What to expect from Aregbesola after handing over to Oyetola on Tuesday —Aide

In a matter of days, the tenure of Governor Rauf Adesoji Aregbesola will be ending in Osun State. In this interview by Oluwole Ige, Aregbesola’s first spokesperson and later his Special Adviser, Information and Strategy, Mr Semiu Okanlawon, speaks on the coming exit of his boss, the challenges, feats and what lay before the incoming governor, Gboyega Oyetola.

 

In a matter of days, your administration will be over and the governor, Rauf Aregbesola, will hand over to a successor. How would you rate the last eight years and what the tenure has been for the people of Osun State?

First, let me tell you that I won’t rate the performance of our administration myself. Let me leave that to the people and posterity. What I can say without mincing words, is that I personally feel fulfilled. And the looks I have seen on the faces of the governor and many of those who have been critical in handling the affairs of the state in these past eight years have shown some happiness. There is no doubt about that. My feeling of happiness comes from the fact that, regardless of what the opposition would be saying, I am confident that we have changed the conditions of the people in no small dimension.

 

But out there, your government carries the baggage of some many controversies, ranging from education reforms that came with so much confusion to salaries and the inability of your government to pay?

Don’t be surprised that when you mention such things as the challenges that we came across in trying to change the course of things for this state, I feel happier. This is because those so-called controversies were what showed you that in our eight years, we were not actually sleeping. The noise you heard came from the fact that, in trying to do something novel, there must naturally be some resistance. Change is the most difficult thing for the people; I am sure you realise that. In case you have forgotten, let me remind you those issues that registered themselves as controversies. Our rebranding project brought on us some hoopla, but we did not bait an eyelid. This was because we had very conviction that we needed to give our state a new lease of life, a new face and a character that is new and attractive enough for people to want to do business with us. But for those efforts, we were pilloried and called names such as secesionists and all those. But today, what do you find? Are those who called us names and made efforts to pull us down not copying all we had done in their respective states. Tell me how many states of the Nigerian Federation now do not have their own brand identities as independent entities within the Nigerian Federation?

 

But the salary issue has refused to go away and nearly cost you re-election in 2014 and made it hard for your party to have produced one of your own as a successor to Governor Aregbesola?

Perhaps, the salary issue has refused to go away in Nigeria and it is not an issue peculiar to Osun. Part of the salary crisis in Nigeria is what we are witnessing at the moment with the labour/Federal Government/state governments face-off over minimum wage. So, if it has refused to go away, it is not only in Osun it has refused to go away. When the economic crisis hit Nigeria at about 2013, cascading down and hitting us harder by the end of 2014, it looked initially then as if the world was going to end from Osun. Of course, we were like the sacrificial lamb at that time simply because, in the Aregbesola’s haste (and justifiably so) to reconstruct Osun, we had tied down our resources to some loans to raise capital to fund our life-changing projects. It was not that the loans were not well thought out. Looking at our earnings then, we had believed that the percentage of our earnings (projected and real) that was tied to the loans left enough for us to run government, pay salaries. But there was nothing for what we would consider to be frivolities. We just wanted to change the state at all cost.

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So, when the effect of the economic meltdown came, it made us to be vulnerable. That was why there was so much noise about Osun because I could remember for about eight months really, it was war to pay salaries.

Necessity, they say is the mother of invention. That experience taught us to be much more ingenious. We needed to be creative and categorise our workers into the low, middle and high cadres. Rather than sack any worker, we then arrived at an agreement to pay Levels 1-7 workers their full salaries. Those between Levels 8-10 were paid 75 per cent of their salaries while those at the top echelon were placed on 50 per cent. But then, the narrative was that Osun was paying half salaries and that was something unheard of. Yes, half salaries might be unheard of in the public service! But no salaries at all was a common thing in many private sector companies in Nigeria and when such got to their heads, the companies concerned usually went for the sack options. In retrospect, those who castigated us then have now known better that the administration was only being considerate not to send people to the job markets, while making do with whatever was available. Today, I am sure if you talk about salaries, people’s mind do not readily come to Osun State as it was the situation some three years ago. The issue of wages, productivity and allied matters are what Nigeria must resolve if we are desirous of any progress at all.

 

Does it then mean this is what would continue under your next governor?

Good governance will continue under the new governor, Alhaji Gboyega Oyetola. Don’t forget I told you that part of what pushed us into a very precarious situation were the loans we had taken prior the national economic complications which also arose from the global economic meltdown. Some of those loans would be fully repaid. That means more of Osun funds that had gone into servicing the loans would then be available for developments and other purposes of government. Of course, we don’t pray for such sudden jerks again. But that does not mean that the coming dispensation won’t continue to aim higher. So, I can tell you that if there are windows of opportunities in forms of development loans that will be available to further take Osun to higher heights, why not. This is because even the blind can feel the huge transformations that have taken place in the last eight years. And that is one of those novel ideas for which Aregbesola was called names. The Sukuk Bond which we took to fund the education projects in the state is the same way the Federal Government went to fund its current massive roads constructions across the country today. But after we took that bond, it was a deafening noise of condemnations by those who accused Aregbesola of moving to Islamise Osun. It was not funny defending and explaining those ideas. Today, those who criticised him for the Sukuk Bound owe him apologies. That initiative remains one of the most sought after financing options available around the world today.

 

What have been your own personal experience working with both the outgoing and the incoming administrations?

They have both been great teachers. In Aregbesola, you would learn that in some cases, you just must be unbending and go ahead to do what you must do regardless of the noise around you. In Oyetola, you would learn that no matter how hard the task is, you can still solve it by keeping calm. They are like two extremes that however come together to achieve great things.

 

How do you see an Oyetola being different or better than an Aregbesola in the years ahead?

Let me say that it would be to the glory of Aregbesola if Oyetola emerges better than Aregbesola or exceeds his achievements. I say that categorically because it would then mean that Osun is having it better which is the future target of the current efforts of the last eight years. The good thing about Oyetola is that I doubt if there has been anything this administration has done that he has not been part of in terms of decision-making.  So, this is a governor that has been part of the foundation-laying of the modern Osun that we now have. I want to believe that the worst is over as the last eight years have been spent navigating the stormy waters in order to lay a solid foundation that that future superstructure will stand on. That foundation has been solidly laid.

 

Who is Oyetola as you have known him? Some people attributed some of the tough decisions taken which earned your government some bad reputation to his ideas as a private sector man. How true is this?

I see your description of Oyetola as a private sector-oriented man as complimentary. There is no doubt about it, that private sector experience he brought to bear in his handling of the duties of his very sensitive office while he served as the Chief of Staff to the outgoing governor for eight years. He is an embodiment of what you want to call an administrator par excellence. As a matter of fact, Governor Aregbesola had alluded to this on several occasions where he pointed to Oyetola as the administrator behind the success recorded by his administration. Yes, he does not possess the maverick nature of Aregbesola, but Osun needed a man of Aregbesola’s revolutionary mold, an activist (human rights and political) and sometimes with some heart of steel, to lay the foundation for the reconstruction. They have been a perfect match and that has helped Osun in no small measure. And I see Oyetola cruising in his development drive.

 

So, what would Aregbesola be up to after he hands over the baton to Oyetola on November 27?

I see him continuing with his natural calling of impacting on human lives. But there is a wide range of opportunities for Aregbesola to serve this country in very great capacities. One thing you cannot take away from him is that at every turn that he has served, he has excelled with highly innovative ideas that have solved human problems. You will agree with me that today, the story of Lagos massive transformation cannot be told without his inputs. He left Lagos to serve as governor in Osun State and the rest is there for posterity to judge. Apart from the physical infrastructure that he initiated, you would also agree that Aregbesola has been instrumental to a number of ideas that are being adopted to solve many of the country’s problems. Take for instance, the youth empowerment model. Where else have you found that on the continent of Africa? If the World Bank, as a global institution, could recommend the model for other African countries to solve the youth restiveness and unemployment, that tells you that this has emerged as an ingenious template to his credit.

Today, the Federal Government has realised that unless a good number of social protection and welfare programmes are implemented, the humanitarian crisis that would result would be something that would be impossible to manage. So, when you see school feeding programme being implemented by the Buhari administration, you would see the model of Osun in it. When you see small loans being given to traders such as Tradermoni etc, they are patterned after the Osun loans scheme for petty traders which have gone a long way to create some positive effects on the economy. These are some of the initiatives that came from Aregbesola while trying to proffer practical solutions to the myriads of problems that he met in Osun. There is no doubt those ideas have made revolutionary impacts on the people of the state.

 

The people have tasted Aregbesola, what do you think would be their disposition towards Oyetola?

Oyetola is an offshoot of the Aregbesola regime. Since I have no doubt whatsoever in the capacity of the new governor, I see the people rallying round their new governor to continue the same tradition of performance. It is my belief that they want those new roads to continue to be built; they want to those beautiful schools to multiply and be maintained; they want the peace and tranquility that is the hallmark of Osun today to be sustained.

From something like 15 per cent performance in WAEC by Osun students, Aregbesola is leaving a 70 per cent performance, going by the 2018 performance. That is huge! No parent want to return to the past where students fail examinations and less than 3% of secondary school leavers could access admissions to universities or polytechnics. In short, no one wants to return to those old days prior to Aregbesola where life could best be described as the Hobbesian state where life was believed to be nasty, brutish and short. Oyetola is up to the task of keeping the tradition.