The Nation Newspaper

Tag: OSUN

  • Osun’s strategy against unemployment

    Osun’s strategy against unemployment

    The National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) revealed that no fewer than 5.3 million youths are jobless, while 1.8 million graduates enter the labour market every year. This figure could be a conservative estimate of the actual number of unemployed youths in the country, going by previous statistics released by NBS, which put the number of jobless Nigerians at 20.3 million.

    The above is a reflection of previous governments’ inability to design policies that will create more jobs, or provide enabling environment that could encourage both individuals and the private sector to expand employment opportunities without let or hindrance.

    It is in line with the above that the Osun State Government established an office known as Osun Job Centre. This is in pursuance of a key component of Governor Rauf Adesoji Aregbesola-led administration’s Six Point Integral Action Plan which is banishment of unemployment from the state. The Job Centre is established as a State Government-funded one-stop employment agency with desk offices located at each of the 30 local government areas.

    The Centre will act as a facilitator between job seekers and employers by providing employment information and services to a wide range of people, from the unemployed looking for employment, the underemployed looking for better jobs, to employers advertising job openings. It is aimed at eradicating barriers to employment by promoting education, training and business enterprise. It will contribute to the personal development of the labour force through the creation of opportunities for their productive engagement and utilisation.

    The centre provides employment service tools such as an infrastructure for the business community to post its skills needs as well as in-house computers with free access to the internet.

    To provide a venue where job seekers can meet and network with representatives of prospective employers from diverse sectors of the economic with the possibility of securing employment.

    However, the private sector also has a role to play in creating employment, as experience has shown that government alone cannot provide all the needed jobs.  Unemployed persons will also have to start working towards self-employment, through which they may even provide jobs for others.

    Unemployment and poverty have become serious problems that all levels of government must tackle with sincerity of purpose to keep the nation’s youths productively engaged and out of avoidable trouble.

    These efforts by Osun government are worthy of emulation by other states of the federation. Governor Aregbesola once declared that Osun, out of the 36 states, has the lowest rate of unemployed people, particularly among her teeming youths, due to the determination of his administration to banish poverty and unemployment among its people.

    This new move at establishing a job centre is just one of them. These efforts were recently corroborated by Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo, when he declared that Osun is one of the states with lowest in poverty.

    “The indication (in Osun) is that because there is a lot of investment on the people, poverty has been reduced and that is what we (the Federal Government) are trying to achieve in Nigeria,” Osinbajo said.

    Aregbesola was quoted as saying: “The development of micro and small businesses forms a core component of our poverty alleviation and economic empowerment strategy.

    “This is part of our six-point integral action plan that, among others, seeks to banish poverty, unemployment and hunger.

    “We have designed programmes aimed at unlocking our people’s creativity and genuinely set them on the path of self-employment and self-reliance.

    “I am certain that our people are hard-working and would at all time take pride in working to earn a decent living.

    “With the numerous programmes we are implementing, we are on the road to change the fortune of our state and lives of our people for better.

    “Many of these programmes such as OYES, O’REAP, O’YESTECH, O’MEALs, O’Schools, O’Beef and O’BOPS, among others, have offered many of our youths self-reliant job opportunities.”

    • Ayo Akinola, is a publisher and media consultant based in Lagos and Bola Akande is a former commissioner for Human Resources and Capacity Building, Osun State

     

  • Osun lawmakers step up oversight

    Osun lawmakers step up oversight

    Osun State House of Assembly has said it will give priority to its oversight functions by strengthening its monitoring mechanisms this year.

    It said the move was to ensure an increase in the state government’s internally generated revenue (IGR) and ensure that the government judiciously use same for the completion of ongoing projects and begin new ones.

    The Chairman of the House Committee on Information and Strategy, Olatunbosun Oyintiloye, spoke after  a meeting with officials of the Ministry of Information and Strategy.

    According to him, the resolution of the Assembly was borne out of the fact that what the state needed because of the current economic downturn was to strengthen monitoring mechanisms, especially for the completion of ongoing projects and pending programmes in line with the policy of the state government.

  • Osun APC condemns protest over unpaid salaries

    Osun APC condemns protest over unpaid salaries

    The All Progressives Congress(APC in  Osun State yesterday  condemned last Tuesday’s  protest by the  Civil Society Coalition for the Emancipation of Osun State at the National Assembly over unpaid salaries. The party described the action as irresponsible and lacking in common sense, because there was  no basis for it and  was ill-motivated.

    Party Chairman in the State,Prince  Gboyega Famodun, said in a statement in Osogbo that Osun, like many other states in the country is “doing all that is humanly possible to manage the crisis of economic downturn occasioned by a drop in oil prices worldwide.”

    He added: “Every knowledgeable person about the salary crisis in Osun can testify to the fact that Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola has been open and transparent in his dealing with the workers, and there is on-going understanding between both parties to address the issue on the basis of whatever fund is available to the state, either from the Federal or internally generated funds.

    The peace and understanding that reign in Osun today is as a result of the pact between the Nigerian Labour Congress (NLC) and the government to address the salary issue on the basis of the earnings of the state government. Even the president of the NLC, Ayuba Wabba, in an interview on Monday, ?confirmed that ‘there is actually cooperation towards addressing the salary issue’, and he indicated further that ‘Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola has been transparent in putting on the table whatever money comes in’.

    So in a situation where there is no rancour, it is most unbecoming for a group like the Coalition to go to Abuja and give a false impression about the crisis which does not exist. And to make matters worse on the basis of a non-existent crisis, the group went to Abuja to call on the National Assembly to intervene.”

     

  • Fayose’s ‘inconclusive’ visit to Osun

    Fayose’s ‘inconclusive’ visit to Osun

    These are indeed interesting times in our country. Many new things are happening. And a good number of them, like the initial gubernatorial elections in Kogi and Bayelsa states, are inconclusive.

    Or what can one say of the unexpected visit by the Ekiti State Governor, Mr. Ayodele Fayose, to the Government House in Osun State during the week. Specifically, Fayose was the guest of Governor Rauf Aregbesola.

    Fayose, a Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) governor and renowned critic of Aregbesola and his All Progressives Congress (APC), visited the Government House, Osogbo, in company with about 50 dignitaries including the Speaker of the Ekiti State House of Assembly, Mr. Kola Oluwawole.

    And in spite of Fayose’s insistence at the parley that he will never leave the PDP for any other party despite the crisis within the party, upon a direct invitation to him from his host to join the APC, not a few analysts are saying the visit is an inconclusive one.

    Doubting Thomases, finding it difficult to believe Fayose went to Osogbo with his huge entourage to discuss ‘Yoruba Unity’, are telling Nigerians to expect ‘supplementary’ visits by the Ekiti Governor to Osogbo and other APC-controlled states to further discuss how best to ensure the ‘political’ unity of his dear Yoruba race.

  • Osun to get commodities board to boost revenue

    Osun to get commodities board to boost revenue

    Osun State Governor Rauf Aregbesola has hinted that the state will soon establish a commodities board to boost its internally generated revenue (IGR).

    The governor said the board would make the state one of the nation’s best cocoa producers in the next two years.

    He said the board would be under direct supervision of his office.

    Aregbesola spoke yesterday in Osogbo, the state capital, when he met with produce merchants at the Government House Banquet Hall.

    The governor noted that with the new cocoa development initiatives, the state would be able to generate fresh revenues for a prosperous economy this year.

    He told the produce merchants that the state’s economic situation had worsened with the pillaging of the national treasury by the previous administration.

    Aregbesola noted that with the drop in oil prices and the sharp reduction in the Federation Accounts from N1.2 trillion in 2012 to N369 billion in last November’s allocations shared in December, the government had little to run the government.

    The governor said there was need to look inward to increase the state’s IGR.

    According to him, the state will soon bounce back with the identification of 6 million cocoa trees.

  • Osun’s strategy against unemployment

    The National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) revealed that no fewer than 5.3 million youths are jobless, while 1.8 million graduates enter the labour market every year. This figure could be a conservative estimate of the actual number of unemployed youths in the country, going by previous statistics released by NBS, which put the number of jobless Nigerians at 20.3 million.

    The above is a reflection of previous governments’ inability to design policies that will create more jobs, or provide enabling environment that could encourage both individuals and the private sector to expand employment opportunities without let or hindrance.

    It is in line with the above that the Osun State Government established an office known as Osun Job Centre. This is in pursuance of a key component of Governor Rauf Adesoji Aregbesola-led administration’s Six Point Integral Action Plan which is banishment of unemployment from the state. The Job Centre is established as a State Government-funded one-stop employment agency with desk offices located at each of the 30 local government areas.

    The Centre will act as a facilitator between job seekers and employers by providing employment information and services to a wide range of people, from the unemployed looking for employment, the underemployed looking for better jobs, to employers advertising job openings. It is aimed at eradicating barriers to employment by promoting education, training and business enterprise. It will contribute to the personal development of the labour force through the creation of opportunities for their productive engagement and utilisation.

    The centre provides employment service tools such as an infrastructure for the business community to post its skills needs as well as in-house computers with free access to the internet.

    To provide a venue where job seekers can meet and network with representatives of prospective employers from diverse sectors of the economic with the possibility of securing employment.

    However, the private sector also has a role to play in creating employment, as experience has shown that government alone cannot provide all the needed jobs.  Unemployed persons will also have to start working towards self-employment, through which they may even provide jobs for others.

    Unemployment and poverty have become serious problems that all levels of government must tackle with sincerity of purpose to keep the nation’s youths productively engaged and out of avoidable trouble.

    These efforts by Osun government are worthy of emulation by other states of the federation. Governor Aregbesola once declared that Osun, out of the 36 states, has the lowest rate of unemployed people, particularly among her teeming youths, due to the determination of his administration to banish poverty and unemployment among its people.

    This new move at establishing a job centre is just one of them. These efforts were recently corroborated by Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo, when he declared that Osun is one of the states with lowest in poverty.

    “The indication (in Osun) is that because there is a lot of investment on the people, poverty has been reduced and that is what we (the Federal Government) are trying to achieve in Nigeria,” Osinbajo said.

    Aregbesola was quoted as saying: “The development of micro and small businesses forms a core component of our poverty alleviation and economic empowerment strategy.

    “This is part of our six-point integral action plan that, among others, seeks to banish poverty, unemployment and hunger.

    “We have designed programmes aimed at unlocking our people’s creativity and genuinely set them on the path of self-employment and self-reliance.

    “I am certain that our people are hard-working and would at all time take pride in working to earn a decent living.

    “With the numerous programmes we are implementing, we are on the road to change the fortune of our state and lives of our people for better.

    “Many of these programmes, like OYES, O’REAP, O’YESTECH, O’MEALs, O’Schools, O’Beef and O’BOPS, among others, have offered many of our youths self-reliant job opportunities and I want to assure you all that we have only just begun. A lot more good things are still coming.”

     

    • Ayo Akinola, arpa, is a publisher and media consultant based in Lagos and Bola Akande is a former commissioner for Human Resources and Capacity Building, Osun State

     

  • Osun restructures ministries

    Osun restructures ministries

    Osun State governor, Rauf Aregbesola, has notified the State House of Assembly of the reduction of  the state’s ministries to 12.

    It has also announced the creation of a new ministry.

    In a letter of notification forwarded to the Speaker of the House, Rt. Hon. Najeem Folasayo Salaam, Governor Aregbesola stated that while there will be 12 ministries, nine agencies and bureaus will be under his office for direct supervision.

    The governor stated in his letter which was dated January 21 that the decision to restructure was arrived at after a re-appraisal of the machinery of government.

    Aregbesola said the decision was taken to reduce the cost of governance as well as enhance service delivery.

      The letter titled: “Notification of the Restructuring of Some Existing Ministries and Creation of a New Ministry” in the State of Osun”

    The 12 ministries are: Agriculture, Food Security, and Youths Engagement; Industries, Commerce, Cooperatives and Empowerment; Economic Planning, Budget and Development; Education, Science and Technology; Environment, Sanitation and Physical Planning; Finance; Health; Information, Home Affairs, Tourism and Culture; Justice; Local Government, Chieftaincy, Water Resources, and Community Affairs; Ministry of Women, Children, and Social Affairs and Works and Transport.

    The letter also listed nine agencies and bureaus that will be operating directly under the office of the governor as Office of Regional Integration; Osun Sports Council; Social and Grassroots Mobilization and Guidance; Office of Policy Coordination; Osun Job Centre; Bureau of Lands; Pilgrims Welfare Board (Christian Wing); Pilgrims Welfare Board (Muslim Wing); Office of Forestry and Natural and Mineral Resources.

  • Osun airport contract: ‘PDP at lowest ebb of rational thinking’

    Osun airport contract: ‘PDP at lowest ebb of rational thinking’

    The Osun State government has said the allegation by the state’s chapter of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) that the Rauf Aregbesola administration inflated the airport project at Ido Osun by N11 billion is a confirmation that the party is suffering from “hallucination that is causing its wild imagination and delusions”.

    The government said the PDP was showing that there was no limit to the depth it could sink in irrational and illogical thinking.

    In a statement yesterday in Osogbo, the state capital, by the Director of the Bureau of Communication and Strategy, Office of the Governor, Mr. Semiu Okanlawon, the government noted that PDP’s allegation was inelegant and absurd because it lacked foundation in reason or logic.

    The statement said the alleged inflated contract of the Moshood Abiola International Airport from N4.5 billion to N15.5 billion was fictitious.

    The government said the Osun PDP had again displayed what it called pettiness, mischief and crass ignorance about governance.

    It said the contract, under a former PDP administration in the state over six years ago, was reviewed from N3,967,085,161.38 to N7,512,615,918.06.

    The government noted that this alone was enough to puncture PDP’s fabrications.

    The statement added: “To every reasonable critic, if a contact was reviewed to N7.5 billion as far back as 2010 to the knowledge of the Presidency and the Ministry of Aviation, does it not make sense to consider exchange rates and other factors that could be responsible for the upward review of the contract?

    “But we know that PDP can only survive on lies. However, we are consoled by the fact that its lies of 16 years are in the open. Its leaders are singing at the corridors of the anti-graft agencies and it is a matter of time before those who got contracts and never executed them but used the ill-gotten funds to intimidate the people of our state come to judgment as well, just like their cohorts who are now guests of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) and inmates in some of Nigerian prisons.”

    Noting that the Aregbesola administration had no problem with constructive criticisms from the opposition, the government said: “The job of the opposition is not to concoct lies but to provide strong criticism spiced with concrete facts.”

    The statement recalled that the state’s airport project was in line with the realities of airport construction in Nigeria, citing the examples of Kebbi Airport, which it said was built with about N17 billion and Bauchi’s N13 billion built about two years ago.

    The Osun government noted that the aviation industry was changing worldwide, adding that an airport is not just about transporting air passengers alone but key in the movement of cargoes.

    The statement said the MKO Abiola International Airport under construction in Osun was being built with huge economic benefits to the state.

    It added that the provision for a hanger for aircraft maintenance was part of the strategies to boost the state’s economy.

    The statement said it was not of no importance when the Federal Airport Authority of Nigeria (FAAN) urged states to boost the movement of cargoes and passengers to accelerate economic development.

    On the alleged increase in the contract sum to embezzle the bailout loan the state got from the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), the statement wondered if PDP members in Osun resided in the state for them not to be unaware of how the bailout fund was handled transparently.

    Stating that the airport project had nothing to do with salaries or pensions, the government said a project, which was initiated before the coming of the Aregbesola administration, could not be the reason for the delay in the payment of salaries.

    It noted that the delay was a settled matter, given the understanding between the workers and the government.

    The statement reminded PDP of the visit of the Nigerian Labour Congress (NLC) President Ayuba Wabba to the state’s workers when he described such allegation as misleading and unfounded.

    It said: “The Osun government and labour leaders came to a common ground on how the bailout funds were disbursed for the payment of backlog of workers’ salaries.

    “Any insinuation on (the purported) abuse or misappropriation of the fund is simply the imagination of a jaundiced mind.

    “The union and the state government set up a 17-man committee, currently overseeing the apportionment of all revenues accruing to the state for equitable distribution to all sectors of government for industrial harmony and effective administration of the state.”

  • Osun partners lottery firms

    The Osun State government has developed an initiative, Kajola Lottery, to improve its internal generated revenue by 100 per cent.

    The Chief Executive Officer of the State Internal Revenue Service, Dayo Oyebamiji, broke the news at the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Global Gaming Company Limited in partnership with PEFACO International Plc.

    Describing the signing of the MoU as a landmark, Oyebamiji said involving the firms would improve the standard of lottery and make it entertainment based.

    According to him, the objective of the initiative was to raise the state IGR and ensure sustainable economic growth.

    He said: “The state’s informal sector is about 70 per cent. And there is a need to engage those in this sector through a developed gaming business. Its effect will not only be experienced in Osun but in Nigeria.

    “At present the operation of lottery in the state is manual but with this initiative and partnership it will be automated.

    “We will ensure that operators run a fraud free business. And we are going to make use of the strategic position of Osun in the Southwest.”

  • Bank’s branches in Osun sealed for ‘breach of N3b contract’

    The High Court in Okefia, Osun State, yesterday ordered the three branches of Skye Bank in Osogbo, the state capital, sealed for an alleged breach of a N3 billion contract with Tuns Farms Nigeria Limited.

    The banks’s pay point at  the Ladoke Akintola University of Technology Teaching Hospital, Osogbo, was also sealed.

    Customers, who thronged the bank’s branches at Fagbewesa Street, Okefia Road and Gbongan Road, were shocked to see court officials and the police at 8 a.m. enforcing the judgment.

    Cranes and trucks, supervised by bailiffs, entered the bank’s premises to remove its property, including a huge Mikano generator, cars, air-conditioning sets, motorcycles, fire extinguishers to the court at Okefia.

    Employees were sent out of the banking hall.

    A Honda Accord salon car, registered as Lagos KTU 373 AY, belonging to the Regional manager at the Fagbewesa branch, was among the property taken away.

    Skye Bank offered a credit facility of N414,000,000 to Tuns Farm in 2005 to develop its Abuja property, a project which was to earn the company a net income of N1.152 billion.

     The bank reportedly released only N150 million, a  development, which allegedly frustrated the company’s project.

    On Tuesday,  a court judgment ordered the seizure of money, bank notes, cheques, bills of exchange, promissory notes, bonds or securities for money, found within the Osogbo Judicial Division of the bank.

     Justice A. O. Ogunlade on March 14, 2014, said:  “I am convinced by overwhelming evidence laid before me that the defendant (Skye Bank) breached the fundamental terms of the contract in Facility 11 of Exhibit PA1 without lawful justification and I hereby make an award of special damages in full to the claimant, for N421,384,000, being the loss the claimant suffered due to the refusal and failure of the defendant to comply with the terms and conditions of the contract of August 17, 2005.

     “The claimant, through one of the paragraphs of its statement of claim, has established the fact that the breach of the terms and conditions of the contract in Facility 11 of Exhibit PA1 caused the claimant’s director and shareholders myriad of psychological trauma and emotional break down.

    “I am in agreement with the assertion of the claimant, considering the credible and in some areas uncontroverted evidence laid before me that general damages should be awarded in this suit. I consider N25 million adequate, as general damages to the claimant by the defendant in this suit.”

     Skye Bank filed an appeal against Tuns International Holdings Ltd and Tuns Properties Ltd, dated May 8, 2015, before Justice Mohammed Danjuma of the Court of Appeal.

     The court dismissed the appeal for lacking in merit on June 4, last year.

    It held that the “judgment of the High Court of Osun State delivered by Justice Aderibigbe is hereby affirmed.”

    Three judges of the High Court, Justices Oyejide Falola, A. O. Ogunlade and Adeigbe Aderibigbe, gave a similar judgment on the case.

    Justice Falola, on November 20, last year, awarded N2.473 billion in favour of the claimant (Tuns Farms) and N150 million as general damages.

    Justice Ogunlade awarded N421,384,000 and N25 million damages against Skye Bank.

    After the execution of the court judgment yesterday, counsel to the claimant Chief Duro Adeyele (SAN) said three cases were brought to the court.

    He told reporters that the court order might extend to other branches of the bank, if the seized property were not commensurate with the damages awarded to the claimant.

    “If whatever we are able to realise in branches of the Skye Bank in Osun State is not in quantum to what we want, we will go further to other states,” Adeyele said.

    The counsel said he was aware that the defendant had approached the Supreme Court but he said the development would not hinder the order from being executed.