BEING TEXT OF LECTURE DELIVERED BY ALHAJI ONIKE RAHAMAN OLALEKAN, AS GUEST SPEAKER OF 4TH YEAR ANNIVERSARY/LECTURE ORGANISED BY ETERNAL PROGRESSIVE CLUB ON SUNDAY, 28TH DECEMBER 2014, AT OLUGBON MULTIPURPOSE HALL, MABOLAJE AREA, OYO THEME: POLITICS AND OYO DEVELOPMENT: CHALLENGES AND PROSPECTS PROTOCOL, INTRODUCTION Oyo town consists of Oyo West, Oyo East, Afijio and Atiba Local Government Areas of Oyo State. These four local governments fall under Oyo Federal Constituency. However, politics and delineation of boundaries and constituencies by the Electoral body were the main cause of polarity, dichotomy and segregation among the various communities under Oyo federal constituency. Historically, people of these various communities are Oyos in view of the fact that they shared in common values, dialect, cultural identity, boundaries and other ties. CONCEPTUAL CLARIFICATIONS The word politics is defined as an act of influencing government patronage to an area or constituency. Politics is also an act of distributing resources, allocating values and sharing power or positions. Of course, politics is about decision making, party membership and affiliation, voting, campaign and power distribution. In any political system, there are three categories of people whose opinions or actions could make or mar the process of change and development and these include political activists, politicians and the electorate/voters. Political activists are persons with informed opinion about politics and political development without necessarily being active in party activities. Politicians are persons whose main pre-occupation is to acquire power through active involvement in party activities. The electorates are the fast majority of people who are neither politicians nor be interested in seeking elective positions; they are the category of people which the politicians do mobilize to vote during elections. Whatever the category one falls, our primary concern should be the strategies and ways of using instrumentality of politics for Oyo community development. Our involvement in politics is only meaningful, if it attracts development to the community. Development as a normative concept is a multidimensional process and must be relative to time, place and circumstance. From sociological perspective, development means increase in social welfare, industrial diversification, economic improvement and the fulfillment of the necessary conditions for the realization of the potentials of human personality. At its simplest, development is the increasing satisfaction of basic needs such as food and nutrition, clothing, housing etc. Whatever the perspective applies, development should be multidimensional, participatory and wholistic. This is because, development needs to be all encompassing with inclusion of political, economic, cultural, technological, social and other aspects. OVERVIEW OF OYO POLITICAL DEVELOPMENT Since the pre-colonial era through the period of colonialism up till the period of post independence, Oyos have been actively involved in politics. The type of politics played by the political class in the past and up till the present encourages segregation, polarity and sharp division among our people. Despite the complexity of Oyo politics, the town had been opportune to have produced several appointed and elected representatives in the past whose positions/status should ordinarily attract government patronage or attention to Oyo but each time the opportunity comes, it always ends as a narrative of regret. It is disheartening that most of the people we have voted into power in the past are greedy, selfish and parochial. Without doubts, many of them do not understand the meaning of development Of great concern is the impact of the various empowerment programmes of the ruling elite or of our elected representatives. If we are truly interested in youth empowerment, the idea and initiative should be carefully planned and implemented to help the youths acquire necessary capacity, competence and skills to contribute meaningfully to productive economy. An empowerment programme predicated upon the principle of favouritism as currently being practised is not likely to be enduring and sustainable. Experience has revealed that an empowerment programme designed to appease only to political sentiments cannot facilitate or engender real and desirable socio-economic and political development for our community. Given our past political history as a community, the memory of the Old Alliances of Action Group and NCNC still reflects in party affiliation, voting patterns and electoral behaviour of Oyos. This type of political culture and political socialization is antithetical to Oyo development. Why is it that the criticism against gerontocracy as a core cultural value in Oyo has not brought necessary development to the town. Gerontocracy as a way of life emphasizes absolute respect for elders in decision making and policy formulation. The criticism against this cultural practice really popularized the quest for generational shift. From all indications, power shift from the aged parents/elders in the town to the younger and youthful population has not really attracted genuine development to the town. OYO AND HER INDUSTRIAL DEVELOPMENT Industrialization is part of measures of development. Oyo is of course blessed with immense potentials for industrial growth and development. In terms of land mass, human resources and material resources, Oyo is endowed. With the current realities, the level of industrial development is still abysmally low. The few industries in existence are in the state of inertia. In the past, industries such as IDS, EFCO, Wilsey and Elewi plastic created job opportunities for Oyo youths and they promoted the image of Oyo when they were functioning. Successive Local government administrations had taken steps in the past to create enabling environment that would attract industrial development to Oyo town. As a strategic measure, two major schemes were initiated by the old Oyo Local Government Council and these are Agodongbo Atiba and Ayetoro schemes located along Ibadan and Iseyin roads respectively. By conception, these schemes were expected to hold greater prospects for the industrial development of Oyo. I wish to put on record that frequent changes in Local government administration vis-à-vis the effects on policy stability, change in the level of interest of office holders in capital and development projects, politicization of land allocation for industrial development and lastly distortions of master plans were parts of debacle. Part of the inherent problem of Oyo industrial development is power of godfathers in politics. It is unfortunate that ‘political cohortism’ often determines the basis for allocating plots of land in the schemes. At times industrial plots were either deliberately or wrongfully allocated to persons who do not have feasible means of accomplishing the development desired on the industrial scheme. In essence, politics of land allocation on the schemes by the successive governments is a major obstacle to realization of industrialization plans and other objectives the project intends to achieve. OYO AND EDUCATIONAL DEVELOPMENT Education as the bedrock of socio-economic and political development is a major areas where Oyo is being highly credited and rated. Within the period of 150 years, education has grown in the town to the extent that Oyo is regarded as bee-hive of Oyo state education industry. Given the politics of appointments of management and staff, resource allocation and funding of the various schools and institutions in Oyo town, there are still issues for resolution. Despite the fact that some tertiary institutions are located in Oyo township, evidence abound that some of these institutions are dominated by either people from Ogbomoso, Ibadan or Oke-Ogun. The composition of management and governing councils of some of these institutions also favours other towns either by happenstance or political design. OYO AND ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT The structure and nature of the economy of Oyo in both the past and present calls for serious concern. Majority of the Oyos are into farming; transport services (taxi/okada); vocations (tailoring, vulcanizing, carpentry, electrical works); indigenous technology/work (weaving, goldsmith, blacksmith, local soap making, local gin distillers, calabash carving); small/medium scale enterprises (bakery, pure water, detergent making. Saw milling, cassava processing, eateries etc). Expectedly, politics ought to have helped the town to achieve economic prosperity rather the reverse is the case. Arising from the current economic structure of the town is the question of zeal to invest in Oyo by the beneficiaries of Oyo political system. Even under the current dispensation, some of our elected representatives are linked with big investments outside Oyo township; whereas, they do not consider it worth’s to invest in Oyo. OYO LEADERSHIP QUESTION Leadership questions arise in the course of addressing developmental challenges in the society and it brings into focus qualities of our leaders and characters which separated them from followers. In the context of Oyo community Development, leadership questions can be viewed from the angle of politics, at youth forum/student leadership level or at community level. Without mincing words, Oyo do not have universally accepted political leader and as such it is practically impossible to fight for common political agenda/goals as a community. In terms of youth and student leadership, there are still visible challenges the principal among which is lack of leadership direction by the youths. Indeed, the activities of most student bodies are tailored along party politics. The same thing applies to Oyo Community Leadership. The current trend is that Oyo do not have an acceptable community leader and no forum exists as an umbrella body to discuss issues of general interest to Oyo. In essence, there is no meeting point for all societies/groups formed for the protection and promotion of the interests of Oyo. DEFINING NEW PATH/STRATEGIES FOR OYO DEVELOPMENT The various community based associations should form a forum to discuss and exchange ideas as necessary for Oyo community development. The ugly experiences of the past should not deter us from doing the needful now. Efforts need to be made by the community based unions/associations to create a database of Oyo professionals at home and in the disapora for ease of mobilization for community development. There should be attitudinal change and value re-orientation among the youths for improved Oyo Community development. The various social organizations and youth fora in the town are to be encouraged to set meaningful and achievable developmental agenda for Oyo Community. Avenues/platforms need to be created for youth mentoring. Issues based campaign rather than campaign of calumny need to be encouraged and supported by youth organizations in the town. Youths need to be more serious and committed to mobilization of support for only credible candidates to be elected to represent Oyo in the various elective positions come 2015, as one of the strategic measures to achieve genuine Oyo Development. Efforts need to be made by all youth organizations to recognize role models and reward achievers. CONCLUDING REMARKS Oyo youths need to understand and apply knowledge of group dynamics to ensure socio-economic and political development of Oyo town. Youth organizations equally need correct articulation of real meaning of development as this provides insight into solutions to the problem of Oyo not being properly developed. As we are striving to achieve an enhanced socio-cultural, political and economic development, wrongful deployment of social media constitutes a serious hindrance in the current political order. I agree that the facebook, twitter and other new and social media are helpful and potent tool for opinion moulding and for political and social mobilization; these digital platforms are seriously being abused by the youths. Without fear of contradictions, social media is a major tool which the politicians and the ruling elite are currently being used to cause segregation, division and disaffection among Oyos. As an active player on social media, it has been observed that some groups on facebook are being controlled either directly or indirectly by the power elite for political agenda. Also, facebook pages are open on daily basis by digital activists and some other social media managers to serve the parochial interests of politicians at the detriment of the unity of Oyo town. It is against this background that I wish to conclude that politics is indeed strategic to Oyo development and the success we will make out of it depends on cooperation and unity among the political actors. As youths, we have roles to play for Oyo to achieve greatness. The roles which the youths are expected to play include social mobilization; education and enlightment roles; inculcation of the right values and political norms on the civil populace and to support credible candidates in the period of elections as parts of strategies to move Oyo forward. I thank everybody for listening.
Posted on: Sun, 28 Dec 2014 18:50:49 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015