Today, we present a review of a key element of Aregbesolas programme: Banishing Poverty. The coinage alone demonstrates his passionate commitment to crush this social phenomenon. Ideologically, it expresses an attitude of negation: that the citizen in the State of Osun must and cannot live with poverty. Excerpts from Work in Progress published by the Osun Development Agenda: BANISH POVERTY INTRODUCTION Poverty in economic and political context is the absolute inability to mobilize resources for food, shelter and clothing over a period of time, manifested by a chronic lack of cash in hand over a short period of time. Those who live in or with poverty are defined as the poor. Although their economic definition disempowers them from performing several obligations to the state, they possess political, cultural and economic rights critical to the functioning of the state apparatus. In the class society that the State of Osun is, they belong in the ranks of the working class as reserve pool of labour. According to Ralph Miliband: The basic fact is that the poor are an integral part of the working class - its poorest and most disadvantaged stratum. They need to be seen as such, as part of a continuum, particularly as many workers who are not deprived in the official sense live in permanent danger of entering the ranks of the deprived; and that they share...many of the disadvantages which afflict the deprived... Capitalism, at the metropole and periphery, generates employment during its boom and unemployment during its crises. To the extent that different sectors undergo these cyclical crises often at different times, a permanent pool of unemployed labour is a fixed characteristic of this economic system. Let us explain this as it relates to the State of Osun : Osun State’s economy is dominated by agriculture, commerce and administration. It is significant that industrial production is marginal catering for the employment of an insignificant percentage of the populace. Industrial activities concentrate on foods, beverages, pure water, tie and dye, furniture, farm implements, pottery, printing and photography. Although a few steel complexes are coming up, serious production capable of generating extensive employment is not certain. Those who participate in the agricultural sector include: the peasantry, whose subsistence, small land holding, cash crop farms and little access to funds limit productivity; the agricultural workers, mostly migrant who help land holding families to maintain their possession and pay annual rents thus having no incentive to expand production; and the bourgeois cash crop farmers or kulaks who crop large acreage of cocoa and oil palm for export. Next to agriculture is the commercial sector. This system of exchange and trade, a traditional pastime of the people, has survived up till 2010 on the initiative of the private sector, particularly telecommunications firms which promoted phone services and sales of recharge cards, produce buyers who sold cash crops, hotels, restaurants, real estate and generally, sellers of various commodities. The third dominant sector is administration, comprising those who sell their labour to the government for monthly pay and other emoluments. Many of them were inherited from the defunct Oyo State following the creation of Osun state and the number has expanded over the years in response to government’s obligation to keep citizens at work than macro-economic needs of maximising the state apparatus for value creation. A study on employment and poverty in Osun State by Dr. M. Olatunji discovered that while the private sector employed 21 percent of residents of the polled respondents, Government employed 36 percent and 32 percent were self-employed. It took the revolutionary consciousness of Aregbesola to identify unemployment and poverty as socio-economic ills that demanded, not mere reduction but total banishment to rescue the dignity of the human person from the monster of impoverishment that peripheral capitalism and its comprador ruling class had unleashed on the citizens in the State of Osun. Such an ambition demanded in-depth critique of the political economy of the state and a programme of revolutionary transformation. Agriculture – forestry, food production, cash crop production, animal husbandry and fishing- the mainstay of the economy had declined in terms of acreage cropped and number of persons involved. Commerce, mainly the trading in imported products and agricultural products had also declined in volume of production and activity. These tended to make the Civil Service and the service/commerce sectors the mainstay of the economy. Considering the fact that these two sectors demanded relatively high level of academic achievement to absorb labour and the dearth of vacancies due to the low absorptive capacity of the economy, the high level of unemployment which could only engender widespread poverty was inescapable. A major consequence of the massive scale of poverty was the monetisation of electoral politics whereby citizens saw the electioneering campaigns as means of liberating themselves from relative poverty. Since this ugly development presupposes the free exercise of the popular will, recourse to violence as a means of acquiring political power and offices became the norm. This is the conjunction at which Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola begins to make the difference. His Marxist background certainly made it easy for him to grasp the essence and dialectics of this phenomenon and to resolve to permanently revolutionise the material conditions of production and exchange in the state to end poverty. (1) COMMERCE In line with Ogbeni’s vision to make Osogbo, the second hub in international trade in goods and commodities in the southwest, and to promote the natural affinity of the people of the state for commerce the administration has in the last two years and nine months embarked on the following: (a) The Creation of Mid Regional Market at Dagbolu (O Hub) where 2,600 hectares of land were acquired for that purpose. (b) The modernisation of Osogbo Rail Station in partnership with the Nigeria Railway Corporation. The project is presently at the completion stage with modern facilities which include extension of platform, access road, and street light, extension of warehouse facilities and construction of a pedestrian bridge among others. (c) Construction of Ayegbaju International Modern Market which is now approaching completion stage. (d)Encouragement of global best practices in commercial activities with the introduction of accurate measurement and their better packaging to ensure mutual trust between sellers and buyer. The introduction of standard weights and measures in markets throughout the state. (e)Introduction of biometric identification for informal sector of the economy in order to create a reliable and comprehensive data base for trades men, artisans and other categories of informal sector of economy in other to enhance commerce and productivity in the state. (f) Approval of the usage of the Trade Fair Complex along Iwo Road to Odua Investment Company Limited for temporary occupation for 50 years on 32 acres of land within the complex with the aim of encouraging migration of traders, commercial vehicles owners and other economic agents in Osogbo into the facility through the government urban renewal policies. (g) Official participation in National and International Trade Fairs, e.g the 10th Niger National Trade Fair held in Mina in July 2012 where the state emerged as the best in States Day at the Fair and Eko Expo in August 2012 at Lekki Free Trade Zone (h) Rejuvenation and restructuring of the Co-operative Societies as a means of stimulating agricultural and other commercial activities. Apart from deliberate encouragement of the use of Co-operative Societies which has resulted in the formation of a total of 9,050 Co-operative Societies within a period of two years (2011-2013) as against the previous total of 359 Societies that existed between August 1991 and November 2010, the administration has also taken practical reform measures and legislative review of the laws and regulations governing activities and administration of Co-operative Societies in the state. (j) The development of AJAKA Industrial Estate at Ilesa and the construction of ultra modern Market facilities at the Atakumosa market at Ilesa. (2) FINANCE AND ECONOMIC PLANNING The whole essence of all democratic efforts is to ensure the maximum utilization of all available human and material resources for the attainment of the greatest happiness of the greatest number of the people in a given polity. Towards this end, policies and programmes that have the inherent capacity of improving the well being of citizens are been put in place by the administration of Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola, Governor of the State of Osun. The administration on assumption of office, took a remarkable step towards re-engineering of the financial status of the state by rescheduling the N19billion loan with N800million monthly repayment clause taken at the twilight of the previous administration to N100million monthly repayment. The objective of the financial re-engineering measure was to afford the government a freer fiscal regime that will enable it meet financial obligation that were already envisaged by the strangling strands that the N800million monthly repayment term of the said loan had imposed on the State. The Internal Generated Revenue (I.G.R.), the state has taken a progressive turn in the last two years. The administration, which met a paltry monthly IGR of N300m, now rakes in a monthly average of N700m without a change in tax rate, but owing to the new regime of an accountability which moved swiftly to block leakages by introducing automation to its revenue collection and account processes. It is equally expected that the IGR will be netting N1.5billion in the next one year. To achieve this, the State House of Assembly passed a law that guarantees autonomy for the State’s Revenue Service in order to enhance the requisite efficiency and capacity for service delivery. Taking its cue from the now settled wisdom in macro-economic planning which accords primacy to capital expenditure over recurrent expenditure, Ogbeni’s administration has embarked on huge investment in infrastructural development and security on a scale that has not been seen before in this state. The budget for the fiscal year 2013 which is skewed in favour of capital expenditure attests to this. The prioritization of these efforts invariably translates into the massive generation of employment opportunities through an enduring Public-Private Partnership programme given the creation of a very stimulating and enabling atmosphere for rapid local and foreign investment in the economy of our dear State. The Office of Economic Development and Partnership has been created to further mobilize and sensitise would-be investors, and to promote the Public Private Partnership initiatives of the administration through the marketing of the state economic potentials. Tomorrow, we shall discuss Aregbesolas programme on banishing Hunger.
Posted on: Tue, 05 Aug 2014 23:30:32 +0000
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