By Oluwasegun Idowu
I discovered that talk is cheap and many of the social media politicians and technocrats may not even perform up to our current crop of leaders. Also, I have stopped criticizing Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola’s policies because I discovered that many of his praise singers resorts to abuses and curses rather than addressing issues and I feel Aregbesola’s matter is not up to what I should lose youthful, political friends on, so I decided to write this because I could no longer bear my silence on the insensitive, mindless, improvident, wasteful and capitalistic policies of Aregbesola that was released all in the space of few weeks.
Who bewitched my state with a Governor that does not know how to set priorities? Whether he missed classes on opportunity cost and scale of preference while in secondary school I do not know, all I know is that something has to be wrong with my governor.
why?
kaadi omoluabi for all students free at a cost of #2500 per student?
In the words of Hon Mustapha Mudasir Ayanfe quoting ogbeni at the ‘Launching of omoluabi identity card at Ilesa Government High School
‘”The card is chip incorporated and linked with National Identity Card and cost of production for each ID CARD is #2500. But my government will be distributing to all Students free of Charge and #1000 Naira for Osun indigenes- Governor Rauf Aregbesola”
Why is Aregbe doing this? His commissioner on trade and commerce Alagbada has this to say “Kaadi Omoluabi is the residents’ registration identification initiative, which started in 2012. When it becomes operational, it will assist the government to establish a reliable and updateable database of residents, including
pupils as well as artisans, for efficient planning and allocation of resources to meet the needs of the citizenry. The initiative will also enable the government’s e-government strategy and implementation at ensuring government service delivery and facilitate transactions for economic growth of the state.”
Assuming a student population of 300,000(primary and secondary schools) a figure I believe is below the real figures, and the card will be produced free for all students at a rate of 2500 (if it won’t be like the case of OPON IMO that was only shared in some few schools but was massively publicized as a state program), we will have #2500 multiply by 300000 students, equal to #750,000,000,
what about the over 300,000 residents of osun that will only pay 1000 out of the 2500? Meaning that 1500 multiply 300,000, equal 450,000,000 and both summing up to #1,200,000,000. what a figure! In a state that claims an income below 1billion every month and that cannot afford to pay his workers a full salary?
This huge sum can set a new agenda of economic recovery for our dear state if channeled into state farming like Kebbi is doing in partnership with Lagos. Cultivating a crop with 1.5billion naira would be a better investment than putting this huge fund into an identity card when the National identity card is available for use for any major transaction, loan or investments. We still preach nationalism, but why will Osun indigenes are wielding cards up and down?
His second own goal is on the MKO Abiola International Airport that was concession to a Turkish firm and an indigenous company called All Works Of Life Limited (AWOL). What kind of a company or organization that wants to take on a project worth 69billion naira will not have a website at the least where we can confirm what they do and where they operate from? I am beginning to see this as one of Ogbeni’s brilliant propagandist moves to take the blame of not delivering the much publicized Airport to the Osun people after claiming to have spent over 3billion on the Airport.
Let me remind my readers that this project was supposed to gulp 4bn initially. See this from guardian newspaper.
“The proposed M. K. O Abiola International Airport in Ido-Osun, Osun, will cost N69 billion under a concession arrangement with an indigenous company, AWOL International, an official has said.
Niyi Ogundiran, the Director of Public Building in Osun State Ministry of Works, gave the figure at a meeting with members of the state Assembly in Osogbo on Thursday.
Mr. Ogundiran said the concession arrangement would last 30 years before permanent transfer of ownership to the state government.
He said the contract was first awarded on October 14, 2012, at the cost of N 4.5 billion, noting that the project was to be completed within eight months by the government and not under concession arrangement.
Mr. Ogundiran said the contract was later reviewed to gulp N11 billion to be able to accommodate more features.
He said the state government had spent N3.6 billion on the project before the concession arrangement, adding that the N3.6 billion would be deducted from the N69 billion contract sum.”
Where exactly did they spend #3.6billion and on what? Till today, the only picture that is available of the Airport is that of a land clearing and computer generated model pictures that have flooded the internet. I was there personally last year and was not allowed to go past the abandoned aerodrome site but it was shocking that the airport ought to be a few metres to that spot and yet nothing could be spotted but bushes. A friend who lives near the site even told me they clear the bushes every year, maybe that 3.6billion has gone into that? Despite the fact that he shouldn’t have started a project like this considering the economic status of the state, one wonders why 3.6billion naira cannot guarantee a picture showing work done already.
Lastly, the UNIOSUN saga is a case that got me thinking Aregbe must be confused. Why?
“A memo released on the proposed tuition fee for 2017/2018 academic session revealed that science and engineering students would now be paying N155,000 as against N101,000 they have been paying.
The new memo showed that acceptance fee of N40,000, ICT and other fees would make the total fee for science and engineering students N250,500.
The political Science ,Accounting, Economics, Business Administration students would be paying the same fee excluding laboratory/bench fee of N15,000/10,000, being paid by Engineering and Science students.
The memo further showed that Nursing/Law/Public health students would now be paying N195,000 as tuition fee, and with other fee, a total of N285,500.
Non-science students would now be paying N130,000 and with other fees, totaling N210,500. The guardian
Aregbe ti gba penalty lo throw-in like small doctor will say, this is the same man that said the tuition regime in 2007-2010 was too much and slashed everything by half without giving recourse to the thought behind the establishment of that school. It was clear that Oyinlola wanted a master piece in terms of quality and he took a loan of 2bn which he paid off within a year just to ensure that the institution was self-funded, adequately staffed with attractive salaries and churn out graduates that can compete with the top schools in the world. Oyinlola’s dream was short-lived with the inauguration of Aregbesola who did not take2years in office before relegating the school to a glorified secondary school. What has changed between a periods where he thought the tuition was too much to now?
1 Oil prices has dropped and Osun’s allocation has dropped: yes, but UNIOSUN has been self-funding itself without subvention from the government.
2 They now have more students than then: yes, and that should generate more funds for the school, hence, no need for an increase
A government that enjoys paying half salary under the guise of economic downturn is now increasing tuition of schools that has over 60% of workers’ children. It will soon be a case of the bush meat turning to chase the hunter!
The reign of prodigality will soon be over and i implore Osun people to be painstaking and single sighted in choosing their next governor. we must seek out a candidate that has an economic agenda and has a detailed blueprint of how to get it right economically. We must not let the political structure of the country place candidates from either APC or PDP in our face as the right ones because they have money but because they have a solution.
Osun can rise again economically. let’s plan to vote rightly.
