Recovery,” former Prime Minister of Britain, John Major once said, “begins from the darkest moment.” The circumstances of the State of Osun would readily fit this looking at the dramatic turnaround with the dawn of a new governance era in the state.
Raising a state that had gone down totally deflated must provide keen economists some good case studies. The lessons to be learnt derives from how the Rauf Aregbesola administration led a recovery job from the state’s “darkest moment”, to use the ex-British Prime Minister’s words, to a stage where all the indices are pointing to sharp departure from the recent depressing past on all the globally acknowledged human development indices.
The recent assessment of the impact of the local content policy initiative on employment generation in Osun through a survey pointedly explains how ingenious best practices in public finance, accountability, transparency, and a determined objective to turn around a state have moved Osun from an unenviable rating as the state with the highest unemployment rate in the South-west geo-political zone in 2011 to the state with the best rating in the region and the second best employment rating in the country.
Indeed, there is a less than one per cent margin between the state with the best rating in the country and Osun which has emerged second best throughout the country. Needless to state here, the 2011 survey is a reflection of the scenario that existed in Osun in 2010 before the current administration took over on November 27, 2010.
And what was the stage like before the new actors emerged? Poor implementation of policies and programmes, heavy reliance on allocations from the Federation Account, preference for recurrent expenditure rather than capital expenditure and poor attention to local content policy in the implementation and execution of projects in the state.
The combined effect of all these had resulted in what was no less an insolvent state where not only had capital projects become a tall order, recurrent expenditures such as overheads were taken care of through monthly loans.
Two years after, the Aregbesola administration has been able to halt the trend through policies aimed at injecting life back into the economy.
In what has directly affected the employment generation rating, the engagement of 20,000 youth for the purpose of community and social works, under the scheme, Osun Youth Empowerment Scheme (OYES) has made massive social impact. Through the huge number of hitherto unemployed and frustrated youths, the government injects a whooping sum of N200 million into the economy monthly. The ripple effect of this is mostly felt in the informal sector of the state’s economy where those without any purchasing power now have the muscle to enrich the markets with their purchase of daily needs.
The scheme has, in no small measure, also created avenues for the beneficiaries to, within the two years of their service to home state, look for other more profitable means of engagement which helps them quit the rank of the jobless for good.
For instance, various lucrative self-employment schemes and channels have been opened up such that an OYES cadet has the option of choosing his area of interest based on his academic trainings and qualifications.
Some of these include beef production through modern cattle ranch established in Oloba Cattle Ranch in Iwo; bee farming project, red brick scheme, and many other vocations which have the capacity to further create employment opportunities across the state.
Of course, many of the services rendered by the cadets have enhanced the quality of life of the citizenry as issues such environmental upgrade through the activities of the cadets, control of traffic, rescue duties in cases of emergencies, and other community and social works have assisted the people to move from the deplorable standard of living to more rewarding and proud lifestyles.
Another high social impact scheme of the state which has halted the poverty rating is the scheme, Agba Osun, a programme based on care for the elderly who are vulnerable throughout the state. After an enumeration, a total 1,602 senior citizens were identified as very vulnerable and in constant need of financial support. Every month, each of these elderly persons collect a sum of N10,000 as upkeep allowances.
Of course, closely related to the above is the attention paid to the issue of pension by the current administration.
For indigenes of the state, who had spent the better parts of their productive years working, unpaid pensions remained another source of poverty with the concomitant socio-economic complications.
It was this ugly trend that the Rauf Aregbesola-led government halted by ensuring prompt payment of backlogs. By August 2012, a total of N7.7bn had been paid in pension and gratuities.
Directly or indirectly, many of the policies have chain effects on the dramatic and unprecedented reduction in poverty rating of the state, giving the result of the best managed economy in the country in the face of worsening economic scenarios across Nigeria.
For instance, not many minds have reasoned that the decision of the state government to instil a culture of saving, no matter how meagre the resources of the state are, have brought some fortunes to the people.
Under the Omoluabi Conservation Funds, which is accurately backed by law, the Aregbesola administration has ensured that the state is not left vulnerable in the face of dwindling revenues from the Federation Account. This accounts for why Osun, despite the now well-known delay in the release of federal allocations, pays its workers on or before 26th day of every month. Apart from being a radical departure from the painful past of delayed salaries, pensions and gratuities, Osun has set the pace on how, even from the most meagre of resources, a culture of saving can be instituted to foster development.
Through the same strategy, the government has ensured that funds from the Excess Crude Oil Account are saved for the purpose of development. It is through this that the on-going 10 kilometres roads per local government scheme was made possible, having successfully saved over N10 billion which has served as an attraction to the financial institutions to partner with the state on behalf of the council areas to embark on the ambitious project of constructing the roads.
With those projects on going, analysts are of the conviction that the state is on the path to unprecedented growth with motorable network of roads.
In formulating policies to halt the ugly tide, Governor Aregbesola has demonstrated a parallel with Muhammad Yunus, winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, Bangladesh pro-poor thinker and author of Creating a World Without Poverty.
Yunus, who also authored the book, Banker to the Poor, had written in his book, “If the poor are to get the chance to lift themselves out of poverty, it’s up to us to remove the institutional barriers we have created around them. We must remove the absurd rules and laws we have made that treat the poor as nonenties. And we must come up with new ways to recognize a person by his or her worth, not by artificial measuring sticks imposed by a biased system”.
The above aptly illustrates the rationale behind the policies of the administration which aim to remove poverty totally and set the people on a path to prosperity.
• Alabi, a Media Assistant to the governor, wrote from Osogbo, State of Osun
