Will Osun say ‘o-yes’ or ‘o-no’ to Aregbesola? AUGUST 1, 2014 BY FOLA OJO Fola Ojo Although the momentum has slowed down significantly for the Peoples Democratic Party in the South-West, the party’s fast-and-furious election train that tore through Ekiti State last month with awe-struck, hurriedly-conceding casualties is still blowing red-hot. Next week Saturday, August 9, the speed train will be surging into Osun State where the sitting Governor, Rauf Adesoji Aregbesola, of the All Progressives Congress, is already activating all in his arsenals to spur a derail of the PDP train in an election that many are afraid may be filled with fire and brimstones. Aregbesola’s arch-challenger, Senator Iyiola Omisore is mega-rich, influential, and an iron-man candidate from Ile-Ife who has panted after the governor’s seat for over a decade with no headway.An astute politician in his own right, Omisore was for years the Chairman of the Senate Appropriation Committee. He speaks convincingly to his base that he will win in a landslide come August 9, and he has promised to chase the popular governor out of Osun and disgracefully disperse the APC into extinction in Yoruba land. Behind him is the majesty and might of all apparatuses of the Federal Government which his party solidly controls in Abuja. But what Omisore also knows is that he’s got some Herculean work cut out for him because torpedoeing an incumbent Aregbesola will be onerous, and corroborating affirming nods to this effect are coming heavily even from members of Omisore’s PDP all across the nation. The PDP National Chairman, Adamu M’uazu, said this some months ago:“Defeating Aregbesola in this election will be difficult”. A PDP Senator, Uche Chukwumerije, Chairman Senate Education Committee had said, “O-YES” to the governor’s education reclassification exercise when he visited the state recently; and a former Abia State PDP Governor, Orji Uzor Kalu, publicly also said that he wouldn’t fail to acknowledge the good works Aregbesola had done in Osun. Finance Minister Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala also joined the “O-YES” choristers when she said this to Aregbesola in an event: “You have demonstrated that good governance is possible with your programmes. You have demonstrated that youth development is possible. Your programmes so far have demonstrated that you are a good example of government and governance”. A former Governor of Old Oyo State, Omololu Olunloyo, did not want to be left out when he said: “Aregbesola is the best among the South-West governors. He understands politics very well and he is using it to serve the people, the old and the young”. The list of approving voices for the governor’s incandescence continues to balloon by the hour. In the ears of the PDP, this is an off-key un-rhythmical musical note and a gross pantomime. Chairman Osun PDP legal team and henchman of the Omisore Campaign, Mr. Sunday Ojo-Williams, told me over the phone that all the praises poured on the governor are undeserved and hogwash. “Aregbesola is the worst governor in the South-West. His policies have impoverished the state which is now over N400bn in debt. He borrowed N9bn from Anambra State, and also borrowed from Rivers, Lagos and Ogun states to pay state workers”. Ojo-Williams further said the governor doubles as the State Commissioner for Works and awarded himself a N1.3bn contract for a kilometre road project. “The APC is a master in propaganda and all the achievements the governor claims only exist in his imaginations and fantasies”, Ojo-Williams said. If the PDP believes that Aregbesola’s administration is a “kakistocracy”, the APC also opines that its opponents are just a flourishing florid of excrescence and arch-angels of mobocracy. Bola Ilori, Special Adviser to the Osun Governor on Environment, told me that the PDP is full of agents of lies and fabrications. “The PDP and Omisore are drowning, and they just want to hang on to anything to keep their heads above waters. You cannot build any kind of road even with bridges that will cost more than N400m in Osun. This is not Lagos or Bayelsa. That N1bn figure can only be spent on road projects in riverine states. The highest we have built here is not more than N250m”, Ilori said. In the eyes of his adoring fans, Aregbesola is not just a governor, he is a rare one. He is like a church worship leader who ferries the congregation beyond the thickest heavenly cumulus with melodious lyrics and transports them back to a terra firma feeling spiritually tanked-up. What Aregbesola has done in the last four years has not been witnessed in Yorubaland in half-a-century, they enthuse! Osun is ranked 34th out of 36 in the category of moneybags states. It is not rich in crude oil, money is scarce, and resources aren’t in abundance. The Federal Government allocation to the state plummeted from N3.6bn to a little of over N2bn in July 2013 and has remained so till date. In spite of these odds, Aregbesola’s performances remain steadily stellar with marked success. The success is in the free computer tablets called Opon Imo preloaded with different tutorial notes, past examination questions, and textbooks on 17 subjects freely distributed to pupils to optimise learning. It is found in the free protein-rich meals for 300,000 elementary school pupils which, the government claims, cost N3.6bn annually. It is obvious in 750,000 pieces of new uniforms distributed for free to pupils so far.It is apparent in the Internally Generated Revenue that shot up to N1.6bn monthly as against N300m per month when the administration took over. It is in the N10,000 per month that the state government gives out to the elderly to help them stem the biting harshness of hard times. And it is in the reverberating hopes that Osun people now have for a better tomorrow. Newly-constructed flyovers and spiralling ringroads from Gbongan Road to Akoda, from Osogbo to Ila-Odo, Kwara State boundary may have dazzled former president Olusegun Obasanjo when he visited the state not too long ago. Obasanjo profusely commended Aregbesola for the state’s new looks. But Omisore believes that at the end of the day, Aregbesola and his party will be rejected at the polls because the administration is all about empowering “foreigners” and erecting a conduit for profligacy. The senator believes that the governor has destroyed the foundation laid for the Yoruba nation by Obafemi Awolowo in the area of education, and morale is outrageously low among Osun pupils. Controversy surrounded Aregbesola for a short while after some secondary school pupils draped up in masqueraders’ costumes, church choir attire, and Islamic hijabs at the Baptist High School, Iwo early this year. The insinuation was that the governor was attempting to Islamise Osun and make everybody worship like Muslims. Many knew it was just jabbering and diversionary. But clerics of repute, like Pastor Enoch Adeboye, Bishop David Oyedepo, and Pastor Matthew Ashimolowo have been among the heavy-hitter men-of-God who have openly commended and approved of the work the governor has done. The appearances of these men of God side-by-side Aregbesola in public events appear to have finally doused the fire of the Islamisation controversy. Upon which candidate does the sun set or rise in next election? Are Osun voters set to continue the charming- chant of “O-YES” to their governor, or echo the chiding-chant of “O-NO” from a resolutely-emboldened PDP? Osun voters will have the final say while they hope that the Independent National Electoral Commission will adhere to its promises of ensuring a free-and-fair election and guard against a ghastly electoral gerrymandering. They also hope that the soldiers that will be sent in as reinforcement in Osun will not be a grand design for dystopia, but an amplifier of what the people are determined to express in their actions through the ballot box. This will be pro bono publico!
Posted on: Fri, 01 Aug 2014 09:38:29 +0000
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