Osun Education: Paradigm Stalemate By ISAAC OLUSESI

In Nigeria, the seeming imbroglio, confusion over education policies in State of Osun is superfluous, needless. How? The ‘old’ and ‘new’ policies cannot be divorced from the ideation bravura and triumphalism of their progenitors, held out for accelerated development and genuine rescue of Osun education sector from its substantially worse shape bequeathed by the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) government (2003-2010).

The ‘old’ and ‘new’ policies are one and the same ideological heir apparent in every material aspect. But from some commentators within the governing All Progressives Congress (APC) family in the state came a cruel convergence of certitude about education policies in Osun, orchestrated by the commentators’ own addiction to material consumption, with funfair in a blaze, worthless.

The vitriolic commentaries ricocheted off and the splinters came hitting hard on the state APC, the collateral damage, in a cult-like propensity is prohibitive; and the resultant huge internal fissures showed up the party to the startling refractory of the perception of the opposition PDP, the monstrously predatory and anarchical party that never subscribed to anything properly definable as education policy for the state Like cats in the night , the self-commissioned commentators’ quixotism in the enterprise of tense and edgy commentaries, whirlpool with the force of a gale almost balkanized APC in Osun , almost demobilized governance and almost collapsed public trust in the ‘old’ and ‘new’ education policies’ anchors- Osun Governor Gboyega Oyetola and former Governor Rauf Aregbesola, now Honorable Federal Minister of Interior as if any paradigm differentiation on the education sector existed between the two eras as it were in the widest imagination of prescient extraction.

The putative commentators on Osun education policy ought to know and they know that governments world over have never existed in a vacuum of policy paradigms. The use of one paradigm as a means of eco-socio-political engineering signals the reflex vista of struggles for a new paradigm, indicative of paradigm shift; and in the instance of Osun education policies, the rumpus either way had not rumbled paradigm change into any deadlock, remotely, for the fact of continuity of the present government from the former government. And importantly, the ‘new’ permissive education policies recreated from the ‘old’ tested template, not something in contending relations to warrant mutual ruination or speaking to polarized relationships, practically removed all panic -fright induced stalemate. And in Osun, no paradigm stalemate as there was no room for confusion. The new paradigm of education in the state runs its full course, comes next school calendar year.

There’s no harm in erring on a paradigm of an era and that’s why a new paradigm is recreatively thought out of the box to further the prospects of democracy and meaningful development of the polity.

Interestingly, in the Osun policy maelstrom, whirlpool, the two avatars, Oyetola and Aregbesola had, in dialectical premonitions of paradigm change made themselves clear with homogeneity of enthusiasm and relish at no cost to either and with neither in seeming political euthanasia or political Hara-kiri for that matter.

Hear this for the umpteenth time; “If my party believes there are areas I ought not to have done or which I would have done differently, then the party will adequately inform Ileri-Oluwa and he would do so. So, expect him to do things differently.”- former Governor Aregbesola during the 2018 governorship campaigns in support of the incumbent governor.

And again listen attentively: “If it is the yearning of the majority of the people that we re-consider any policy, then we would look at it.”- Governor Oyetola, then APC governorship candidate, responding to a question during the 2018 governorship debate on whether he would scrap the common school uniform if he became governor.

By the historic quotes, the two patriots and progressives, forward looking, visionary leaders warmed the heart of the Osun people to themselves, bandying the APC rumpus, loathsome commentators on education policy review the evil political peddlers in sinister complexity and muffled indignation to poach an agenda: to frog march the party into in-coherence; engineer stalemate in state governance; organize party banditry, elevated to a craft; drag Osun into the cesspool of delinquency; and get democracy in Osun weakened to railroad opposition PDP to power in the state, with the commentators now exposed as adversarial party chieftains in an open-ended voodoo, overtly encouraged by acerbic, antiquated radicalism. But the party cannot accommodate any such disintegrative, dysfunctional commentaries in the course of managing a widely amalgam of members that make up the party because naysayers may jell into a coherent bastion of militant commentators from within the party.
The commentators deliberately muddied the water to obscure a major crisis within Osun APC in a simple moment of clarity and viability of paradigm change; the ascendancy of their commentaries is deeply polarizing, capable of setting the incumbent and former governors against one another, with massive cross-over influence on the sub-classes of the governed and Osun APC totality.

The commentators’ fractious ego driven account of “how their proverbial feeding bottle was not continually replenished” or the riveting narrative of “how pauperized the party members lost their sense of what’s morally permissive and morally reprehensible” as empirical basis for paradigm change is hocus-pocus! The hogwash speaks volumes of the commentators’ out of sync, synch, disconnection with Osun of a material time-the commentators’ delirium of hysteria. The gamut of the commentaries should be ignored as a mere blackmail, treated with icy contempt or seen as symptomatic of a group within the party, over-burdened by confusing passions, sentiments, emotions.

However, the prima donna-commentators had failed, having alone to bear the failure. “There is no loneliness greater than the loneliness of a failure. The failure is a stranger in his own house.”-Isaac Dauthcher. But the commentators are no strangers in the APC family; the party has not penciled down anyone for the boot. Rather, their tired legs and failing hands will have to be re-vitalized for useful contribution to the party and governance of Osun.

Oyetola’s government promised more development, and under his watchful eye, development policies, programme and projects across sectors of the state, not standing still; and life and property, not under threat.

OLUSESI is Assistant Director, Directorate of Publicity, Research & Strategy, All Progressives Congress (APC), State of Osun