Osun: The path towards recovery

LAOLU HAROLDS examines the state of affairs in Osun State in the last three and half years or so under the administration of Governor Adegboyega Oyetola against the backdrop of controversy that trailed the previous government in the state.

Not a few people today believe that the All Progressives Congress, as a party at the national level, has failed to meet expectations of Nigerians in many vital areas of life.As a result of this, by way of vicarious liability, some governors on the APC platform, notwithstanding their individual brilliance, sacrificial stewardship and commendable strides, have been grappling with this odium, such that no matter what they do, they have to struggle twice as hard as their colleagues in other parties for their citizens to give them credit.

This is the story of Governor Gboyega Oyetola in Osun State. His case was even made worse with the fact that he took over from an administration perceived to have mismanaged the goodwill of the people through several unpopular policies.It can safely be said, therefore, that his march to the Government House in 2018 could be likened to running against the wind, going by the groundswell of negative sentiments already built up among the people against the party – but he won all the same.

It is almost four years now since his assumption of office as governor. How has he been able to sustain the goodwill he struggled to establish? This has been through manifest prudent management of resources, embarking on projects that have direct salutary effect on the people, and implementing people-friendly policies, including reversing some of those he inherited which largely turned the majority of the people against his party, the APC.

“I think the greatest recognition of what this government has been able to do is recognizing those things that were issues of campaign against his (Oyetola) ever becoming governor on account of the administration of Rauf Aregbesola, of which he was Chief of Staff. There was the issue of uniforms of schoolchildren, renaming of the schools, the lumping together of schoolchildren, and another major issue of Osun feeling like a colony of Lagos (because virtually all the commissioners were from Lagos).

“These were issues of campaign against Oyetola ever becoming governor on account of the administration that his party, the APC, ran. If Oyetola was able to, after becoming governor, attempt to reverse some of those things, I think it’s been a good thing for him.”

Those were some of the words of the deputy chairman of the Social Democratic Party in Osun State, Architect Goke Omigbodu, when asked to assess the performance of Oyetola’s administration in nearly four years.

Omigbodu conceded that Oyetola’s administration had done better than its predecessor through regular payment of workers’ salaries – but he added that this ordinarily should have been taken for granted and not celebrated as an achievement. “But it wasn’t a natural thing under Rauf Aregbesola. So, if Oyetola could make things a little better, I think that’s something on the positive note for him,” he added.

Not only did the former governor offend workers through irregular payment of salaries, Aregbesola also reportedly deducted workers’ contributory pension without remitting same on their behalf – for six of his eight-year tenure!

This has been a veritable source of aggression that Oyetola’s administration has been constantly grappling with, as protests upon protests have been staged by pensioners who are demanding their due.

Available facts gathered by this writer, however, show that the sitting government has defrayed these accumulated unpaid pensions (government being a continuum) up to 2016 – two clear years before Oyetola came into office) – and October 2017. His government has also devised a way of clearing the pensions of those whose entitlements are between N100,000 and N2 million up to 2020. It is worth noting  that the Aregbesola administration had an unbridled predilection for taking loans, ostensibly to finance its capital projects, most of which were left at several stages of non-completion and now being completed by the sitting government.

Oyetola was said to have inherited a total of N200 billion loans. However, it was gathered that not only has he refused to take any loan to finance his administration’s many projects or run his government, he has progressively paid N67 billion of the N200 billion loans he inherited – so committed to the repayment of the loans that in 2020, the state got zero allocation on one or two occasions from the Federal Government.

Such is his Spartan discipline and frugality in resource management that, it was gathered, he has consistently shunned some perquisites attached to his office. For instance, it is said that the governor travels by commercial flights, with his aides, even in situations where he is entitled to go by chartered flights – just to conserve scarce resources.

But despite the scarce resources, almost zero allocation from the Federation Account every month and the debilitating debt burden he inherited, he has managed to keep faith with his promises to the people by implementing several projects. On November 27, 2018, he said: “Our administration recognises the importance of intra and inter-city roads to facilitate movement of goods and people. We will continue to muster resources to build strategic roads across the state. Has he made this good? Among many others, residents of Ara and Ejigbo, as well as other adjoining towns and communities connected/serviced by the 20-km Ara-Ejigbo road, which was inaugurated on December 1, 2020, would have fond memories of the Oyetola administration. The Ogiyan of Ejigbo, Oba Omowonuola Oyesosin, at the inauguration, was quoted to have said: “You have fixed one of the roads giving us headache. This road had become a death trap before your intervention. During rainy season, some portions of the road looked like fish ponds. But thank God you have fixed it for us. As you honoured us with this road, God will honour you.”

The Timi of Ede, Oba Munirudeen Adesola Lawal, had a similar comment to make at the inauguration of the Ede-Oke Gada-Barracks-Ara Junction road on December 1,2020: “The entirety of Ede has sent me to thank you for this great favour that we have received from you. Once a government is performing and spreading dividends of democracy, there is no point contemplating changing such a government.”

Other roads constructed include Origbomeje road, Osogbo-Kelebe-Iragbiji road, Ada-Igbajo and Alekuwodo road network in the state capital and numerous other township roads either reconstructed or undergoing rehabilitation. There are also some Federal Government roads being constructed by the administration. These include Osogbo-Ikirun-Ila-Odo Kwara State boundary road; Osogbo-Akoda-Gbongan road, and the Osogbo Circular road (Oba Adesoji Aderemi Bypass).The imposing Olaiya Flyover Bridge, which construction was flagged off in February, is more than 80 percent completed already and may be inaugurated between now and January.

Projects under the Osun Rural Access and Mobility Project (O’RAMP) include Agbowu-Aba Onile road (13.73 km); Asa-Dagbolu-Ajagunlaase road (13.1km); Ikonifi-Sade-Ajagunlaase road (12.73km); Onikoko-Osisooko road (10.5km); Gbengbeleku junction-Owode Amu road (10km) and Lawoka Junction-Apoje Junction (39.164km), to mention just a few.In the health sector, to date, over 300 Primary Health Centres have either been built or rehabilitated.

In the words of the Commissioner for Local Government and Chieftaincy Affairs, Mr Bayo Adeleke, “(Oyetola) has done what no other state has ever done in Nigeria: renovating/revitalising 332 health centres.“In the state, we have 332 political wards; meaning that in each ward, we have one health centre, well equipped.”

A 120-bed ward is also under construction at Asubiaro, while the Ejigbo General Hospital has been renovated and equipped.

In agriculture, under its Tree Crop Project, the Oyetola administration had, beginning from 2018, invested massively in efforts to resuscitate the moribund cocoa, cashew, oil palm plantations across the state by selling to farmers at subsidized rates high-yielding, early maturing, and disease-resistant seedlings. There have also been efforts geared towards boosting rice and livestock production in the state.

In education, the state has renovated 30 high schools at the rate of one per local government area.This sector is particularly one area the Oyetola administration has endeared itself to the people.Adeleke said: “During the governor’s ‘thank you’ tour, people complained that some of the policies of (Aregbesola) government in education were unacceptable, especially the idea of changing school names, this idea of single uniforms, and merger of schools.It was so bad that even in a male school you would see females. For example, St. Margaret Grammar School, Ilesa is purely female. (You would see) a situation where you see somebody bearing Joseph Ojo bearing the certificate of St. Margaret’s Grammar School. It was that bad.

“Governor Gboyega Oyetola told the people that if that is what you want, the will of the people shall be done. So, he cancelled single uniform. And that was accepted with loud ovation. You know schools in those days, you are proud of the name; you are proud of the uniform. When they say St Finbar’s, Oduduwa College, Ilesa Grammar School, Fatima College, but here you now changed the name to something else or you merged them with another school. Then the school is like gone.

“The people were not happy with all that, but when we reversed those policies. Some people would say it is the legacy of the former governor we are cancelling; we are even rebuilding his legacy! It’s the same party for crying out loud.”

On people’s welfare, the Gboyega Oyetola administration has sustained feeding 30,000 people every month.“The day Mr Governor mentioned in the EXCO that he would start feeding 30,000 people every month, we thought it was a joke because we knew then it was going to cost a fortune; but for like nine months now, he has been doing it non-stop.We give food to 30,000 people in the State of Osun. That is the one we call ‘Ounje Ileri’. You know his other appellation is ‘Ileri Oluwa’. So, when you say ‘Ounje Ileri’, that’s Ileri food. And that has given him a lot of mileage,” he said.

Adeleke believes that Oyetola, through his many people-friendly policies, has garnered enough goodwill to return him to the Government House for a second term.“Governor Oyetola has studied the people, knows what they want, and is giving it to them. That is why when they ask: how prepared are you for election, I tell people, if you want to do election tomorrow, we are ready. If it is not an election that will be rigged; if it’s going to be a free and fair election; if it’s going to be based on ‘one man, one vote’, we don’t have an issue. Oyetola will win landslide,” Adeleke declared.

However, the chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the state, Honourable Sunday Bisi, is not impressed at all. When asked to assess the Oyetola administration’s performance in its nearly four years, Hon Bisi wasted no time to describe it as “woeful.”

As far as he is concerned, there is nothing to celebrate in a governor paying workers’ salaries regularly, because that is what he is supposed to do.Honourable Bisi is particularly peeved about the schools in the state that he says are struggling with an acute shortage of teachers. He also expressed his revulsion about the primary health centres and other health facilities in the state that, according to him, do not even have analgesics to dispense.

On insecurity, Bisi lamented that under the APC administration, people no longer feel safe to stand beside the road to wait for transport for fear of being kidnapped or attacked by bandits.Reminded that insecurity is a national problem, and not peculiar to Osun , the PDP chairman said the state of insecurity is the effect of APC’s misrule generally, which the Oyetola’s government is part of.He accused the Oyetola administration of failing to complement the efforts of the Federal Government to combat crime in the state by not providing operational vehicles to assist the police.He also alleged that a helicopter was bought by Aregbesola to boost the operational capacity of the police, and wondered what has happened to the aircraft under Oyetola. The PDP chairman thumbed down the administration on physical infrastructure, listing a number of roads, mostly in the hinterlands, that he said had been begging for attention.

Omigbodu, on his part, acknowledged Oyetola’s physical infrastructure efforts, but believes he will have to do a little more to measure up to his predecessors in office – though he also noted that he does not have the kind of funds Aregbesola had by way of amassing those loans.He noted: “If you relate what he has done to his immediate predecessor, on the surface of it, the immediate past government, of which he served as chief of staff anyway, had a lot more to point to concerning physical infrastructure, but you would want to ask: at what cost? How much of loans were taken to make sure that all those things were achieved by his immediate predecessor?

“But when you think of the several schools that Rauf Aregbesola built, and you think of the roads and other things, and even going beyond Rauf Aregbesola to when Oyinlola was governor, with all the physical infrastructure that he was able to put in, I think Oyetola may need to work a little harder to be able to measure up in that regard.But I sympathise with his government, recognizing that a lot of loans were taken when Aregbesola was governor, and he has to pay back and still be able to have a better recurrent approach to things, especially when it has to do with payment of salaries and pensions – which he has done a lot better on.You can’t always eat your cake and have it.”

One area Omigbodu particularly faulted Oyetola’s administration is in job creation; the inability of his government to provide an enabling environment to gainfully employ the youths.He said: “Osun has perhaps the best electricity supply in the whole of the country. I would have expected that Osun should be like California of the United States of America. Osun should be the one that should act like the Silicon Valley, an equivalent. Osun should be a place where instead of having a lot of young people involved in ‘Yahoo Yahoo’, their (youths) intellect, their brains, everything ought to have been channeled positively by a focused government to the extent that all those young people would be involved in startups. A lot of ICT-related business should be happening in Osun. But this sounds completely alien to the Oyetola administration.

How do the common people see the administration? Mr Kehinde Ibidun, a fashion designer (who spoke in Yoruba) commended Oyetola for his efforts. According to the respondent, “He has tried; one person cannot do everything. We’re particularly happy that we no longer experience the protests by government workers over half salaries. It was a big problem, but workers now get their full salary when they need it.However, I would appeal to the governor to pay more attention to the ordinary people; it’s not only government workers that will vote for them. He should find a way of meeting the people so that we can tell him from time to time what is bothering us.

“When Chief Akande was in government, he had ‘Labe Odan’ (programme); Oyinlola did ‘Open Forum’; Aregbesola did ‘Ogbeni till Daybreak’. During his own tenure (Oyetola), we don’t have opportunity to speak to him.

Asked how far his expectation had been met by the current government, another resident of the state capital who refused to give his name said: “During the past governor (Aregbesola)’s first four years, he was able to spring up some things, infrastructure change roads, spring up schools, and people were already praising him that things were already turning around – even if it was with loans.

“With this present government, we hoped when he was coming up that we would see more than the past government did, but what we are seeing now is not up to what we expected to see. This is December 12, look at the whole town; there is no sign of Christmas. How many streetlights are working at night? Maybe with time, since the government is planning to go for another four years, probably by that time we’ll see more positive things.”