The state of Osun has invested heavily in education with particular emphasis laid in the area of school infrastructure.
Having inherited was an eye-sore in terms of school infrastructure, the government swung straight into action to resuscitate what was a sector in complete comatose.
The new Ilesha grammar school building bears testimony to the desire of this government to revolutionize education in the state.
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The State Government of Osun, as part of its efforts to improve its statistical system for informed decision-making, research and collaboration with other agencies of government and the private sector, invite suitably qualified candidates to fill in the newly created post below, which is equivalent to the position of a Permanent Secretary in the Public Service of the State of Osun:
Statistician-General
Job Type: Full Time
Qualification: BA/BSc/HND
Experience: 20 years
Location: Osun
Job Field: Finance / Accounting / Audit
Duties & Responsibilities
The Statistician-General will be the Accounting Officer/Chief Executive Officer of the State Bureau of Statistics, which shall be an autonomous Parastatal under the State Ministry of Budget, Economic Planning and Development.
The Specific Duties required of the Statistician-General include the following:
Coordinating the State’s entire Statistical System;
Advising Federal, State and LGA Agencies as well as Tertiary Institutions in the State on issues relating to their Statistical Activities;
Decision making on the appropriate methods of collecting, processing and analyzing State’s data for Statistical purposes;
Representing the State in International, National and Local Statistical meetings;
Organization, development, support and promotion of the bureau of statistics organizational culture;
Supervision and discipline of Bureau of Statistics staff;
Presentations to Government for approval, annual budget, work programmes, and other programmes to develop the State Statistics;
Authority to obtain statistical information across the State Agencies, Local Governments, Federal and Tertiary Institutions in the State;
Authority to produce statistical publications in the State;
Authority to redeploy and redistribute Statisticians and Statistical Officers within the State Ministries, Departments and Agencies;
Authority to conduct Statistical Surveys, private institutions wishing to conduct statistical surveys shall obtain approval from the Statistician- General.
Requirements
The candidates should possess:
A minimum of B.Sc Statistics (not less than 2nd Class Lower Division) while candidates with combined degree in Statistics and another Discipline (not less than 2nd Class Lower Division) may be considered
At least 20 years post-qualification experience in the rudiments of the Public Service within or outside the State of Osun
Relevant Information and Communication Technology (ICT) skills
Method of Application
Applicants should send the following document below addressed to:
The Head of Service,
Office of the Head of Service,
Office of the Governor State Secretariat,
Osogbo,
Osun State.
Document
Applications must be typewritten, accompanied by ten (10) clear copies of Curriculum Vitae (CV) and all relevant documents, including certificate(s) and letters relating to background and employment history;
The completed application should be sealed and marked ‘OSUN SG 2017’ on the left top corner of the envelope containing it.
Note: The following conditions above must be met before applications can be processed.
As South-Western Nigerian leaders of thought, policy implementors and technocrats converge at the ancient city of Abeokuta for the Southwest governance innovations summit, I am moved to recall two past incidents; the one, a historic meeting which started at about 6pm and rounded up just before 6am sometime in December 2010.
The venue was the “situation room” at the Bourdillion Road, Ikoyi residence of Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu. A new Governor had just been sworn in, a week prior, after three and half years of protracted litigation to regain a misappropriated mandate. That Governor is Rauf Aregbesola.
The purpose of the meeting was to share thoughts with the core leadership of the then Action Congress and a handful of key elements who served in the Lagos cabinet when Asiwaju Tinubu held sway as the Chief Executive, on the policy thrusts and the direction in which the new government in Osun was going to drive the implementation of its electoral promises. Seated at the long table were the party chairman, Chief Bisi Akande, the National Leader, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola, and, as I recall vividly, also present were Prof Yemi Osinbajo, SAN, Yemi Cardoso, Dele Alake, Leke Pitan, Dr. Charles Diji Akinola, the Osun Deputy Governor, Mrs Titilayo Laoye- Tomori , this writer, and a couple of other associates from Osun.
At this meeting, those of us close associates of the new governor who were key architects of the Osun renewal took turns to unfold the vision and invited those with cognate experience to critique our game plan and how we were going to execute the “PACT” of Rauf Aregbesola with the people of Osun. The conversations were robust, and centred around the narrative of “Government unusual.” This new governor was going to demystify the office and get really down to the task of serving. Key radical reforms were going to be put in place in vital areas of massive food production, roads, infrastructure, functional education, youth empowerment, communal security, affordable healthcare delivery, restoring the status of Osogbo as a vital commercial hub, and engendering socio- economic inclusion.
During the course of the night, we addressed the issue of the declining economic fortunes of the country insofar as it continued to rely only on oil as its main revenue base, and came to the conclusion that something drastic had to be done to address the humongous cost of governance occasioned largely by an over bloated bureaucracy, as it was not sustainable. We told the audience that our principal was going to make a stab at pruning down the number of MDAs and collapsing them into efficient and manageable units with appropriate nomenclature.
Recalling the glorious days of the old West with nostalgia, the necessity to harness individual strategic strengths of the sub-region’s components was not lost on anybody around that long table. We therefore agreed that impetus was to be given to the on-going endeavour efforts to institutionalize the peer review mechanism that would allow the weak to benefit from the experience of the strong through cross border replication of success stories with a view to better the lot of our peoples and create sustainable even development.
One key point that stood out is Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola’s declaration that there was going to be a Ministry of Regional Integration and Special duties that would institutionalise the interface with other states in the region and that other Governors in the South West were to be encouraged to establish similar structure in their respective states.
The other incident; sometime in 2011, I had a one-on-one discussion with a Southwest governor in his private study which, again, drew far into the night during which the Governor lamented with regret: “ Papa Awo (Chief Obafemi Awolowo) had no business trying to rule at the centre.”
According to him, he had it very well made and the old West was notches ahead of the pack at a pace which, if sustained, would have engendered unprecedented growth and development. The forays into national politics, in his view, truncated the rapid economic growth of our people. I couldn’t agree with him more. Six years on, current trends in the polity has reinforced my conviction that this error has now become a conundrum which the Southwest must quickly disembark from.
Although the “error” seemed an unending dialogue, akin only to the conversations on Nigeria’s proverbial “potentials” , yet some people were not going to just sit down and moan.
Not surprisingly, a community of interests and tendencies had arisen, working tenaciously parallel to the self-determination, restructuring and diverse agendas, to ensure that the economic emancipation and therefore the developmental growth agenda of the South-west was to be rigorously pursued. And how better to do this than to create a United common platform for the actualization of the noble task of reversing the diminished opportunities of the South-west for advancement and developmental growth.
It soon began to dawn (pun intended) on Yoruba thinkers that the future portends grave danger for any component of our federation tying its economic fortunes to handouts from the centre which, itself depends on a failing international commodity.
It was time to be creative and innovative. And those elements eventually found a round peg for this round hole, in the person of Oladipo Famakinwa. A new platform was formally launched and called Development Agenda for Western Nigeria.( DAWN) with this dynamic young man as the first Director General. This is not an attempt to rewrite the DAWN story. Indeed it has been, and continues to be written by the appropriate authority through the plethora of initiatives and activities it has undertaken so far in pursuance of its mandate either suo motu, or in collaboration with other agencies.
Perhaps, one Governor who personified innovation in governance is Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola. He hit the ground running in 2010 and in a matter of days he embarked on the rebranding project which saw Osun having an Armorial bearing (a replica of the Old Western Nigeria coat of Arms), a state anthem, flag, the components of which, when interpreted, speak to the struggle, rich historical, socio-economic and cultural heritage of Yorubaland. Then of course was the flagship Osun Youth Employment Scheme (OYES), through which the governor had promised 20,000 jobs in the first 100 days – a promise that was actually delivered in 97 days!
What followed was a comprehensive package of radical reforms in the Education sector; notably, the introduction of the Educational Learning Aid (Opon Imo), an unprecedented schools infrastructure project, and, perhaps, the largest volume of road construction projects ever embarked upon by any government in Nigeria. But he didn’t stop there. He wanted an OMBUDSMAN and due process office that would put all policy implementers on their toes, in order to achieve maximum delivery.
And this brings to mind the remarks of Ban Ki- Moon, the then UN Secretary General in his remarks to the Council on Timor- Leste on December 19 2009:
“…as we all know, infrastructure is not just a matter of roads, schools and power grids. It is equally a question of strengthening democratic governance and the rule of law. Without accountability, not only of the government to its people but of the people to each other, there is no hope for a viable democratic state. .”
This statement aptly describes the mission of the Bureau of Social Services (BOSS). Having been involved in the design, incubation and execution of this pioneering initiative, I am moved to congratulate Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola for the success stories that Osun has brought to the table during the just concluded Southwest Governance Innovation Summit 2017.
Ogbeni’s reforms in good governance through radical interventions are too numerous to be mentioned here, but permit me to single out three particular polices reforms which have been selected by DAWN and deemed worthy of replication by other states. The first is the Agricultural Land Holding and Development Authority Bill, which, though yet to be passed by the State of Osun House of Assembly, however,the Executive Order has has been signed by the Governor in order to meet current exigencies. This Law is designed to mitigate hardships occasioned by the Land Use Act militating against agricultural land ownership by small holder farmers and cooperatives.
The second is (O-Meal) the elementary School Lunch programme which received high acclaim and concerning which the governor had course to address a session before a committee of the British House of Commons.
The third one is the establishment of the Bureau of Social Services (BOSS), an OMBUDSMAN agency with overarching powers to ensure accountability and public value delivery across the parameters of Programs, Policies, and Projects.
Innovation has thousands of differently documented definitions. There are diverse interdisciplinary perspectives to defining this word the simplest of which is to be found in WIKKIPEDIA: ”innovation is a new idea, device, or method”. In the domain of practical economic analysis, and I daresay, governance, innovation can generally be considered to be the result of a process that brings together novel ideals in a way that they affect society. (Still quoting Wikkipedia), innovation drives idea to value. Creativity is the capacity to generate novel and pragmatic ideas, but unless applied, it remains just an idea.
Innovation therefore can safely, in my view, be described as Applied Creativity.
What Ogbeni has done in Osun is not only to bring creativity to designing his ‘government unusual’, but also to apply that creativity in the delivery of public value. It certainly gives one a sense of pride to be part of that effort.
Ifaturoti is the Director General, Bureau of Social Services, Osun State.
A socio-political organization, the Oranmiyan Worldwide, has passed a vote of confidence on the Osun State Governor, Mr. Rauf Aregbesola, over the recent political developments in the state.
The organization reiterated its unflinching loyalty to the governor at a “time when some leaders of the party are said to be aggrieved with Aregbesola’s leadership style.”
In a statement by its Director-General, Dele Ogunsakin, and Coordinator-General, Niyi Aluko, in Osogbo on Tuesday, the Oranmiyan Worldwide noted the contribution of the present administration to the development of Osun State.
The group said recent happenings in the state chapter of the ruling party in the state, the All Progressives Congress, are expected as ‘this is part of the build up to the 2018 governorship elections.”
The statement read in part: “It is imperative to equivocally state that such political activities are expected in a transition period of a government because of many elements that are always involved in political scenarios.
“No matter what is happening politically in the State of Osun, it is on record that administration of Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola has brought unprecedented development to the state.”
The socio political organization expressed its unalloyed support for the governor, urging all members not to be divided at “this time in the life of our party.”
The group further said: “This is not the time to be raising unnecessary political dust in the polity. We are a hundred percent with our leader, Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola, in all his activities now and beyond 2018.”
Also, the 72 interest groups under the Oranmiyan Worldwide have backed Governor Aregbesola, urging the people of Osogbo to discredit those it described as “enemies of progress.”
The groups explained that the Aregbesola administration has served the state tremendously without any doubt about its qualitative and effective leadership.
As it usually turns out for the Governor, Wednesday was a busy day; from inspecting the burnt High Court in Ilesa, to the Governor’s forum dinner in honour of former Governor of Edo State, Mr Adams Oshiomhole and outgoing Governor of Ondo State, Mr Olusegun Mimiko; where the Acting President, Prof. Yemi Osinbajo was present…
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Governor, state of Osun, Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola on Tuesday said the state now ranks third behind Lagos and Rivers in the implementation of the scheme in the country.
Aregbesola who stated this in Osogbo at the presentation of bond certificates to 159 retirees from local government and teaching service said the initial fear about the Contributory Pension Scheme in the state was not necessary.
Speaking through his Head of Service, Mr. Yinka Owoeye, Aregbesola said efforts are on to facilitate release of bond certificates to more pensioners in the state.
He said that a sum of N1.2 billion would be released in form of bond certificates to 159 beneficiaries comprising of 56 local government retirees and 100 teachers.
He advised the beneficiaries to invest the money wisely and take the issue of their health seriously while urging them never to lose hope in the country.
Earlier, the Permanent Secretary, Local Government Staff Pension Bureau, Alhaji Aliu Kayode Afolabi, told pensioners that are yet to be given their bond certificates to be patient, assuring them that the Bureau is working with other relevant stakeholders to facilitate the release of more bond certificates to them.
He lauded Governor Aregbesola for paying adequate attention to the welfare of retirees, even when government earnings have dropped significantly.
Food is as important and central to human existence as air. For sustenance, therefore, human beings the world over need food as of necessity. Whether they will get food to eat is a horse of another colour.
Today, across the world, an alarming 4 to 5 billion people suffering from hunger, significant percentage of this figure is from Africa. And Nigeria is no exception to the threat of famine and food insecurity.
This is why the most powerful nations today are nations that can feed themselves however densely or sparsely populated they may be. As the world stands at the moment, the agenda for the next decade is undoubtedly food security.
A nation lacking in its capacity to feed its people is indeed a potential disaster waiting to explode in the face of the world.
And with the current recession ravaging the country after petrodollar dipped last year, not a few analysts believe that the way out of the crisis is agriculture.
Thus, the Governor of Osun, Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola, believes that now is the time to turn to massive agricultural practices or else millions of Nigerians would be at risk.
Against this backdrop, Aregbesola took this to those who know better when it comes to agriculture. Between January 17 and 29, 2017, he led a high-level delegation that included the speaker, Osun assembly, Najeem Salaam, secretary to the state government, Moshood Adeoti, director general office of economic development and partnerships, Charles Diji Akinola, and the director livestock services, Ajibike Fagbemi, to Saxony-Anhalt in Germany.
This was in furtherance of the established cooperation in the area of agricultural development and in support of the Osun Rural Enterprise and Agriculture Programme (O-REAP).
The opportunities expected to be reaped from the trip includes engagement of relevant investors and partners with interests in agricultural investment and partnership opportunities in Osun and review and expand on the scope of existing development cooperation between the governments of Osun and Saxony-Anhalt.
Besides, the trip was also to espouse the scope and design the next phase of collaborative partnerships between Osun and Saxony-Anhalt.
This trip allowed the delegation to discuss agricultural potentials, investments and partnership opportunities in Osun with the German farmers.
This was to build on the previous partnership established which had trained 40 young farmers from Osun over a period of four years, starting in 2012 when they were exposed to knowledge, skills and technologies in practical modern agriculture.
The Osun delegation also met with the umbrella farmers association of Saxony-Anhalt. At the meeting, a number of farmers in Germany expressed their interest in the proposed farmer-technology transfer programme that is being planned in collaboration with Saxony-Anhalt state government.
One of the key highlights of the visit is the planned cooperation between both governments in setting up of ‘Best Practices Demonstration, Training and Production Farm’ in Osun.
The farm is to target the youth and other farmers and will provide the platform for the acquisition of knowledge, skills and techniques in modern agriculture with a focus on land development and management, new technologies in crops, livestock, fisheries, post-harvest handling, processing and packaging.
In view of the above, the government of Osun has established a Land Bank in the state where those who have fallow land can entrust it with the government.
Government will reach an agreement with these land owners on the terms and duration of usage and when the parcel of land will revert back to the owner.
With this innovative way of land bank system, land would be available for farming in commercial quantity. In addition, there won’t be shortage of land once government has the knowledge of the quantity of land available in its land bank.
This is one of the strategies by the Aregbesola administration to make farming in the state ease for whoever wants to practise agriculture.
Expectedly as well, the establishment of the BPDTPF in Osun will build on these initial efforts and create an even more cost-effective and sustainable model of cooperation that will allow us to leverage broader scale impact.
Osun stands the opportunity to extend benefits to many hundreds of equally motivated and needy young farmers who would not have the opportunity of being attached to host farmers or institutions in Germany.
Accordingly, it is expected that the BPDTPF will equally serve as a veritable platform to anchor a well-designed farmer exchange programme that will provide the opportunity for German agricultural experts and farmers to provide technological transfer and capacity building to farmers in Osun.
The latest collaborative efforts of government will involve building on the initial outcomes of the cooperation with Saxony-Anhalt under which 40 budding young farmers from Osun had been hosted in Germany for advanced practical training in different aspects of agriculture over the past four years.
This training no doubt resulted in greater opportunities for the young farmers in Osun as they launched promising careers in modern and productive agriculture practices such as piggery, fishery and animal feed production.
They are also involved in different aspects of agriculture including cattle and small ruminants production, horticulture and greenhouse farming in different parts of the state.
Other highlights of the trip include planning meetings with the top officials of the ministry of agriculture of Saxony-Anhalt and members of the Saxony-Anhalt parliament.
This meeting was hinged on consolidating as well as expanding on the current cooperation between Osun and Saxony-Anhalt.
Considering the successes recorded from the cooperation in the last four years in the area of agriculture, it’s scope is now being expanded to the area of healthcare delivery.
The healthcare delivery has also taken root with the visit recently of a team of seasoned German oncologists from the Institute for Operative Medicine of the Otto-yon, Magdeburg, Germany.
They were in the state for three days to train some health workers on detection, control, treatment and management of various classes of cancer in the state.
To make the state self-sufficient in food production, over 17, 000 farmers in the state had benefitted from the QUIIP I and II loan programmes.
Under the Osun State Agricultural Development Corporation (OSSADEC) in 2010, the government had also given out N250 million loan to farmers and N500 million in 2012.
For Rural Accessibility Mobility Programme (RAMP), the state constructed 662km rural roads for easy access to farm settlements while out of 300km World Bank. This is to make mobility easy between rural and urban movement as well facilitate smooth and fluid movement of farm produce from the farms to the final markets.
These various initiatives, collaboration and cooperation were embarked upon so that agriculture in the state can be developed to modern, international standards.
And for the governor, the tomorrow of millions of children must not be jeopardised at the risk of famine and nutrition which stares Nigerians in the face.
The only guarantee we have as a state in particular and the nation in general out of the current economic crisis, according to Aregbesola, is to all go to farm.
As the Yoruba saying goes, when food is available, the pang of poverty is less felt. Massive production of food items locally is the answer to the nation’s economic downturn.
That is what Aregbesola is promoting in Osun.
*Owolabi writes from Osogbo through kunleowolabi17@gmail.com
The Government of the State of Osun is set to rehabilitate all the fire service stations in the state.
This statement was made today by the coordinating Director, Ministry of Information, Home Affairs, Tourism and Culture, Mrs Femi Webster-Esho while on an inspection tour of fire stations in Osogbo, Ejigbo and Ede.
Mrs Webster-Esho assured the fire men at the fire stations visited by her team of the readiness of the state Government to rehabilitate the stations with the available resources in her purse for optimum performance. She enjoined the firemen to bear with the government on the state of the fire stations at present while commending them on their selfless service to the state in spite of the challenges being faced.
The coordinating Director advised the firemen and women to maintain a clean environment at all times especially in their various fire stations.
The visit took Mrs Webster-Esho to the fire stations in Atelewo junction and Oke-fia both in Osogbo as well as the fire stations in Ejigbo and Ede.
In recent times, there has been a deliberate attempt to heat up the policy in the state of Osun at every opportunity.
It was therefore not surprising that pensioners in the state decided to speak with on voice and show solidarity to the government of the day.
These pensioners came out en mass to stand solidly behind the governor and his government after an attempt to drag them into the policy of the state.
See photos below
The Lagos State Government on Monday said its training of students and youths on fundamentals of calisthenics was being done in partnership with the Osun State Government.
The Deputy Governor, Dr Idiat Adebule, who spoke on the partnership while receiving a six-man delegation from Osun in her office at Alausa, said that the training in calisthenics would help in developing the students mentally, physically and socially.
Calisthenics consists of a variety of movements often performed rhythmical and usually conducted in concerts with stretches to depict specific symbols.
The calisthenics training is in preparation of the `Lagos @ 50’ celebrations coming up in May.
Adebule said that the calisthenics display of students at the 25th anniversary of the creation of the State of Osun in Aug. 2016 spurred Gov. Akinwunmi Ambode into the partnership.
“Gov. Ambode was impressed by the breathtaking calisthenics performances at the Osogbo City Stadium and has decided to replicate same in Lagos State.
“We are partnering with Osun State to share ideas and learn from them to ensure a historic performance at the Lagos @50 celebration and beyond.
“One of the components of calisthenics is to give meaning to the total package of educational training for young minds.
“We are starting this training with our students and we will extend it to the youth in the state,” Adebule said.
Adebayo Ojo, Director, Department for Social and Grassroots Mobilisation and Guidance, Office of the Governor, Osun, who led the visiting team, said the school calisthenics programme had been a success in Osun State.
He said that the calisthenics programme was conceived to enhance the emergence of a new generation of students who were physically fit, mentally sound and socially responsible individuals that would be well-adjusted to societal needs.
“The State of Osun is the first in the country to revive this sterling and rewarding initiative in about more than three decades.
“We shall do our best to ensure that we bring out the best in the students who will be trained to produce Eko-Calisthenics that will be of global standard, ” he said.
