Aregbesola: Our Performance Has Inebriated the Opposition

Aregbesola: Our Performance Has Inebriated the Opposition

Osun State Governor, Mr. Rauf Adesoji Aregbesola

The Gubernatorial Interview

The Osun State Governor, Mr. Rauf Adesoji Aregbesola, last week, spent some time with journalists in the state where he shared his experience in office and spoke of his preparation for the governorship election scheduled to hold later this year. Yinka Kolawole presents the excerpts:

How prepared are you for a second term?

Well, in the first place, the answer would have been, we are doing our
best and honestly speaking because of our own approach to governance. We have been working from the very first day with the firm belief that there’ll be a day of reckoning which elections usually mean to politicians. Elections are the days of reckoning. They are the judgment days for politicians.

So, from the day we were sworn in up until now, we have been working assiduously for that auspicious day that our electorate will have the opportunity to renew our mandate for another period of time. For a thing that we have been working at for the past 36 months, I will want to say we are doing well at it.

Does the crisis in PDP have any impact on APC?

There was no crisis in PDP when we assumed office. To us, whether the party is one, fragmented or weakened by internal crisis, it is their headache. We are engaged by the people and that is important to us. Our engagement with the people has been so firm, so serious, so symbiotic and so wholesome. Whatever is the situation of PDP in Osun, it is of no importance to us. If they are together, they do not matter because the people are the sovereign.
The people are the sole decider of victory or defeat in an election.

Parties will only mobilise support from the people. Parties cannot force the people. Parties can stimulate the interest of the people in their activities. Party cannot compel the people to adopt or accept their programmes. So, since we have realised this from the very beginning, our works, our programmes, our activities are directed at meeting the needs of the people, satisfying the people, mobilising the people to accept our programmes and policies, believe in us as their friends and people who are committed to their progress, welfare, peace and prosperity.

Our people-oriented programmes are also designed to adopt us as their own representatives. So once those critical or those fundamentals of engagement with the people are met, the rest is little. With what we have done with the people, with the response we have from the people, it does not matter if there is crisis or no crisis in PDP. The crisis in PDP doesn’t matter anymore. Whether they are together or divided, weakened or strong, as long as we are one with the people and represent the aspirations of the people; to give our people the hope of realising their desires and wants, let other parties do whatever they wish to do. God be with us, success is our own.

How do you feel when your efforts are accorded recognition?

Positive recognition is an encouragement. I feel encouraged by Nigerians I feel elated. I feel honoured. That is the only way I can express it. Within my state and outside my State, we have been motivated to see service as the essence of governance. For any organisation, even apart from the media, to therefore recognise the primary objective of our being here and to have accorded it the recognition you gave it was highly motivating encouraging and satisfying.

How have you been able to raise funds for your projects?

We are being driven by the passion to turn around the economy of the State of Osun. We believe strongly in the divine intervention for guidance and success. This foundation made it possible for us to be guided in the appointment of the right people in the right places. We cannot ascribe the success to ourselves but to the Almighty who will continue to support and make it possible for us to achieve our plans to execute mega projects that will attract investments from across the developed nations to the State of Osun.

That passion definitely inspired more than ordinary effort to get our resources to drive our vision. However, God has established his laws; it is left to human beings to take maximum advantage of the laws of God for their benefits. So, with the abundance of God’s provisions, human beings only need to put their minds in what they want and help from sources that are never envisaged and which will just come. Yes, what we are doing in all spheres of life are definitely beyond the capacity of a state.

So, effective, efficient and prudent management of our resources have helped to push the frontier of development. Our success in that regard is beyond the capacity to prudently, effectively and efficiently manage the economy. That is where the divine angle comes in. You just realised that even with the best management skill, which we have on the ground is beyond human comprehension. It is the gargantuan scope of our development strides that has inebriated the opposition to the point of hallucination.

Now, they don’t even know what to say or what to do. Others promote lies about debt burden. They cannot talk about lack of performance because that is beyond them to do even with their somewhat skilled sense of evaluation to whittle down our achievements and appreciation by the people. They still go about this totally uncoordinated type on phantom debt burden which is unsustainable if you are going to be honest with it. So, I used to tell people, in addition to what I just told you that I served with one of the best public finance experts in the person of the former Governor of Lagos State, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu. The tutelage paid off so handsomely and the result is what you
are witnessing in Osun.

What do you do to manage the torrent of criticism against your government?

When a man is criticised the way we are criticised, it is due to success. Success brings criticism definitely. In fact, what I will say is that success largely brings controversy. Probably that’s what you want to use. Success brings controversy, success brings hostility and success brings envy. That is all part of the life that we are. We are indeed successful in our programmes and projects. You see, we were not unconscious of the reactions some of our programmes, projects and activities would attract.

Don’t forget, we heartily call our administration even during the campaigns 'An unusual government'. We branded our government 'an unusual government' even during the campaigns. So, it would be difficult to be abnormal not to have the spate of antagonism that we have experienced over this period of time. It would be totally abnormal not to have such reactions.

What’s your assessment of the state’s economy?

The Nigerian economy is weak. The Nigerian economy is very weak and unsustainable. It is too dependent on crude oil to the chagrin of the economy itself and the people. But what do we mean by that statement? An economy that is not value-oriented is an unstable economy. It is a very unstable economy. Our economy today depends absolutely on the vagaries of the international oil market. This should not be the case for a nation with the size of Nigeria, people and landmass. We must have a less mono-resource dependent economy. We have the land, we have the people, what we should have used the oil money to do is to diversify our economy.

For a state within such a badly managed nation to seek to isolate a constituent of such a nation, in economic analysis, will be very difficult. This is particularly a hard task when you bear in mind that this is a state that has been administered along the line of the Laize Faire economic management for over 19 years before our advent. Indeed, this will be very tough and I want you to see it from that angle. Bearing that in mind, we are turning the economy of Osun around. A care in the kitchen of our economic success is the drive to re-jig the economy of the state.

Even with the obvious challenge we have as a nation, we have grown the income of the state. For instance, Internally-generated revenue (IGR) of the state has jumped from N300 million to over N1.6billion per month. We are attracting investments to specific sectors of the state and hope to achieve over N3billion IGR.
We are supporting farmers at all levels, from peasant to new generation farmers and high commercial farmers. We are empowering our people to produce food and help them with the market for their products. We are supporting market men and women in their businesses. Part of the industrial development that took place since we assumed office is the Omoluabi Garment Factory where uniforms are being made for our students on a commercial and large scale basis.

This was initiated not only to reduce the cost but increase the quality of wears. Today, the factory is not only producing uniforms but it is producing other garments and uniforms for school children nationwide. It is producing other garments from other wears to T-shirts and sports wears. There is another company that is built to manufacture electronics such as plasma television set, computers of all types, desktop, laptops, palmtop, the LG factory will produce another one just like we have a factory in Oshogbo to produce Opon Imo for schools in the state.

It was designed in the form of a mini iPad as a portable touch-screen Android powered e-learning device, the first of its kind in Nigeria provided by the state government to equip students with knowledge and make it easier for them to pass school leaving certificates examination. It is a standalone- educational, multimedia e-learning content platform- that comes with pre-loaded applications for WAEC and JAMB approved text books.
What are the attractions to these companies in Osun?

Several factors are responsible for the attraction of investors to the State of Osun. Our own initiation of it is one. This is because we are deliberately attracting those outfits as well as putting in place activities that will make such investments difficult to avoid our state and difficult to escape from our territory. There is massive transformation of the state in terms of infrastructural development. If we talk about roads, drive round and check the kilometres of standard roads, standard bridges, beautiful streets with flowers, dual carriageway that is incomparable and the return of peace.

Most of the projects completed did not receive a fanfare commissioning as practiced in the past. Also, the present administration in the state has created opportunities for existing investors who are looking for high yields, by creating instruments and bonds in the state. When we launched non-interest bond recently, critics embarked on negative campaign but today, we have succeeded in securing funds for infrastructure development of Osun at fixed returns. When we did this Sukuk bond, there was no way we could do it at 14.75 per cent returns because banks were lending to one another at 25 or 30 per cent. And so I am not surprised that not only are we beginning to have interest, what we have done is that we have pioneered that instrument and have contributed to the infrastructural development of Nigeria.

Now, the airport with the longest runway is ongoing. On completion, Osun will become the hub for aircraft maintenance in West Africa. What will happen to internally generated revenue? It will rise. More jobs will be created. We are touching lives and determined to improve the living standard of the people in Osun. There is no room for erosion on our roads in the state capital. The state of Osun is fast becoming the London of Nigeria.

Also, in our drive to boost job creation and industrialise the state, for instance, we awarded the contract for the production of 750,000 uniforms to the company that we compelled to start the garment industry in Osun. We engaged the company in the training of a large number of our youths in electronics. As a pre-condition for the actualisation of that deal, we demanded the establishment of the factory in Osun that will produce electronic devices from televisions to computers and mobile phones.

We are not resting on our achievements but we are still working hard at bringing as many industrial concerns as possible to Osun. Generally, we are committed to industrialisation, investment and economic development. We are also committed to the welfare, security, harmony, peace, progress and development of our people generally.

Can you compare between 2006 when assassins were allegedly on your trail and now?

There is no basis for comparison. You can’t compare light to darkness. You can’t compare progress to failure. With reaction, if you have the people with you, you will be swimming in an ocean of limitless confidence, composure and peace of mind. However, if the basis of your mandate is fraudulent, if the basis of your mandate is exploitative, if the basis of your mandate is criminal, that is, based on manipulation and compromise of the process, you can never run away from fear, intimidation and neurosis. The outward manifestation of the underlining basis of the emergence of our administration clearly shows the character of our administration.

This is totally different from the administration from whom we took power, considering the fraudulent nature of his mandate. Our people are not reactionaries. Yoruba are progressives in their customs and culture and in their social relationships. We are a people with an ingrained attitude of live and let’s live. The Yoruba have fine human relations, excellent character, remarkable world class commitment to human values and ethics that are not comparable globally. It cannot be imagined that a decadent, uninspiring and reactionary political party will lead in Yoruba land. It is almost unthinkable!

It is not for nothing that the late Papa Obafemi Awolowo emerged from nowhere, dominated the political scene while alive and his tendency, beliefs and political traditions are still dominant and effective in the Yoruba land. It’s not for nothing. It is because of the natural tendency and capacity of our people to pursue programmes that will guarantee maximum progress, maximum benefits and maximum development for the highest number of the people. So, because of that, the party that was here before our emergence could not have guaranteed peace if anything at all, the best they could do was what they did.

That is, intimidating the people, persecuting them, treating them with contempt and disdain, repressing them, and sowing fears in their mind as the only way of retaining power. That was the reason the state was not secure. Everybody lived in fear. Life was brutish, sad and rough before our advent. At our advent, it was like bringing a balm to a sore and painful joint. My team and leaders of our party brought calm and peace.

We brought joy; we brought goodwill; we brought happiness to the communities and the state. The people of the state have regained their happiness, they’ve regained their laughter and they’ve regained their characteristic Yoruba love for life and ceremonies. There is no threat

anymore in all parts of our state. People sleep with their two eyes closed; they are no longer living in fear of harassment, persecution and intimidation. They go to where their business is, either for religious, political, commercial and economic reasons without fear or hindrance.

We are proud of ensuring true peace in Osun. The instances of disturbance are not in any way linked to the government. They are essentially the usual misunderstanding that characterise life. You cannot find our government involved in any social disagreement. The natural dynamism of existence could lead to rough edges around. Today, Osun is now the most peaceful states in Nigeria. And this is even why the economy is growing within the limit of the larger Nigerian society can offer.

What are your expectations from colleague-governors and in what ways are you influencing them?

It won’t be right for me to even say anything. All I know is that
we are doing our best, we believe that at the fullness of time, Nigerians will see the difference between our approach to governance and the common approach to governance. That’s the way to put it modestly. Let us leave time to judge who is doing what is right.

Nigeria is 100 years old this year, what is the hope after the centenary celebration?

Well, I pray for Nigeria to grow as a global leader which it is
destined to be. That is my remark. I pray that Nigeria assumes her historical role as a leader in the world. The destination of Nigeria is to be an African leader and consequently, a leader in the world. My wish is that Nigeria enjoys the grace and assumes that position. That is my expectation.

Nigeria requires fervent prayers that as she turns 100 years by the grace of God and the will of the people, she will have a leader that will drive her to her ultimate destiny of being the bearer of the emblem of Africa as a leading black nation of the world. Nigeria requires prayers for a leader that will make the country a major player in the global economy and universal theatre of life. I am proud of Nigeria and will pray for Nigeria to lead Africa with a good leader to rule the world economically.