Based on data analytics and comparative assessment of what was before and what it is now, Ondo State was a typical civil service state until the coming of the administration of Governor Rotimi Akeredolu in February 2017.
It was a civil service state because almost 85 per cent of the state’s entire workforce – a combination of those in the private and public sectors- were employees of the state working in the ministries, departments and agencies of government either at the state or local level.
But the story has changed today due to the relentless investment drive of the incumbent administration that has taken it upon itself to open up the state for investment ranging from manufacturing, innovation hubs, private-public partnership, agriculture to innovation hubs, among other worthy investment activities.
Besides quadrupling the state’s internally generated revenue beyond the beggarly amount of what it was in the past, the various clusters of investments dotting the length and breadth of the state have also provided pockets of jobs for the youths of the state in one way or the other in addition to impacting positively on the local economy of the state. Of course, a lot still needs to be done in expanding the investment net. But it’s also safe to acknowledge the incremental addition that’s happening at the moment. The Bible says do not despise the days of little beginning!
For empirical elucidation, and to clear the doubts of the doubting Thomases and their skeptical cousins, I shall be highlighting some of the new investment activities the Akeredolu-led government has brought to the state starting from 2016 or thereabouts. But before then, it’s imperative to spotlight the brain behind the whole buzz around the investment drive in the state who prefers to work in the background. His name is Boye Oyewumi.
By official designation, Oyewumi was the Special Adviser to Governor Akeredolu on Investment who is still the Chief Executive Officer of Ondo State Development and Investment Promotion Agency(ONDIPA). He has been leading the agency since its establishment on October 1, 2017, by the Akeredolu government via an act of the state’s House of Assembly. Let it be noted that there was nothing like ONDIPA in the past in the state to serve as a fulcrum for articulating and coordinating the investment drive of the state and its willing investment partners until Akeredolu came on board to establish the agency which is now the cynosure of all investment eyes.
For a start, because of the favorable investment climate in the state created through the instrumentality of the agency and its ceaseless penchant for marshaling the ease of doing business in the state, Ondo State now ranks 8th among the sub-nationals in Nigeria in terms of the ease of doing business, according to a survey by the Presidential Enabling Business Environment Council. Before ONDIPA, the state was occupying the 36th position before! Interestingly, the agency is also working in partnership with Nigeria Investment Promotion Commission(NIPC) to obtain state investment certification for Ondo State. The certification will showcase to the world the investment readiness of the state.
Back to Boye Oyewumi. Since his first missionary journey, he has been so instrumental to the driving of the Governor’s investment focus and trajectory that the Governor, Akeredolu, a pragmatic and goal-centric leader, did not contemplate twice before reappointing him into the same position after his re-election for a second term in office in 2020.
As the investment wonk that he is, based on his track record in the private sector, traversing Nigeria and beyond the shores of the country, especially in the United Kingdom where he started, Boye Oyewumi is actualising the mission and vision of ONDIPA in collaboration with private sector partnership via three thematic ways: direct partnership or joint venture; concession of government-owned entities and facilitation of solely private investments in the state. The implication of this is that whatever investment that is currently domiciled in the state is either from any of the available tripartite tributaries which are products of the ingenuity of the man leading the agency.
To shock you, because of his prodigious capacity for achieving results without compromising the ethical values the Governor holds dear in the governance of the state, Boye Oyewumi has also been in charge, at various times of the state’s Ministry of Trade and Commerce in the absence of a substantive commissioner at times. Knowing who Governor Akeredolu is as a stickler for best practices and alpha intelligence complemented by demonstrable capacity for service delivery, he must have seen the experiential knowledge and practical experience possessed by Oyewumi before he could commit these fundamental responsibilities into his care. It’s just like how President Muhammadu Buhari engaged a former Governor of Lagos State, Raji Fashola, a top achiever, with three portfolios in one in 2015.
There is a fundamental question every critical mind must ask: Has Oyewumi, armed with a degree in Business Administration from the University of Maiduguri, Borno State, 1986 and an MBA from Middlesex University in the United Kingdom, 1993, delivered on the mandate bestowed him by the indefatigable governor of the state? Well, the jury is out but there are pieces of evidence to substantiate the claim that Boye Oyewumi is a top flier who has not only done adequate justice to his mandate but also taken it some notches higher beyond the original remit of what was given to him. Yet, he is not relenting because he knows how demanding Governor Akeredolu could be.
Back to the promise I made earlier, I return to some of the investments that have been drawn to Ondo State by ONDIPA led by Oyewumi that I promised I would enumerate here at the outset of this essay. Truth is, because of space constraints, this list won’t be exhaustive of the beautiful things Oyewumi is doing through ONDIPA. Nevertheless, a promise is a promise and must be honored!
So, some of the investments which could either be through a joint venture, concessions or privately owned include: Sunshine Food Processing which will boast of the largest and only egg processing plant in Africa when completed, Sunshine Chocolate Factory, Sunshine Fishery Farm, Oluwa Glass Manufacturing, Cocaset Sugarcane to Ethanol Company, Suncrest Rice Processing Factory, Ore Industrial Park, Public waste management now concessioned to ZL Global, DOME, Ondo State Printing Press now concessioned to Kunden Ltd, Ilula Recreational Centre, Ondo-Linyi Industrial Hub, Bambi Farms and Mills at Oke-Igbo, Guangdong Free Trade Zone in Alape Area of Ugbo Kingdom, Ilaje LGA, Minco Industrial Park along Ore corridor; Stone, Granite Cutting and Polishing, Afo, Ose LGA, OWWPPIN Ltd, Ondo Road Akure, among several others.
In totalising this piece, it is safe to say that a functional institution – that is, an agency of government, in this instance- is as good as the man at the helm of affairs driving the institution. For ONDIPA and its chain of modest achievements since the inception of its operations, it’s been Boye Oyewumi, an investment honcho, who has got a lot more to offer to Ondo State in particular and Nigeria at large, piloting the affairs of the agency. Well, the bigger thanks even go to Governor Akeredolu who found in Oyewumi the right man for the onerous responsibilities and thus engaged him to serve.
Amudipe sent this piece from Akure, Ondo-State