We shall give Osun a fresh start —Ogunbiyi

Dr Akin Ogunbiyi, Chairman, Mutual Benefits Assurance Plc, is the governorship candidate of Accord Party in Osun State. In this interview, he speaks of his plans to turn around the state’s economy for the benefit of the citizens. Excerpts by SULAIMON OLANREWAJU.

What is your economic agenda for Osun State and how do you want to execute it?

We have five key areas. First and foremost, reform education. Education is my priority and by the grace of God our first year budget will reflect that. If our secondary school students cannot boast of good results, then what are we producing? So, I will focus on primary and secondary schools. I don’t want to promote the current government but Osun State University, with the little I have seen, I think they are doing so well. The only thing is they need to change the focus of their teaching so that they can produce graduates that will be relevant to society. Apart from that, they are doing very well. But look at primary, secondary schools, that is the foundation of education. So I will focus on education. There will be compulsory free primary education for all our children. Look at what Jakande of blessed memory did. When he started those things, people were making jest of him. They thought it was about providing big classrooms. If you  look around Osun State, you will see big primary schools. Like the one here, the primary school I graduated from, do you know that from primary one to primary six as big as the school is, they have just 40 pupils. So we need to reform and refurbish our education. That is the priority, so that we can sustain that high level of human capital development.

Of course the same thing goes for secondary school. When I become the governor, by the grace of God, after two years of my government, you will see that Osun State will come first or second in WAEC. And if that is standardised, the other things can run on autopilot.

Secondly, I mentioned agriculture. Awolowo used agriculture to develop the Western Region. But what has our government in the last 15 years done in the area of agriculture? Nothing. We have cocoa, which Awolowo developed and deployed massively. But how much cocoa are we selling now? Who is buying? I went round Osun and this is the second time I am doing so. In 2018 I went round the nooks and crannies of Osun, sometimes I got to a location and I would be crying. Are these things so bad? And again I have gone round, we have all these cash crops that are wasting away, and I will link them to agric-related industries. Oranges, for example, come, but nobody harvests oranges again. Mango, nobody harvests mango again, the little we have is only for consumption. But we have companies that depend solely on fruits. I went to this Songhai Farm in the Republic of Benin, where they process fruits. I will not encourage the government to go into what private companies can do. But we will create an enabling environment so that they can come in.

Like I said, civil servants, we need to retrain them; we need to actively retrain them because without effective civil services no government can succeed. And I will pay attention to that. I will motivate them to be better at work. What is the point, you are earning salary, the Bible says every worker deserves his wage but when the wages are not coming forth what will the labourer do? So I will guarantee payment of their wages. People who are due for promotion, we will promote them, and ensure payment of their pension.

So all these things relating to workers’ welfare, I will make them priority because you can’t develop anything without effective civil service. I will make civil servants my priority and make them effective and productive.

Every available resource  will be  channelled into productive activities. What is missing now is, one, there is lack of initiative in the area of productivity. When the initiatives are not there you cannot talk about getting things done. So when we have a government that has initiative, I will use my network to bring in private sector people who will put in money in these various things.

Now in the area of  industrialisation. How do we want to industrialise Osun State, apart from agro allied industries, do you know that Osun State has 26 commercially viable mineral resources? Ask the government, who are the people mining our gold? Can you identify them apart from Segilola? And they mine raw gold, and it is the purest anywhere in the world, 98% pure, and you can put a structure around that gold so that Osun State will earn 13 per cent derivation revenue. We can take a cue from the oil producing state. I have had engagements with people in the Ministry of Solid Minerals in Abuja, in fact when they saw my manifesto, six of them came to me here to talk to me to see how serious am I.

It is about $6 million to do a standard gold refining and processing plant, why can’t we have it? Today you cannot say this is how much gold that is coming out of Osun. Whoever gets a licence, we would supervise the licence, we will know the quantity of gold that is available, the records are there, go to the Ministry of Solid Minerals, get the records. Okay you have a licence, this is the quantity of gold that is inside here, so as you produce, we monitor.

We know that mining is on the exclusive list but there are things you can do collaboratively with the federal government. Zamfara is doing it now. So, if you produce gold, we will know the quantity of gold you are producing and FG takes it, then I can now request for 13 per cent derivation revenue. How much is the resource? Do you know that the medium of exchange in the world is the dollar but gold has taken over?

Given the fact that Osun State  is broke, with  a huge debt overhang, how are you going to raise funds for these projects?

Thank you. How did Awolowo raise funds? I have talked about agriculture. In fact, when God created heaven and the earth, he created the Garden of Eden, the first thing He made sure He did was agriculture and He secured those plantations by putting four streams within it before He created man. Everything in this world emanates from that same agriculture.

You said how am I going to raise funds, I will create commodity bonds, I will go the way of Awolowo, I will standardise the price of cocoa, I will standardise the price of palm oil, I will standardise the price of rubber. All these cash crops, we will sit down with the farmers. I have identified 50 farmers’ groups. Within the first six months, they would see the sincerity of our government.  I will not go to borrow, it is not wrong to borrow money. Yes, Osun is leveraged. America is the most leveraged country in the world and it is still the most prosperous. There is nothing wrong about borrowing money but when you borrow money to do A, let the entire citizens know ‘we want to do this project, this is how much it is costing, we are taking this loan and this is it,’ and the project will pay back over its lifetime.

I told some people, I said within the first four years Osun will have a budget of over a trillion naira. The guy said how do you want to do it? I said look at all I have laid down, it is not the government that you are going to use and fund them. If you say we are spending so much on education, all we need to do is to be transparent with it. We have intervention funds in trillions of dollars out there that we can attract to Osun to come and help us fund primary education.

If we talk about free healthcare, of course, I have in my plans free healthcare for children, pregnant women and for old people who are 60 years and above. Look, once you establish it, how do you want to fund it? If the donor people, if they first give us…they can say okay take this first $20 million, you may realise that out of that $20 million, only $1 million is cash, the rest are materials and if we can judiciously explain to them how the $1 million they gave to us and how the materials are utilised, we will get more. So, when we are talking of free healthcare, free medical care for these people, it is not government money. I just need to create an enabling environment.

Osun State  needs somebody who can actually think out of the box, we need somebody who is creative, we need somebody who is innovative and of all the people who are contesting now, there is no other better person than Akin Ogunbiyi. We’ve seen what the current governor can do, he has been there for 12 years so what new is he going to do?

What are your plans for the state in terms of security and welfare of the people, especially job security?

The function of the government is security and welfare, security and welfare, there is none that is more important than the other but without the first the second cannot function. You can’t guarantee the welfare of people if there is no security. And when I say security, it is not the conventional security. Yes, you have the bandits; you have Boko Haram; you have herdsmen, the kidnappers which are the outcome of a failed government. Those people wouldn’t have come into existence if the government had not failed in its duty, in its welfare duty. But outside that you have job security, you have financial security, you have family security, you have food security. If all these things are not put in place, what is the welfare…can you talk of the welfare of your people? So, you can see they are all inter-related. And by God’s grace, we will address all these.

What’s your motivation for seeking this office and what are your chances?

My motivation for seeking this office is pure: to give Osun State a fresh start. Osun State that they claim has no resources for the government to leverage on when I can see that opportunities abound. I am very passionate about that. And let me say, I was a member of Osun Development Association; I was their vice-chairman for 18 years. I have a clear understanding of what goes on within Osun State and I have the intention, the desire and the passion to give Osun State a new start.

Talking about my chances, I wish we could have election tomorrow. People are tired of APC; people are tired of PDP; they are one and the same. We have gone to a new party. The way people have received us is mind-blowing. I didn’t do any public declaration. I have been to over 100 villages, over 100 associations, talking to them on why they need to switch after all neither APC nor PDP has improved their lot. People are yearning for us because they want a change, they want a departure from the past, they want a better future and I, Akin Ogunbiyi, represent the future. So, I want to assure you that our chances are bright. I am the candidate to beat. And by God’s grace, we shall win this election.

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