The Nation Newspaper

Tag: AREGBESOLA

  •  Aregbesola: We’ve lost a mother in a million

    The death of Alhaja Abibatu Mogaji has been described as a loss of a mother in a million.

    Osun State Governor, Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola, in a statement by the Director, Bureau of Communications and Strategy, Mr. Semiu Okanlawon, said the death of the Tinubu matriarch would leave a big vacuum in the political and commercial sectors of not only Lagos State but Nigeria at large.

    Aregbesola said Madam Mogaji led a life of substance worthy of emulation.

    “Mama Abibat Mogaji was a mother in a million. We commiserate with children, particularly Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu and others for the great loss.

    “We commiserate with the Oba of Lagos, HRH Rilwan Akiolu, the Mogaji Family, the people of Lagos, particularly Alhaji Femi Okunnu; the party (ACN); the government of Lagos, market men and women in Nigeria and Lagos in particular.

    “We pray that God gives them the fortitude to bear the loss and we pray God grants her Aljana Firdaus,” Aregbesola said.

    He also extended the condolence of the government and people of Osun to the immediate and extended families of Tinubu and other well-wishers.

  • The man who makes the difference

    Title: Rauf: Hero of the People
    Publishers: Tuwanide Books Lagos
    Authors: Olusegun Mayegun and Abosede Florence Kalejaiye
    Reviewer: Chijioke Uwasomba
    Year of publication: 2013

    The politics and personality of Rauf Aregbesola have become a reference point by both his admirers and political enemies alike since the late 1970s when he joined the political fray of the country as a progressive students’ union leader. Since his immersion in the politics of the country, he has not looked back with his creative and astute mobilisational engagements and activities. These have opened for him a flood-gate of linkages and contacts with a broad spectrum of progressive politicians, opinion leaders, social workers, market leaders, professional organisations and other social movements within and without. It is not surprising that through his political forays he ended up establishing robust working relationships with the like of Bola Ahmed Tinubu whose eight- year leadership of Lagos State outstandingly changed and remade the state for the better.

    The implication of the above is to demonstrate that Ogbeni Rauf Adesoji Aregbesola is a product of history and tendency that seriously pay attention to issues that concern the down-trodden of the society. It was with that mindset that he entered the hot race to contest the governorship seat of Osun State (State of Osun). His two and a half years as the captain of the ship of state in the State of Osun speak volumes of achievements in all facets. It is in recognition of the sterling performance of Rauf that Olusegun Mayegun and Abosede Kalejaiye, two patriots who have been monitoring his activities, took it upon themselves to document the people’s governor as the hero of the people.

    The Nigerian society has been hijacked by the decadent and corrupt – minded forces to such a level that cynism and despair have become the order of the day. And so where there is a deviation as can be seen in the character and achievements of the current governor of the State of Osun, it deserves to be documented and celebrated with a view to instilling good values and virtues in the youth who ultimately will be the future leaders of the society.

    The second chapter draws the attention of the reader to the family background of Rauf. Born on May 25, 1957, to the Aregbesola family of Ogbon- Arogbo of Ilesa, he was given a good home training and made to imbibe principles of simplicity, selflessness, humility, hard work and sincerity, as a child. His wonderful parents, who were widely travelled, made him to spend most of his childhood at Ikare in the present day Ondo State of Nigeria where he received his primary and secondary school education. With this solid background, he was able to proceed to the Ibadan polytechnic in 1976 to study Mechanical Engineering and graduated in 1980.

    It should be noted that Rauf’s family training aided his development in life, affording him the opportunity of searching for knowledge in all areas of human endeavour as he went all out to expand the horizons of his mind’s inquisitiveness through personal readings. As a student at the Ibadan Polytechnic, he was active in students’ politics and was committed to other progressive students’ movements and tendencies world-wide. Still at the Ibadan Polytechnic, he became the Speaker of the Students’ Union Parliament

    He was also instrumental to the formation of the key agencies in Lagos State which include the Kick Against Indiscipline (K A I), Lagos State Traffic Management Agency (LASTMA) and the Lagos State Waste Management Agency (LAWMA).

    In chapter three, the authors note that as a result of the high level of mis-governance witnessed in Osun State, Rauf, after having consulted fully with a broad spectrum of social workers, artisans, community leaders, politicians and professional organisations, indicated his strong desire to liberate the state by throwing his political hat into the ring. He adopted the name of ORANMIYAN, the youngest of the seven princes of Oduduwa, as his political movement. Oranmiyan, it should be remembered, was a courageous and successful nation builder and statesman.

    Chapter four of the book which is titled ‘A New Society and a New People’ encapsulates the Six- Point Action Plan upon which the election of Aregbesola was fought and won. The Six- Point Action Plan bears enumerating: (1) Banish Poverty (2) Banish Hunger (3) Banish Unemployment (4) Restore Healthy Living (5) Promote Functional Education (6) Enhance Communal Peace and Progress.

    The six-point Action Plan was taken seriously by the people who turned out enmass to vote in Rauf as their governor on April 14, 2007. He had the highest number of votes in 17 local government areas. In spite of these overwhelming votes, the powers-that-be denied him access to the State House until Friday, November 26, 2010, when he reclaimed his stolen mandate through the judicial process.

    In the words of the authors, since assumption of office, ‘Rauf Aregbesola has been working on the promises that he made by executing his plans to raise Osun to a place where human dignity, rule of law and people-centred development are the order of the day’ (65). The state has been rebranded as ‘Ipinle Omoluabi’; agriculture has been revived with the provision of improved methods of farming and the application of scientific knowledge and technology to increase productivity. Measures have been put in place to ensure the security of life and property. Other activities and achievements include but not limited to the following: Setting up of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission; Construction and rehabilitation of over 12,000 kilometres of roads in the state; Rehabilitation of the water corporation; Rescuing of many abandoned road projects; Opening up of many rural areas; Making the railways to function again; Beautification of the environment; Resettling of destitutes and the homeless; Relocation of market and stalls to appropriate places; The institution of the O’Meal programme for thousands of primary and JSS pupils; Creation of inter-ethnic and inter-religious harmony; Provision of thousands of jobs to the youths through the O’YES and other employment generating programmes; payment of N19,000 minimum wage with N1,000 over and above the approved federal government rate in 2010 and the restoration of the rights of the people.

    The authors are not done yet as they reel out more achievements of the government of Ogbeni Aregbesola within a short time: Support to farmers as they now form themselves into co-operative societies and the provision of transport for easy movement of farm produce by farmers; Reduction of fees payable by students of higher learning by 50 percent; Increase in budgetary allocation to education as primary and secondary education is made free, functional and qualitative; Special allowances for teachers in the rural areas; Construction of about 170 model schools; The provision of ‘Opon Imo’ (Tablets of Knowledge) to secondary school students; Free health programme, etc. Through the O’Reap programme, over 7,500 acres of land have been cultivated.

    What emerges from the foregoing is that with the coming of Aregbesola into the political terrain of the state, the state cannot be the same again. A man with such an immense transformational capacity is a hero who embodies all that is good, noble, polite, patriotic, fair and just. His values deserve to be emulated. To this extent, this book should be translated into Yoruba and in the immediate future be translated into other major Nigerian languages.

    Uwasomba is of the Department of English,

    Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, Osun State.

  • Aregbesola, Omisore and I

    Aregbesola, Omisore and I

    The political drumbeat of the 2014 gubernatorial election in the State of Osun is, no doubt, gathering momentum.

    It is weird and surprising that those at the forefront of the opposition drumbeats have refused to come out with concrete programmes to challenge the incumbent governor, Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola, and my party, the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN).

    As a student of politics, democracy and good governance, elections are (meant to be) won with laudable programmes, peoples’ appeal, and acceptance; not boastful claims without substance and willful distortion of facts.

    Unfortunately and surprisingly, Senator Iyiola Omisore is at the forefront of the opposition drumbeat, doing all he could to gain media presence. I thought it was not worth giving him any response, but it appears that this posture of silence has resulted into unabated, conceited and ignominious ranting of a misguided soul.

    From the boastful misadventure of threatening to stop the convoy of the governor in the Nigerian Tribune interview of Sunday, 10th February, 2013, and the usual Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) beer parlour misinformed remarks, silence seem to be no longer golden.

    In a nutshell, Iyiola Omisore has made futile attempts to launder his image, flaunting integrity and pedigree he does not possess and making unsubstantiated political rhetoric.

    Omisore has been so blindfolded by his inordinate ambition that he fails to realise that the people of Osun’s parameter for gauging political reliability has left the days of United Nigeria Congress Party (UNCP) when you had to be an Abacha’s friend; and the barometer of measuring trust and performance are no more where they left it, when it was just a question of posturing.

    The people have had the opportunity of juxtaposing two governments and have clearly chosen that which meets their real and felt needs.

    Led by Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola, the ACN in the State of Osun sought and obtained the Almighty God’s consent to liberate the people of Osun. We consulted far and wide; drew up our plans, programmes and manifestoes from both bureaucratic and technocratic perspectives.

    Between 2005 and now, we have campaigned into the nooks and crannies of the State of Osun with a clearly defined manifesto to show for it all the way. We also taught the people how to defend their votes and ensure the same count.

    In Osun East senatorial district from which I was elected, we did not only campaign in the cities, we traversed the rural areas. Not at one time did we meet the PDP campaigning. They were still under the spell that guns and machetes would be used to snatch ballot boxes and write results.

    Without equivocation, the administration of Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola in the State of Osun has performed well. This is clear to all and sundry except sworn critics, blind politicians or those craving for “Abuja attention”.

    Infrastructure under the Olagunsoye Oyinlola-led administration was dilapidated to say the least. The governor has successfully taken the state from its disorganised state of nature where we met it and has put it on the path of ideal governance.

    In this day and age, I can’t imagine how PDP managed the state without a Waste, Traffic, Signage, Hygiene Management Agencies, amongst others, to say the least.

    At the moment, 20 inter-city roads (294kms) are either under construction or are completed. 61 major township roads are either under construction or are completed (128kms, including the important Omi-Okun Road in Ile-Ife that is said to have been already contracted by PDP and abandoned).

    A super highway from Old Garage in Osogbo to Ila-Odo in Kwara State is ongoing (47kms) and Osun is being connected directly to Ogun and Lagos States through Gbongan/Ikire/Orile-Owu/Ajegunle/Ijebu-Igbo (74kms). Under the supervision of the state government, the 30 local government areas are constructing an average of 300kms of roads.

    Is Senator Omisore aware of the qualitative leap in the Education Sector with the phenomenal and second to none Tablet “Opon-Imo”, with 56 tutorials and free text books covering about 17 subjects and over 40,000 practice questions for students in SS1 – SS3?

    What about the free uniform given to every student, free quality and nutritious lunch for 254,000 elementary school children provided by 3,000 women recruited by the state government, properly kitted and groomed for that purpose? About 90 monumental school structures are springing up across the state. These are exceptional dividends of democracy that can be least imagined by Senator Omisore and his ilk.

    Agriculture is now a profitable and lucrative business in the state, farm support, inputs and markets are readily provided by the government to encourage farmers. Take a tour of the farm settlements that were wastelands when the PDP was in governance and see tremendous transformation.

    Water production capacity of Ede Water Works has been improved from 17% to 30% with a commitment to make it 100% by the end of this year. Rural water supply has received a boost with massive repair of dysfunctional water pumps and provision of about 122 new hand pumps for 61 communities.

    The first sets of 20,000 OYES cadets have successfully been absorbed by the economy and the government, contributing meaningfully to the economy from various sectors. Another set of 20,000 is currently on the scheme gulping about 200 million naira every month. We have the Green Gang, Traffic Marshals, Paramedics, Public Works Brigade, Sanitation Czars and the Sheriff Corp, which are productively engaging our youths as against the past orientation of preoccupying them with political violence and other abuses. They are off the streets and no more readily available as tools for political violence.

    What are we talking about here? The State of Osun hosted the PDP-led federal government when the OYES project was studied for replication. Even the SURE-P blueprint used the picture of OYES in a parade for its youth development programme.

    Improvement in the health sector has been tremendous with over 74 new primary health centres built to proliferate healthcare to all communities within the state. We give free healthcare to all without discrimination on any condition and almost concluding renovation and equipping our state hospitals and comprehensive health centres. As we speak, there are about 115 medical students from the state currently undertaking their clinical studies in Ukraine; they were admitted to study medicine in Osun State University by the PDP administration without clinical studies facilities.

    The PDP in the State of Osun has recently been fed with tissues of lies that Senator Iyiola Omisore’s woeful loss and my victory at the Osun East (Ife/Ijesa) senatorial district polls of April 9, 2011 is subjudice, i.e. a subject of litigation. The truth is that I won that election squarely, in a free and fair atmosphere, largely devoid of the usual vote-stealing, ballot box-snatching, violence (the people of Ife refused to be provoked when 5 people were killed in a Church on the eve of the election at Isale-Agbara in 2011. Our Polling Agent was killed in Ojoyin in 2007) and result-writing.

    I scored a total of 119,652 votes, while Iyiola scored 51,315 votes, winning with a margin of 68,337 votes. For record purposes, Iyiola Omisore did not win his Moore Ward in Ife East Local Government.

    He scored 1,084 votes, while I scored 1,131 votes. He did not even file a petition in the Electoral Tribunal. At least, I was not served with any court process and I did not appear at any tribunal. Election tribunals are open to the public and the only petition filed in Osun State Electoral Tribunal in 2011 was Oluwole Oke (PDP) Vs. Nathaniel Agunbiade (ACN). The PDP petitioner in the afore-cited case lost at the tribunal and lost his appeal.

    Omisore also did not win in 2007 when I first contested against him. If the compilers of the World Guinness Book of Record had been observers at that election, that election would have gone down in the annals of history as the most rigged election in the whole world.

    I showed a video to the tribunal where 3 young men (names withheld) cast 1,350 votes for Omisore at the Odo-Eran (Abattoir) polling unit of Ajebandele Ward in Ife Central within 1 hour. The Court of Appeal ruled in my favour on October 29th, 2009 that the election was fraught with malpractices and violence and ordered a fresh election.

    In the wisdom of my party, we decided not to participate in that election so as not to waste the lives of our polling agents since we did not trust the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) under Prof Maurice Iwu.

    Free and fair elections were also not held in 2003 when he claimed victory from prison detention. Results were written. How could he have won Uncle Bola Ige’s polling unit in Esa-Oke? Furthermore, Omisore will still have to explain among other things if and how the Commissioner for Oath visited him in prisons to sign his INEC Form in 2003.

    For the avoidance of doubt, under the relevant provision of the Electoral Act, a Notary Public cannot endorse an INEC Form; only a Commissioner for Oath could. Statute of limitation does not apply in criminal matters.

    The only free and fair election Iyiola Omisore won was as a running mate to Chief Bisi Akande in January 1999. In that government, Omisore represented gross insubordination. He abjectly subverted, serially undermined, extremely defiled, rudely disobeyed and obviously disrespected the old man (his boss) even before they were sworn-in on May 29, 1999.

    I sincerely hope that Senator Omisore knows the difference between popularity and notoriety. For academic purpose, popularity amounts to being liked or admired by many, while notoriety is being famous for some bad qualities.

    Yoruba people and indeed all Nigerians are teaching the new generation to look deeply into qualities, substance, deliverables and tangible proofs of service before they brand public office holders as idols, heroes and leaders.

    My secret prayer is that PDP fields Omisore in the next gubernatorial election against Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola. Like the Americans say, “bring him on”!

    Since 2006, I have requested for a public debate with Iyiola Omisore on any national network of his choice and I am still keeping this humble challenge open.

    Omoworare is senator representing Osun East.

  • O’odua children’s day celebration: Aregbesola dazzles them again

    The world should expect more monumental innovations from ACN governors

    It is settled amongst progressive academics and intellectuals, of not just Southwestern Nigeria extraction alone , but the world at large, that the fundaments of Yoruba politics remain: A liberal, democratic state governed by competent, cerebral leaders, founded on social justice, equity, equality, enlightenment and freedom. Look around today, even in the non-conformist Ondo State, and you will see that deep down, this is an undeniable truism though some basic differences remain, especially in the latter’s obvious readiness to play the spoiler to mainstream Yoruba sociopolitical aspirations.

    That though, is for another day.

    Today, we are celebrating a key member of that class where the Lagos state governor, Babatunde Fashola, SAN, is captain. Go to Edo, find your way to Ekiti, Osun, Oyo, Ogun and Lagos and you will not but be euphoric at the multi-sectoral building blocks being laid by the clear-headed and focused leaders the good Lord has gifted Yoruba land with, especially at a time the country, under a dissembling PDP, is itself weighed down by totally avoidable crises, and visibly tottering. I speak here of none other than the Ogbeni governor, Engr Rauf Aregbesola, the restless, prodigious and ever thinking governor of The State of Osun, who seems daily to come up with something new.

    In his article of June, 9, 2013: ‘Is Osun Truly At The Onset Of A Revolution?, my friend, Tunde Fagbenle, the withering journalist and farmer rolled into one, wrote: ‘There’s been a flurry of activity in the State of Osun in the last few weeks to invite the attention of Nigerians everywhere and raise the curiosity of many a serious thinker – what is all these about? Is there much substance to it or is it more of noise and make-belief?’. Tunde is from Osun State but because I have a bragging rights here, I can tell him without equivocation that he is seeing the real thing. Here, without a scintilla of doubt is a revolution, albeit in the making, because you dare not take a bet on what next is coming from that prodigious mind. Ogbeni is simply unfathomable, and here I do nothing of making him a god.

    My bragging rights? Okay, I know Engr Aregbesola a long way back and even as the marauders held tight to the mandate the good people of Osun had long given him, he never stopped engaging me with his plans, not only for the state of Osun but the entire Yoruba land. You see him at his most enthusiastic and gregarious, telling you what a million things leadership can do in this clime to banish poverty from our midst and make us count among the civilized world where he contends the Yoruba nation rightly belongs.

    These discussions therefore led me, way back, 12 January, 2011 to put my views of Aregbesola on paper in this very column in an article I titled: AREGBESOLA: Osun State Has Turned The Bend. I shall quote moderately from that article because today’s focus is the totally unprecedented, culture ennobling O’Odua Children’s Day the State of Osun celebrated on Monday, 27 May, 2013 with children and royalties from as far afield as Osun, Ekiti, Ondo, Ogun, Oyo, Lagos, Kwara, Kogi, Edo and Delta States of Nigeria; West African countries of Benin, Togo, Ghana and Sierra Leone; South American countries of Brazil, Argentina and Colombia; Cuba; Caribbean; and the United States.

    It will be interesting now to know which of these countries Osun PDP clowns would say Aregbesola wants to overrun Nigeria with. Last year it was Cuba..

    That article began as follows: ‘

    ‘Given the breath of fresh air in Osun state today, all its citizens, young and old, must thank God that He made nonsense of the counsel of Ahitophel on the state of the living spring. They must not even begin to imagine what the state would be like today had the PDP succeeded itself in the 2011 general elections. Just cast your mind back to the era of Senator Iyiola Omisore as Deputy Governor in the state; recall the many horrendous consequences of a young man’s unrestrained political ambition and begin to imagine him as state governor.’ We cannot thank God enough.

    The article goes further: ‘Go to Oshogbo today and you will not believe this was the ‘gangster’ state where a poor 16- year old girl was serially gang-raped by political roughnecks, with neither the First lady nor the Deputy Governor, mothers for that matter, saying a single word in condemnation. Nor will you believe that mere queuing up at the gas station to buy fuel had once become fatal in the state, courtesy the same PDP political thugs’.The article then went into a discussion of the governor’s plans for agriculture; how he had built up a synergy between the state and the Nigerian railways which will evacuate farm products as well as bring to the state manufactured goods that would sell at Lagos prices. He was not only keen but eager to get the state to supply a huge chunk of the billions worth food items consumed in Lagos daily. On another occasion, as a member of the Afenifere Renewal Group delegation to present the Dawn Document to him -we could not see him in his office until about 11pm – he dropped snippets of the Opon Imo – the revolutionary, standalone learning tablet that provides the senior secondary school students with the contents required to prepare for the school leaving examinations and providing 3 major content categories in text books, tutorials and past questions. A total of 150,000 students will benefit in the first instance and would thus have access to learning regardless of means, location or status. Like Chief Awolowo’s free primary education programme, the Opon Imo will be talked about for generations. But I am probably the very first columnist to ever write about it because it is so unique I could not hold on to the newsbreak and promptly wrote about it in the article under reference, even at a time Ogbeni was still holding it to his chest.

    I wrote as follows on Opon Imo:

    ‘As the governor told a recent delegation of the Afenifere Renewal Group on which I was present, his government will soon unveil what it calls OPON IMO (Tablet of Knowledge). This is a computer system, in the mold of an IPAD which will contain the curriculum of about 39 subjects offered at the School Certificate level complete with past questions and answers and divided into subject areas with students accessing relevant course areas. Apart from exposing these young minds to basic computer literacy, the Opon will enable students study anywhere without the burden of having to carry text books around.

    To this year’s children’s day celebration then.

    The purpose of this year’s O’odua Children’s Day celebrations according to Ogbeni’s are multifarious:

    The State of Osun, has decided to give their children the solid educational and moral foundation that will enable them to be well-rounded adults in the future.

    **They are of the conviction that the realisation of the sociocultural and economic integration of the Yoruba race can be greatly enhanced by imparting that vision into the children. Indeed, such a cultural renaissance agenda, they believe, cannot succeed without including the children, for they are a key factor in its success. The Yoruba cultural integration can only be meaningful if the children, who would carry on the culture are properly socialised into it, along with the inculcation of value underpinning it.

    ** They also want to deliberately re-awaken the cultural and value consciousness of Yoruba people to make them realise the beauty of Yoruba virtues and to give them a sense of pride in their culture. It is such consciousness and re-awakening that can generate the willingness to reach out across the barriers of space and borders to others with the same culture and thereby foster integration among the Yoruba peoples, home and abroad. Children are therefore given their pride of place in the agenda.

    Like his other colleague ACN governors, sans those of Lagos and Edo, Aregbesola is only in his first term. From these men, like the stratospheric Fasola and awesome Oshiomhole, the world can only expect much more monumental innovations as they do not believe in the ‘share the money credo’.

    For any of them, there is going to be no dull moment.

  • ‘Three-tier federal structure an anomaly’

    ‘Three-tier federal structure an anomaly’

    •Aregbesola, Sagay speak at national public discourse

     

    Osun State Governor Rauf Aregbesola and renowned Professor of Law, Itsay Sagay (SAN), yesterday described Nigeria’s three-tier federal structure as a fundamental error and an anomaly.

    They said in a true federal system, no provision is made for local governments as federating partners.

    According to them, the centre and the states make up federating units, while local governments ought to exist as states’ administrative units.

    They said states, therefore, should be free to decide the number of local governments they want, when to create them and how to run and fund them.

    Listing Nigeria’s 774 local governments in the 1999 Constitution is therefore an aberration, they said.

    Aregbesola was the keynote speaker at the second edition of the National Public Discourse held in Lagos. It had the theme: Local Government Authority: How Autonomous?

    He said: “When we talk about local government autonomy, we should qualify it. In a federation, the federating entities are the states and the centre.

    “In a federation, therefore, autonomy makes sense only in the relationship between the states and the centre where we look at a spectrum that runs on the two extremes of unitarism and confederation.

    “In a federal system, there is no provision for local governments as a federating partner, and to talk of one is to engage in peddling ‘federalism fallacy’.”

    The governor said the issue of local governments’ autonomy should only come into play within the context of their relationship with their states.

    He said Nigeria has a fundamental problem with the structure of its federalism, which has negatively affected its development prospects.

    He said it is not logical that the 1999 Constitution confers power to create local governments on states, but at the same time makes their creation invalid without National Assembly’s endorsement.

    “This is mainly due to tying the funding of local governments to allocation from the centre, because the Federal Government maintains an unhealthy stranglehold on the wealth of the nation,” Aregbesola said.

    He added that local governments cannot be autonomous as long as they are dependent on federal allocation for their funding, and as long as the power of states to create them is seemingly made largely theoretical.

    Aregbesola attributed the anomaly to the inherited military unified control (garrison command) of the federation.

    Calling for fundamental changes, he said the creative talent of people would never be unleashed where the Federal Government maintains a stifling hold on the nation’s sources of wealth by taking over 50 per cent of the country’s wealth.

    Sagay said Nigeria is a federation, so the idea of having autonomous local governments makes no sense.

    “To have the local governments listed in the constitution is an aberration,” he said, adding that councils should exist as agencies of the states for development.

    “It should not be mentioned at all in the constitution. States should decide how many local governments they need and fund them. We don’t even need a Federation Account.

    “It is not the duty of the constitution to direct the state to create a local government area. A state should decide whether its local government officials should work on a part-time basis or not, or whether to run them like a parliamentary system. We don’t have to have the same system for all the local governments.

    “If you want autonomy for the local government, then kiss federalism goodbye,” Sagay said.

     

  • Welcome, Opon-Imo; goodbye, Igba Aimo

    Welcome, Opon-Imo; goodbye, Igba Aimo

    As Osun people take ‘Tablet of Knowledge’, they should say ‘never again’ to PDP-type ignorance

    Even Chief Jeremiah Obafemi Awolowo would have turned in his grave on June 3, when Governor Rauf Aregbesola of Osun State presented ‘Opon-Imo’, the magic computer tablet that his administration has been working on for quite some time, to the world, at a well attended ceremony in Ilesha, Osun State. Not a few persons have acknowledged, and rightly too, that since the introduction of free education in the defunct Western Region by the late sage, Chief Awolowo in 1955, ‘Opon- Imo’ remains the second most revolutionary project in education, not just in the geo-political axis, but nationwide.

    The point is that only the mischievous will see an elephant and say it seems they just saw something; when we see an elephant, we should say so. ‘Opon-Imo’ is a milestone. That explained why Nigeria literally stood still for Aregbesola when he launched the computer tablet. The array of personalities that graced the event cut across ethnic, political and religious divides, which is something to cheer in a country where politics is being introduced into virtually everything, and in the most cynical, if not outright damaging manner. This was something that was killed in the June 12, 1993 presidential election (that would be exactly 20 years on Wednesday), but which was annulled by reactionary elements in the country.

    The Aregbesola administration has no choice but to be creative in its handling of education in the state, if it must live to its billing as a progressive government. The government inherited a situation where only about three percent of secondary school leavers in the state had the requisite pass for admission into tertiary institutions. This was an unusual situation in a south-western state which called for an unusual answer. The government quickly held a summit of education stakeholders which looked into the state of education in the state and made far-reaching recommendations. Needless to say that ‘Opon-Imo’ is one of the major responses by the government in tackling the problem.

    So, what is ‘Opon-Imo’? I do not know whether it has a parallel in the world, but I know it is novel in the country, at least no government in the federation, whether federal, state or local has done such a thing. According to Aregbesola, “It is a virtual classroom containing 63 e-books covering 17 academic subjects for examinations conducted by the West AfThe Yoruba, Sexuality Education, Civic Education, Ifa on ethics and life’. This section also contains an average of 16 chapters per subject and 823 chapters in all, with about 900 minutes or 15 hours of audio voiceovers”.

    Aregbesola added, “In the integrated test zone of the device, there are more than 40,000 JAMB and WAEC practice questions and answers dating back to about 20 years. It also contains mock tests in more than 51 subject areas, which approximates to 1,220 chapters, with roughly 29,000 questions referencing about 825 images”.

    In fact, there is so much to say for this computer tablet. But I would not dwell much on that because so many people have discussed these in some details. Suffice it to say that power supply is not a problem for those who might want to look at that aspect of our national life. Already, the UN organisation has said it would adopt ‘Opon-Imo’ as one of the major tools of its West African regional harmonisation efforts in education. This, as well as how ‘Opon-Imo’ affect governance is my concern. A prophet is not without honor except in his own town and in his own home.

    But shouldn’t charity begin at home? You can be sure it won’t, at least not when the issue has to do with progress; and especially so that the charity is coming from an opposition political party. It is instructive that this all-important computer tablet was launched at a time the country’s ruling party, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) was busy doing nothing, or at best going after some of its leading lights, celebrating and covering its laggards with the ubiquitous ‘federal might’ that the party’s leadership and the presidency keep demystifying by the day with their actions and utterances.

    Rather than bring innovativeness into governance, the ruling party has continued business as usual. The other time we were debating how much to spend on the vice president’s lodge. At a time when the government should be busy dreaming dreams for national development, the whole machinery of government was deployed to ensure the government’s favoured candidate won the Nigeria Governors Forum (NGF) election. Just last Thursday, the PDP suspended another governor (in line with my prediction last Sunday that the party would deal with governors who refused to team up with it in voting for its failed candidate in the NGF election, Jonah Jang). We should expect more of such sanctions over frivolous matters, including governors being nailed over the inability of the party’s leaders to successfully perform their conjugal responsibility on bed, should that suddenly happen. And this is the attitude that the party would carry to 2015 and still expect to win the election.

    If indeed knowledge is power, then one can start imagining what the impact of ‘Opon-Imo’ would be on educational performance in Osun state in the next few years. And, for the benefit of many of our youths who mistake Obafemi Martins for Chief Awolowo due to our shambolic educational curriculum, it is important to stress that what is happening, especially in the south-western part of the country today is not novel to the region; they have their roots in the past. The former Western Region (now Ogun, Osun, Oyo, Ekiti and Ondo states) was the pace setter under Chief Awolowo’s premiership. The region has many firsts to its credit: the first skyscraper in the country (Cocoa House); the first region to implement free education; the first stadium in West Africa (Liberty Stadium, Ibadan; the first television station (WNTV) in Africa (forget the attempt by the defunct National Party of Nigeria (NPN) in the ’80s to turn history on its head by claiming that the first TV station in Africa was established in Libya). We still have such people in the country today who would want to rewrite our unfolding history in their own image rather than in the image in which it occurred.

    If indeed Victor Huho is correct that ‘He who opens a school door, closes a prison’, then we can imagine how many prisons the Aregbesola administration must have succeeded in closing with its giant strides in the educational sector in Osun State. ‘Opon-Imo’ must necessarily remind one of the years of the locust that the PDP rule in Osun was. With ‘Opon-Imo’, ‘Igba aimo’ (the time of ignorance) must have been over in Osun; it must never return. Osun people are not dogs that will always return to their vomit. This, the people will confirm when they go to the polls next year to retain their governor. Goodbye to jati jati.

  • Aregbesola to send bill recognising June 12 as Democracy Day to Assembly

    AS part of activities marking the 20th a n n i v e r s a r y celebration of the June 12, 1993 general election, Osun State Governor, Rauf Aregbesola, will soon send a bill recognising June 12 as Democracy Day to the state House of Assembly. The state Commissioner for Information and Strategy, Hon. Sunday Akere, made the disclosure on Friday at a press conference organised by the Civil Soceities Coalition in Osogbo, State capital ahead of this year’s celebration. He assured that the governor would live up to his pledge to send the bill to the state House of Assembly in order to ensure that June 12 becomes a constitutional matter that any future administration will recognise. Akere said the Aregbesola administration was not just a beneficiary of June 12 struggle, but also active participants in the struggle that led to the institutionalising of democracy in Nigeria. He said: “I want to assure you that within the confine of the law, we are still doing everything possible to institutionalise June 12 as a national holiday. “As you all know, many of us serving in the present administration stood shoulder to shoulder with some of you (human rights activists) fighting for the enthronement of democracy and later the actualisation of June 12 mandate, which led to the open declaration of late Chief M.K.O. Abiola as the elected President. The commissioner noted that before the Aregbesola administration came on board, the governor and some of those in his cabinet have been collaborating with the civil society groups to organise programmes in commemoration of June 12. “Our resolve to collaborate with the civil societies in the state is to ensure a befitting June 12 celebration that would be symbolic and move away from the period when the day’s celebration was in bits and pieces among different groups,” Akere said. A leading human rights activist in the state, Comrade Amitolu Shittu, challenged every Nigerian and the media not to allow the spirit of June 12 to die. Also speaking, Comrade Waheed Lawal, coordinating the Civil Societies Coalition in the state, wondered why the Olusegun Obasanjo administration failed to recoginse June 12 as democracy day, being the day the process for democratic civilian rule commenced.

  • Osun ACN chair hails Aregbesola on Opon Imo

    •Group lauds governor’s projects

    The Acting Chairman of the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) in Osun State, Elder Adelowo Adebiyi, has congratulated Governor Rauf Aregbesola and his team on the successful inauguration of the Opon Imo (Tablet of Knowledge.)

    He said Aregbesola’s efforts to make life more meaningful for the people through his “laudable” initiatives were second to none.

    In a statement, Adebiyi described the governor as a “go getter”, whose initiatives were geared towards the state’s development.

    He said the caliber of dignitaries at the inauguration of the Opon Imo in Ilesa, such as House of Representatives’ Speaker Aminu Tambuwal; former Vice-President Atiku Abubakar; ACN National Leader Asiwaju Bola Tinubu and the representative of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO), among others, showed that Osun had set the pace for quality education in Africa.

    Adebiyi said Aregbesola’s initiatives have made teaching and learning easier.

    He urged the people to support Aregbesola to enable him continue his “good work” beyond 2014.

    A socio-political group in the ACN, the Omoluabi Progressive Association (OPA), also hailed the governor on the “massive developmental projects going on across the state”.

    OPA, which comprises young professionals in the state, endorsed Aregbesola for a second term.

    In a statement by its coordinator, Mr. Lekan Odediran, the group said Opon Imo has digitalised education in Osun.

    It hailed the governor and members of the state executive council for “equipping youths to stand tall among their peers worldwide”.

    OPA said: “Ogbeni has again placed Osun on the world map through his wisdom, financial re-engineering skills and creativity. As a visionary leader, the governor has, in 30 months, transformed Osun, despite the meagre resources accruing to the state monthly.

    “Osun has undisputedly become a pace setter in almost all sectors, such as the provision of 150,000 computer tablets for pupils, the employment of 40,000 youths under the Osun Youth Employment Scheme (O’YES), the successful hosting of the Oodua World Children’s Day celebration, the feeding of 240,000 pupils daily with highly nutritious meals and the provision of free uniforms for public school pupils, among others.

    “The governor’s passion to renew Osun and the outstanding and unimaginable work he has done are there for everyone to see. With these, we declare our solidarity for his administration and 100 per cent commitment to his reelection.”

     

  • Awada Kerikeri in Abuja

    Oh boy, oh boy, whilst we are still on the subject of political drama, has anybody watched the travelling video of the elections conducted by the Nigerian Governors Forum to elect its own leadership? This is what happens when the people infiltrate one of their own authentic leaders, Rauf Adesoji Aregbesola, into a forum of feral carpetbaggers who do not care a hoot about democratic decorum.

    Snooper has watched the video several times and feels very sorry for Nigeria. It is an unworthy political melodrama. Their Excellencies behaved like cads and political bounders. They should not be proud of themselves. People should keep that video for posterity in case democracy unravels once again. The shame of it all has led Tunde Fashola, the cultured and civilised governor of Lagos State, to tender an apology on behalf of his errant colleagues. This will not prevent Snooper from wielding the heavy lash

    It was Raymond Williams, the famous British literary critic of proud Welsh extraction, who noted that one should not bother about what goes on in a church if you are not a member. Snooper has never hidden his distaste and contempt for the Governors’ Forum. It is an anti-democratic cartel of strange bedfellows. It has offered a platform for some of its past leaders to talk down on Nigerians with fatuous pomposity. It has supported many anti-people measures such as the removal of the phantom fuel subsidy. It parades and has paraded many undesirable elements that should be in jail rather then preening and strutting about the gubernatorial mansions.

    But fair is fair. When such an ethically challenged forum cannot obey its own rules or the basic tenets of democratic conduct all for reasons of political expediency, then democracy is on a life support. These monkey marionettes and their master puppeteer in the background will be held responsible if anything untoward happens to democracy in Nigeria.

    There can be no doubt that Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi won the election fair and square. The whole process was clean and transparent. The federal authorities should be embarrassed that the video recording has gone viral and they ought to have done something to halt the post-election charade, if they are not behind it in the first instance.

    The resort to a larcenous fabrication of a phantom majority after an election has been won and lost must rank as a new low even by the infamous standards of electoral banditry in Nigeria. No matter what happens next, it is a win win situation for Rotimi Amaechi. He has shown true grit and courage in the face of state persecution. Nigerians will surely hear from the fellow again long after his assailants have returned to penal obscurity.

    If there is a clear winner in this matter, there are also clear losers. It was sad to watch the elderly Governor Jonah Jang defending the indefensible even as his strange and convoluted logic descended into arrant blasphemy. Jang, a former Commodore of the Air Force, a presumed gentleman and a man with the mien of a pious priest suffering from ethnic persecution complex, has obviously struck a deal with the devil.

    But for this column, the greatest loser is Governor Olusegun Rahman Mimiko of Ondo State. Is Iroko beginning to politically unravel? He appeared nervous, fidgety, uncomfortable and ill at ease among the hard people of the PDP. Snooper’s good friend and former comrade in arms in the students’ struggle against early military despotism in Nigeria should know that his people, the Yoruba, detest injustice in any form and manner. They are watching and taking note.

    For some time now, Snooper has been observing Mimiko flip and flap about like a huge fish that has thrown itself out of water. In the run up to the Ondo gubernatorial election, this column had argued that even if Mimiko won, he would have exhausted his historical and political possibilities by not aligning himself with the current mood and dominant political tendency of his people. Every passing day confirms the potency of that political prophecy, and every critical misstep of Mimiko points at a political tragedy in the making.

  • Protect your voter cards, Aregbesola warns electorate

    Protect your voter cards, Aregbesola warns electorate

    Osun State Governor Rauf Aregbesola has urged the people to be wary of politicians, who are trying to lure them into selling their voter cards.

    He spoke in Ibokun, headquarters of Obokun Local Government Area, at the inauguration of the Aregbesola Campaign Office, which was facilitated by the Assistant Director (Community Forum), Bureau of Communication and Strategy, Office of the Governor, Mr. Olatunbosun Oyintiloye.

    Describing such transaction as illegal, the governor wondered why some politicians were striving to return to power through illegal means, despite the fact that they failed the people when they were in power.

    He said: “For 14 years of democracy, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has been in power at the centre, but the people have not seen any development they have attracted to our state and other states of the federation, despite the huge resources available to the government at the centre.

    “The Federal Government takes 51 per cent of the country’s resources and states share only 26 per cent. Despite that, no impact of the Federal Government is felt here, except for the police.

    “It is from our share of the 26 per cent that we have attracted the huge development you are seeing to our state within two-and-a-half years. They were also here, but they achieved nothing.

    “The progressives have only ruled for six-and-a-half years, comprising the four years of Chief Bisi Akande and my two-and-a-half years, and for that period, there has been development in Osun, while the PDP was here for seven-and-a-half years with nothing to show for it.”

    Aregbesola said his administration was determined to transform the state into a Mecca of sort and make it a model for development in Africa.

    Oyintiloye said the development Osun is witnessing was well-planned.

    He said Aregbesola deserves to be reelected by the people.

    Oyintiloye said he and some other people pooled resources together to set up the campaign office and champion the governor’s reelection crusade in the council.

    The governor met with traditional rulers in the local government, who said his reelection would benefit the state.