. They are fiercely loyal and courageous people. When you earn their trust they stand with you without flinching.
“They have showed great understanding and cooperation in the face of the grimmest financial challenge we faced.
He commended the state workforce for their extreme understanding and cooperation in the face of the current economic challenges, saying “Osun workers have demonstrated fidelity and sacrifice in our greatest time of need”.
“The people have displayed Omoluabi ethos of the highest order when the opposition flooded the state with cash, during the election, they collected their money and other gifts as we directed them but they refused to vote for them. They voted for principle.
“They will always be in my heart and any opportunity I have to serve them again, I will take it with both arms.
“Our six point integral action plan of Banishing Poverty, Banishing Hunger, Banishing Unemployment, Restoring Healthy Living, Promoting Functional Education and Enhancing Communal Peace and Progress are designed to lift the condition of our people from poverty stricken to being wealthy”, Aregbesola reaffirmed.
The Governor further recalled the giant strides recorded in the last six years, reiterating that his government was in the first 100 days of assumption of office institutionalised Osun Youth Empowerment Scheme (OYES), through which first 20,000 batch of cadets were recruited into public works.
He said his government did not stop at that as another 20,000 unemployed youth were engaged.
Aregbesola said the state government is building 170 new schools which include 100 elementary, 50 middle and 20 high schools out of which 20 elementary schools, 22 middle schools and 11 high schools have been completed.
“Withing the first100 day of our inauguration, we established Osun Youth Empowerment Scheme (OYES) through which we employed 20,000 cadets into public works. In two years, we doubled the figure to 40,000.
“The N200 million monthly allowance paid to the cadets reflated the economy of Osun and shot it up to the seventh largest GDP in Nigeria, according to the Federal Bureau of Statistics.
“We are building 170 new schools. These are 100 elementary, 50 middle and 20 high schools. Out of these, 20 elementary schools, 22 middle schools and 11 high schools have been completed”.
“Beyond new school buildings, we are also rehabilitating the old schools. We have carried out renovations on 40 other schools which give us 1,694 standard classrooms in the existing elementary, middle and high schools.
“They provide accommodation for nearly 90,000 pupils. We have provided for them more than 100,000 desks and chairs, toilets and boreholes and made schools decent places to be.
“We have provided 50,000 eLearning tablets (Opon Imo) for grade 12 final year high school pupils in the state. This has benefitted three sets already while the fourth set, i.e. the current final year set has just been given the tablet.
“In addition to building schools, we have recruited more than 12,000 teachers to boost manpower in the school system. We are also motivating teachers.
In her remarks, the Osun Deputy Governor, Mrs. Titilayo Laoye Tomori who described the six years administration of Governor Aregbesola as being historic, fruitful and rewarding, said the current administration had laid unforgettable legacies in all sectors.
She commended Governor for being relentless to socioeconomic and political development of the state since assumption of office, noting that “it is a rare privilege for her to serve as the deputy governor under Aregbesola”.
Tomori therefore pledged a continued support and commitment to the policies and programmes of state as the government has trail-blazed all facets of economic endeavours.
Earlier in his welcome address, the Publisher of the City People Magazine, Dr. Seye Kehinde applauded Governor Aregbesola for turning around the economic fortunes of the state since assumption of office.
He said the management of the magazine decided to celebrate Aregbesola’s achievements coincidentally with her 20th anniversary based on his exemplary style of leadership.
He buttressed, “this anniversary was brought down to Osun to showcase to the entire world the unique qualities and administrative acumen of Governor Aregbesola.
“Infact, we admire him for being a grassroot politician and for always being there for his people at all times as this motivated us to share his thoughts, wisdoms and uncommon intellect on good governance.

This year’s Christmas Carol being planned by the State Government of Osun in collaboration with the state Christian
Association of Nigeria (CAN) will hold on Thursday (15th December, 2016).
 

 
Venue is Osogbo Stadium Main Bowl.
A statement signed by the former Commissioner for Information & Strategy in the state, Hon. Sunday Akere and the state Chairman of CAN, Very Rev. Fr. Michael O. Okodua enjoined all stakeholders and invitees to be seated latest by 11.00am.