Text of an address delivered by Osun State Governor Gboyega Oyetola at the 59th Independence celebration organised by the Island Club, Onikan, Lagos on the challenges confronting the country and how they can be resolved at the weekend.
I am greatly honoured to be invited as the Special Guest of Honour at the 2019 Independence Day Dance of the Island Club, a club established 17 years before Nigeria’s Independence.
I am happy to be identified with a Club whose objective, “to promote good fellowship and inter-racial harmony”, speaks to the soul of the motto of our fatherland -Unity and Faith, Peace and Progress. This objective is relevant to the nation’s circumstances and will ever remain fundamental to our collective dreams and aspirations as a people.
The successes and expansive composition of Island Club signpost the vision of the 50 wise men that founded it in 1943 and the wisdom of the members who have continually erected bricks on its foundation till date.
It is on the strength of the above that I appreciate the successive Patrons, Vice Patrons, Trustees, Officers, Management Committees and the Members of this distinguished Club for upholding the tenets and for their services to our dear country.
In particular, I thank the incumbent Club leadership and the Members for organising the 2019 Independence Dance and for keeping the candle of the Club burning.
Let me state that I am not partaking in this 2019 Independence Dance alone. I bring with me the felicitations and goodwill of the Government and the People of The State of Osun.
In line with your expectations that I “make pronouncements on our national state of affairs”, I carry with me six kits: youth unemployment, poverty, corruption, weak institutions, insecurity and restructuring.
Nigeria, like most countries, is still struggling to get its economy right after years in the global economic trenches. With this struggle come the nagging and persistent issues already identified above: restructuring, youth unemployment, poverty, corruption, weak institutions, and insecurity.
We will all agree that solving most of these problems revolves substantially around fixing the economy.
But let me state from the outset as a prelude to my presentation that the successes and milestones from independence to date have been in fits and starts. This is because there have not been enduring strategies and Development Plans powering our journey to the Promised Land.
Strategic planning is a school all the drivers of our economy and polity must attend and apply the ingredients gathered from there, for us to get it right. It must in turn flow to sectorial units and the private sector for sustainable development. Development and governance should not answer to politics but to best practices.
When the Federal and State governments collaborate, strategise, and employ peer review mechanism as weapons of governance, taking the private sector along, the nation will achieve socio-economic and political symphony.
For a nation ethnically diverse and diametrically divided as Nigeria, injustice is easiest invitation to crises.
Our nation has had violence and crises enough for a century. As front liners and opinion holders, political and industry elite have a duty to lead our citizens on the path of unity in diversity. Our ethnic, religious and linguistic diversity should be the sources of our strength.
The elite in industry and organised groups such as the Island Club must get involved. Politics is too sensitive, too involving, too crucial, to be left to the politicians alone.
With the President Muhammadu Buhari-led Diversification of the Economy Policy, the Federal Government has liberalised agriculture, mining, with credits and loans to make them viable. Agriculture alone has proved that it is able to banish hunger and provide jobs for a substantial number of our teeming youths.
Efforts are also on top gear to create an enabling environment to bring back our manufacturing sectors to mop up youth unemployment.
All 36 states of the federation, corporate organisations, groups and well-meaning Nigerians need to collaborate with the Federal Government to massively tackle unemployment and hunger.
There is also no doubt that if well handled, agriculture alone can mop up close to half of the unemployed youths.
Entrepreneurship and soft loans are also veritable sources of getting our youths off the street. The Federal Government has set a target of creating 100 million jobs in the next 10 years. State governments have a duty to set their own targets to complement the Federal Government’s initiative.
I appeal to our corporate organisations, philanthropists and well-meaning individuals to complement government’s efforts in these areas.
As at 2015 when President Muhammadu Buhari assumed office, corruption had become a second name of the nation. Corruption is a cancer to the economy, health, infrastructure and other sectors of the nation. Beyond financial manifestation, corruption is at the root of pervasive collapsed buildings, failed roads, compromised drugs and foods and other digestible that are dangerous to life and health.
President Buhari assumed office as the symbol and face of integrity and good governance. He has dealt a huge blow on corruption in his four and half years as President through the introduction of Treasury Single Account, arrest and prosecution of corrupt officials, fortifying anti-corruption organisations and institutions of anti-corruption policies.
Barely two years in the saddle, the President began walking tall among his colleagues around the world for his stance on corruption.
This worthwhile initiative must be embraced by the other two tiers of government; all the states, their Ministries, Departments and Agencies as well as the local government areas and corporate organisations.
There is also a need to introduce anti-corruption crusade in the curricular of tertiary institutions to prepare the leaders of tomorrow for the onerous task of leadership.
At 59, we must resolve as a nation to adopt a paradigm shift that will transform the nation. Incidentally, one of the focal issues in this regard is restructuring.
However, in restructuring we must build a consensus around the key issues associated with it. We must talk about it in such a way as to make everyone understand it. We must make everyone realise it is a win-win situation.
For me, I see restructuring, largely from the angle of devolution of powers among the federating units. But even at that, I believe strongly that with good governance, the issue of restructuring can adequately be addressed.
Our people require education and sensitisation to buy into a new improved Nigeria. The civil society and the media should be at the forefront of this vanguard.
Government at all levels must show guidance and leadership by mustering the political will to drive a new Nigeria.
There has to be synergy between the governments at all levels and the private sector. Government must continue to create an enabling environment for the public sector to grow the economy and provide employment.
I employed strategic planning as a preamble to this paper. I will end it by re-echoing the place of strategic thinking and planning in public and corporate governance. When public and corporate activities are powered by strategic thinking and planning, continuity and sustainable development will be on auto pilot and our nation will be on the path of prosperity and progress.
Once again, I thank the leadership of Island Club for inviting me as the Special Guest of Honour at the 2019 Independence Day Dance.
May God continue to bless Island Club and the Federal Republic of Nigeria.
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